A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential. Startups many times are referred as an entity which is not sure what 'product' to sell, whom (target customers) to sell to and how to make money (revenue model). These founders find answers to these questions through experimentation before running out of money and motivation. Therefore they can be called as founders. Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will do the market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate their business models. The startup process can take a long period of time, and hence sustaining effort is required. Over the long term, sustaining effort is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes. Having a business plan in place outlines what to do and how to plan and achieve an idea in the future. Typically, these plans outline the first three to five years of your business strategy. Models behind startups presenting as ventures are usually associated with design science. Design science uses design principles considered to be a coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct the company's backbone. For example, one of the initial design principles is affordable loss. Because of the lack of information, high uncertainty, and the need to make decisions quickly, founders usually use many heuristics and exhibit biases in their leadership decisions.

About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Ontological neighbourhood
Related courses (13)
MGT-455: Practical business law
The course covers the fundamental concepts of business law from a practical standpoint, including contracts and company law, intellectual property, competition law and data protection, with a special
MGT-801: Sciencepreneurship: from Science to Society
This summer school provides students with the necessary tools and network to identify and develop the societal impact of research-grounded innovation. Throughout the course, students work in small tea
MGT-650: Sciencepreneurship: Sustainability & Al
This summer school provides its students with the necessary tools and network to identify and develop the social impact of research-grounded innovation. Throughout the course, they work in small teams
Show more
Related lectures (93)
Carbon Removal Technologies: Climeworks Innovations
Explores Climeworks' innovative carbon removal technologies and their impact on combating global warming through direct air capture.
Data Science for Innovation
Explores innovation in data science, spin-offs creation, and emotional virtual voices.
Hyperloop Technology: From Startup to Global Expansion
Explores the evolution of a startup into a global player in high-speed transportation technology, emphasizing the importance of innovation, investment, and team building.
Show more
Related publications (34)
Related concepts (20)
Venture capital
Venture capital (commonly abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which have demonstrated high growth (in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc). Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake.
Business plan
A business plan is a formal written document containing the goals of a business, the methods for attaining those goals, and the time-frame for the achievement of the goals. It also describes the nature of the business, background information on the organization, the organization's financial projections, and the strategies it intends to implement to achieve the stated targets. In its entirety, this document serves as a road-map (a plan) that provides direction to the business.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values than simply economic ones. An entrepreneur is an individual who creates and/or invests in one or more businesses, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards. The process of setting up a business is known as "entrepreneurship".
Show more
Related MOOCs (8)
Launching New Ventures
Develop your promising idea into a successful business concept proposal, and launch it! Gain practical experience in the key steps of the venture creation process, including marketing and fundraising.
Launching New Ventures
Develop your promising idea into a successful business concept proposal, and launch it! Gain practical experience in the key steps of the venture creation process, including marketing and fundraising.
Launching New Ventures [retired]
Develop your promising idea into a successful business concept proposal, and launch it! Gain practical experience in the key steps of the venture creation process, including marketing and fundraising.
Show more