Definition of a start-up, or a new Holivar

In the last couple of years, fashion in Russia and Ukraine has definitely evolved a fashion for ratings and showjobs of startups of all stripes made up by foundations, market players or experts. The final lists of "Best startups ( insert country, industry, conference )" are very different, they are united only by the fact that the attitude towards them from the audience turns out to be neutral at best, and more often negative.

Some examples from different places offhand:





Quite often, criticism, in my opinion, turns out to be unfounded, but many comments do have a right to life. First of all, this refers to whether it is possible to consider these or those companies, often appearing in ratings, as start-ups.

I must say that five years ago it was much easier with this: almost all technology startups were young, they worked mostly on enthusiasm, and news about raising funds appeared a couple of times in half a year. Now there are a lot of projects around, which we have already become accustomed to treat as startups, but which at the same time are quite mature companies. What does not prevent them from sometimes finding themselves on the top lines of the ratings, provoking, at best, rays of bewilderment and disappointment from media readers and participants of relevant conferences.
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Criteria

The traditional definition of a startup (“a new business,” Merriam-Webster tells us ) is quite enough for explanatory dictionaries and encyclopedias, but it is clearly not enough for ratings and other specialized events.

Like most modern conferences in the technology business, this year's IDCEE will host a start-up competition where projects will compete for various prizes and a major award of € 15,000. Accordingly, a list of requirements has been compiled, which, in my opinion, is pretty good describes what companies can be called technology startups today.

General requirements

First of all, there are some simple and easily controlled requirements for projects:

• A startup should work in the field of Internet technologies . This is an obvious criterion, since the conference is devoted to everything related to the Internet, geeks, technology and venture business. Of course, there are many startups working in other industries, so this particular requirement is needed solely in order to maintain focus;
• A startup should not be older than three years . In most cases, projects older than three years have either died or become serious companies. In any case, these are not startups;
• investments attracted by a startup should not exceed € 3 million . Again, one can hardly call a project a project into which several million have already been invested. In addition, if you have already received such money, why compete for € 15,000? You should have much more important things to do.

Product and Team Requirements

A few more requirements are less obvious and more difficult to evaluate. Some of them are more important for the competitive component, but the first three points, I think, are most important in clarifying the traditional definition of a startup:

• The project must offer an innovative product that solves a serious problem in a large or rapidly growing market. This is somewhat subjective, but still more correct than not - for the same reason as the next item;
• A startup must have a clear business model . A project can be arbitrarily innovative, but one should not forget that a startup is first and foremost a business, and the goal of any business is to make money;
• the team must have at least a demo version of the product . A good idea costs nothing, and an idea is not a startup yet. A startup is what will be built on the basis of this idea;
• The project team must understand its market segment and relevant business models . Many investors, especially at the planting stage, invest not only and not so much in the idea, as in the team and its knowledge and skills. The final version of the product can (and in most cases will be) noticeably different from the originally conceived, but the team will not go anywhere.

It would be interesting to hear opinions about IDCEE criteria from interested people: you can start thinking about the requirements for startups for the next year now.