From Wikipedia:

A startup company (startup or start-up) is an entrepreneurial venture which is typically a newly emerged, fast-growing business that aims to meet a marketplace need by developing or offering an innovative product, process or service. A startup is usually a company such as a small business, a partnership or an organization designed to rapidly develop a scalable business model.

Sorry, I just had to remind myself. It’s not about getting on accelerators, crowdfunding, flattering venture capitalists, faux mentors or any of that. It’s about having an idea, building it out and selling it to paying customers. If you need help then that’s fine, the help is out there, just remember that those services come at a cost whether that’s in sanity or time, probably both.

Government money is fine, as long as it’s not your single source of income, if that’s the case then take a good look at your idea, it’s probably on life support already.  It’s also a shifting sand, it could stop at any moment.

Where possible I’m still in favour of just getting on with it by yourself. As put nicely by a hedge fund founder in Vanity Fair a number of years ago, “VC funding is one step up from human trafficking….”

Better to think like Mike ‘Wags’ Wagner.

“You know I want to be on the outside, rocking with the marauders.”