I find that when it comes to these sorts of arguments that the people who spend their time telling you what they think are usually the people who care too much what other people think. Startup vs. Project? Computer Programmer vs. Software Engineer? CEO vs. Single Founder?

It's all so completely irrelevant to who you are or what you're doing. It's just noise.

The #1 reason I have stopped actively coming to HN. Too many self-entitled opinionated "authors" telling people what they should or shouldn't be doing (especially when it's not even technically relevant).

Or should they be called "writers"?

Yes there are a lot of bold statements written as a blog posts going around, which are mostly for the purpose of ranting and self-promotion.

It's like a bolded tweet.

You know what the difference between an author and a writer is? An author writes.

I thought the difference was "an author is published." That doesn't translate into the post-NYC-book-publishing-industry era, though, because "an author is read" doesn't convey the same idea—you can be read because of viral marketing effects, but usually you're only published because an editor thinks your content is an investment that will make their publisher money.

I just signed on to express your first sentence, but you beat me to it!

I've been lurking for a short while on here and found out about HN because I wanted to get into programming and the whole IT world. I find HN great for those things, but as soon as they start posting "creative writing" material, it's really only good for a chuckle. A lot of it competes with the self-absorbed, snobby (Liberal) Arts, so-called objective, essay writing that I had to put up with at university. They only base things on subjective meanderings.

i feel the same way. like this place is a toxic pit of narcissism that leaves me feeling icky and uninspired.

Well, I disagree. But I totally see where you're coming from and respect your opinion. I find that by people continually to call projects startups, it's muddying the actual startup community and taking the standards of what people see as a startup down. But again, I'm hopeful that these projects become startups as the founders dedicate themselves to them.

I don't think there is an "actual startup community". There are just people that do things, some of which may become successful.

Google did not have much in common with Value America, which did not have much in common with LiveJournal. They were 3 projects, or startups, or businesses, or whatever. In the late 90s, Value America was by far the most successful, but look where they are now.

Similarly, I think it's a mistake to fetishize certain ventures as being "real" startups while the others are just "projects". Those Stanford grad students who are playing around on stuff after class may be the next billionaires. Similarly, that Sequoia-funded startup with revenue and an ex-Googler founder may just be dust in the wind in five years.

CEO means "Chief Executive Officer" not rando dude with a pet project. It sounds self-involved, and doesn't impress anyone.

Until you own a building, it's a little presumptuous to call yourself CEO. Once you do own a building, It needs to have at least 3 floors.

mine one has 2 floors, one more to go.

To be fair, once you incorporate you need to name a CEO, no matter how small of a project is being created by the company.

Call your project whatever you want. Spend less time on HN, and don't waste energy writing blogs that draw lines in the sand. Just keep making forward progress on something of value.

I was going to just leave yet another comment here about what a pointless and inconsequential rant this is. The title "out of respect for people actually launching startups" is incredibly narcissistic. I don't give people respect because what they do fits some meme, it's about specifics.

But all that aside, I actually do agree that calling projects startups is a bad idea because it's not a subtle semantic difference—they are completely different things! A project in this case really means an application, and a startup is a company. Calling an application a startup is like calling the internet a series of tubes, it just betrays a fundamental imprecision that is anathema to the engineering instinct.

Note that this distinction has nothing to do with raising capital or how self-important you are. You can run a business part-time, and if it's early-stage then call it a startup. However if you're just putting some app out there without any kind of business plan, then it really does sound silly to call it a startup.

Here's the distinction I use:

If I'm building a business (focusing on money, market, customers, etc.) I call it a startup. If I'm building a web app only (focusing on technology) I call it a side project.

How exactly is it disrespectful to other startups to call your side-project a startup? This is the key assumption involved in this article, and it is not actually addressed in the slightest.

I would argue it is far from disrespectful: the funded startups know who they are; likewise with the YC/incubator startups; likewise with the full-time startups.

I really don't see how it's disrespectful to them to call your weekend project a startup. Do you perhaps mean dilution of the term? I could perhaps come around to that, but that's a far cry from any notion of respect; in fact, I would argue that you are diluting the very idea of 'respect' by applying it to this scenario.

Et tu, bmull?

Fair point, and you're right, what I meant was that by referring to something that isn't a startup as a startup, I think it hurts the term startup. I know so many people who have risked a ton to run a startup, and I'm seeing frustration in the community when someone throws together something quickly, releases it, and says "Here's my new startup" without really dedicating themselves to it.

I'd have to say if you have a credible plan to generate revenue, and are implementing that plan, that's a startup. The rest of it is just means to that end (i.e. parts of your particular plan).

Overall point seems pretty well-taken, though.

Sounds like Twitter hasn't even reached startup status, then.

Well, really, I have to agree. I mean, they've been hanging fire on 2. ???? for a very long time now, and probably should have given more thought to the question of project vs. startup before now.

Unless you just want to consider their equity revenue, which is basically how the 90's worked anyway. "End of the business cycle" my ass. I'm still mad about that.

That's a great point. I'm going to add that.

What category, if any, exists between 'startup' and 'project'. We registered an entity, work full time (quit good paying gigs 8 months ago),and raised small seed but have not earned much in terms of revenue. Comments such as "how much money have you earned?", "...so you're not earning a salary?", "so you're not working" might make your 'startup' feel like a hobby. Fingers up! We love it! www.SpotBanks.com

That would be "startup".

For me the line is clear: you work/have a startup when it's your primary "job".

I work at a bank from 8-6, then work on my projects evenings and weekends. Pretty simple.

I agree, there are a lot of people using the term "startup" when all they've done is push an app to the Apple appstore or whatever. And if I could wave a magic wand and change things, I'd have people stop doing that. But I'm guessing that this particular ship has sailed, and that it's going to be hard to get people to quit using the term that way.

I'm just glad that one of your conditions was "has registered a business entity for a specific project" so that I can feel good about my own startup! We haven't raised money or generated revenue yet, but the goal is absolutely build a real, profitable, world-changing company.

Registering a company is such a pain in the ass, that if you're going to do it, you're at least serious about this project existing for a while and you're willing to put the time and effort into making it official. That shows enough dedication in my opinion :)

PITA? Go to any CPA, give her $200, your LLC is done in an hour. How is that a PITA?

Although maybe it's harder in your state. Indiana's LLC law is so easy you don't even have to register who owns the LLC - just name a managing director and you're good to go.

Spot on!

I like to think of stages as below:

  Ideas > Experiment > Project > Startup

Not all of my ideas follow the model, but those are the stages I like to think of.

Note to self: A blog post expanding one each satge.

Great idea! I like that model.

A startup is a business - that's what it's short for isn't it, "start up business"? So a project is a project until it is something you want to turn into a business. Then you can call it a startup.

Yeah, calling ourselves CEOs of projects was always one of my pet peeves.

People who have the time to blog about terminology aren't in a startup.

That's right. I'm not. I sold my startup last year and am working for the acquirer. I'm building stuff on the side, and having fun. But those are projects.

I think I'm going to start employing policy debate's stock issues paradigm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_issues) to all proposals I see on HN. So, with that:

Solvency: Flow that through for the aff, no argument.

Harms: Affirmative fails to illustrate any harms inherent in the status quo. The plan should be thrown out on these grounds alone.

Inherency: Affirmative only proposes a semantic clarification to a sub genre of internet message boards; no actual policy change is necessary to implement this. Affirmative plan does not demonstrate that status quo cannot solve the unspecified harms on its own. Flow this negative.

Topicality: No argument, flow aff.

Significance: Without any harms, the aff cannot claim any significance to their plan. Flow this negative.

Seriously — I'm insanely bored with the bajillion "CEO's" I meet per week.

Ditto. I've been using Founder/Co-Founder instead, which is a lot more accurate.

Stop telling people what not to do. Wikipedia gives the following as a description for a startup "A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets.". So yes, a two hour project can be a startup, just like a lemonade stand.

This is a great description, and I really appreciate you posting it. I might update my blog with it, and really should have looked at Wikipedia too. Thanks.

You make my point perfectly. Wikipedia is very clear to call it a "company." That's what I'm saying. Two hour projects aren't companies (unless they file to be an entity, which I believe makes it a startup - 3rd qualification bullet in the post).

Actually, the Wikipedia definition is also pretty useless. What's a "limited operating history"?

Steve Blank put it best: "a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model"

You could be searching for a repeatable and scalable business model in a week-end, which would be awesome. Most people don't, and I find it really irritating that these projects get called startups.

Suppose we could change that definition, it is wikipedia after all.

i guess a computer scientist isn't a computer scientist unless he or she has a piece of paper to prove it

Paradox: You are actually telling him "not to do something".

No, two hour project is not a company and thus not a startup. Lemonade stand and two hour projects are startups when they have a legal entity, registered name, employees and pays taxes.

Author is right, there's too much "take a look at my startup I've created during my lunch/on commute to work" posts thrown around. Time to man up and call things for what they are.

Exactly the opposite. Start calling your projects start-ups. If you don't take them seriously nobody will. Every line of code you write, every project you do should be done with a purpose of building something great and making money off of it. Aimless projects are abound but when you start calling a project a start-up it changes your perspective. It means you are ready to work hard on it. It means you are ready to spend countless nights tinkering with it. It means you start caring for your users.

Projects are worthless, same projects when looked at from the point-of-view of a start-up look like an opportunity.

I don't think I have a place calling other people out for the word they use to describe what they are working on. That being said, I've started lots of projects, but nothing I would call a startup. Some have generated revenue, many have not, but none were really sustainable revenue generators that I saw a future in.

I personally want to reserve the startup label for a project that evolves to show its potential, and that I'm passionate about and ready to fully devote myself to.

Can we also stop calling every entrepreneur with a "successful" exit an expert and someone whose every word we need to live by... some are just lucky, if not most.

How does a "startup" differ from any other business? You write a business plan, invest some saved-up capital, work your ass off, charge for your product and hopefully bring in more money than you spend.

To me, the only thing "startup" seems to imply is that you don't have a real business plan and a way to actually make money the way a "normal" business would, which doesn't seem that great.

Basically, I'll know my project is a startup when I feel like it is a startup, regardless of whether someone else agrees. Clearly this method breaks down when taken to the extremes, but for my purposes, I'm fine with it.

The startup term is very muddy and I have seen it applied to big projects, little projects, big organizations, one to two person coders, well funded, no funding--etc. Like art, I don't view its lack of a clear definition to be a bad thing. There might be a number of shared characteristics that are generally found in art (or a startup), but their absence in part or in whole doesn't necessarily mean the piece isn't art or the project/group doesn't qualify as a startup.

If we can draw a clear line for the purposes of labeling something or something a startup, that's fine and I'd be inclined to accept it if it's universally accepted. I just hope that it doesn't serve to delegitimize people's work if they disagree with one's assertion that X is not a startup.

So basically, you have attacked the whole http://startupweekend.org philosophy :).Incidentally we actually had a discussion along these lines at hackerstreet sometime back http://hackerstreet.in/item?id=5076

Personally, does it matter what someone calls their idea, project or startup? I am sure, some one will call their weekend idea as a startup only if they are planning on monetizing it. Projects are different. We have hundreds of thousands of projects on sourceforge and other sites.They do not call themselves as startups.

To summarize: "Stop calling projects startups because finally I feel special in life".

To go along with the recent post "My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk." (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2322696)...

Who cares? Let's just embrace the fact that a simple side project could very well turn into a profitable business in the field we're all operating in? How does a rant bring more to the table than someone calling a side project a startup? (whatever the distinction may be)

Along the same lines, can we stop calling all coding "hacking". Unless you are accessing features of an API that it doesn't intend you to access, you are not hacking.

The second sentence is not supported by any of the historical uses of the word "hacking", whether it's the original one (a vaguely defined definition involving deep knowledge and stretching the limits of computing systems) or the debased one ("breaking into computers"). Many of the earliest 'hacks' occurred well in advance of any defined APIs for anything but are still clearly recognizable as hacks (e.g. some of the clever tricks in HAKMEM, for example). Dividing a number by a constant but multiplying by a magic number is a hack, for example, but no API has been violated here.

That's a shame, because recognizing the distinction between "mere coding" and "hacking" would be a good idea.

I'm with you on this one - but this is a pretty unpopular opinion on "Hacker" News. Just let the kids call themselves hackers if it makes them feel better.

It's a pretty fine idiot filter, too. If someone introduces himself as a hacker you know directly where to put him :)

I think every person who has built a product has the right to call it a startup. And honestly it doesn't matter what you call it.

It is definitely better to call a project a startup than to call a startup as a startup, which has never delivered a product.

Your LLC with no product might be a startup but it is far away from being a real project. And real project with real product is what matters to me.

"I'm not writing this to be a dick."

glad we cleared that up, saves me leaving a comment

I guess my reading HN is a bit incongruous with this opinion, but I'm kind of sick of the fetishization of startups in general.