What's the difference between a startup and any other business?

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Joel Mier, University of Richmond

(THE CONVERSATION)

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What’s the difference between a startup and a business, and is one better than the other? – Aditya, age 16, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India

All startups are businesses, but not every business is a startup.

Nearly 100,000 new businesses were formed each week in the United States in 2022. But what sets a startup apart?

As a professor of marketing and innovation who has worked at several startups, including Netflix in its early days, I can share some of the differences between a startup and a more traditional business.

Startups are inventing something new

A traditional business generally has an established solution to a known problem and has not developed anything particularly new.

For example, a new sushi restaurant in your neighborhood may be a new business, but it is by no means a startup. However, if a new local company had developed a device that automated sushi-making and tried to get sushi restaurants to try it, that would be a startup. The restaurant is simply trying to satisfy the neighborhood’s needs for sushi, whereas the device company is trying to change all...