Startups316
Wearing many hats
Doing four jobs for one salary, framed as a rare development opportunity.
"You'll wear many hats here — it's a great learning curve."
Translation
We haven't hired enough people.
Section
Startups
Runway, pivots and default alive.
36 entries
All Startups entries
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Startups305
Pivot
A total change of product, market and mission, narrated later as 'always the plan'.
"We pivoted from dog food delivery to enterprise compliance."
Translation
The first idea didn't work.
Startups254
Default alive
A state of being in which the company survives without new funding, asserted with more confidence than evidence.
"We're default alive" — after two rounds of cost optimisation.
Translation
We can pay salaries for now.
Startups187
Runway
The number of months left before the all-hands with the sombre slide.
"We've got 18 months of runway." It is 11.
Translation
Time until trouble.
Startups78
Pre-seed
A highly optimistic funding stage where an enterprise consists of nothing more than an ambitious slide deck, a shared workspace subscription, and a mountain of personal debt.
We are currently raising our pre-seed round to help us build the minimum viable prototype.
Translation
We have no product, no customers, and very little time before the rent is due.
Startups76
Burn rate
The velocity with which a fledgling business incinerates investor capital while attempting to determine what its product actually is.
"Our burn rate is currently half a million a month, but we are confident we will find our market soon."
Translation
"We are spending money like a lottery winner in a panic."
Startups74
Angel investor
A wealthy individual who funds early-stage companies, primarily to enjoy the thrill of pretending they are on television whilst losing their children's inheritance.
"We’ve secured some seed funding from an angel investor who really believes in our vision."
Translation
"A dentist in Surrey gave us fifty grand after we showed him a PowerPoint presentation with three graphs going up."
Startups71
Soft launch
Releasing a product with deliberate lack of publicity so that when it inevitably fails to function, nobody notices.
"We’re doing a soft launch of the new portal on Friday to gauge initial user sentiment."
Translation
We are releasing this broken website at 4:55 PM and praying everyone has gone to the pub.
Startups71
Fail fast
The practice of collapsing spectacularly in a short timeframe, rebranded as a highly desirable educational triumph.
"Our philosophy here is to fail fast and iterate based on the learnings."
Translation
"We have absolutely no idea what we are doing, but we are burning through investor cash at an impressive speed."
Startups67
Hockey Stick
A chart shape promised in every fundraising deck.
"Year three is where the hockey stick kicks in."
Translation
Made-up future numbers.
Startups66
Pre-revenue
An optimistic financial status indicating that a company currently possesses ideas, enthusiasm, and a rapidly depleting bank account, but absolutely no paying customers.
"We are currently a pre-revenue venture-backed SaaS platform focusing on hyper-local synergy."
Translation
"We are entirely funded by hope and investor gullibility."
Startups64
Disruptive
Describing a business model that ignores existing industry regulations and relies heavily on venture capital to subsidise unsustainable losses.
"Our new disruptive platform is set to completely revolutionise the artisanal dog-biscuit delivery ecosystem."
Translation
We are losing money on every transaction but hoping for a monopoly.
Startups63
Product-market fit
The theoretical moment when a business finally invents something that people actually want to buy, rather than something the founders simply enjoyed building.
"Once we achieve product-market fit, our scaling phase will begin in earnest."
Translation
"We are currently selling a solution to a problem we completely made up."
Startups61
Running lean
A euphemism for being drastically understaffed and poorly funded, successfully rebranded as an admirable display of agile discipline.
"We're running lean ahead of our Series A, so everyone is pitching in on customer support."
Translation
"We can't afford to pay you overtime, but we do have a ping-pong table."
Startups61
Hypergrowth
A state of corporate expansion where a company hires staff faster than it can acquire office chairs or define job descriptions, funded entirely by investor anxiety.
"As we enter a phase of hypergrowth, we need everyone to remain agile and embrace the beautiful chaos."
Translation
Nobody has any idea who is responsible for this budget.
Startups60
Key-person dependency
A precarious structural vulnerability wherein an entire business model relies entirely on a single employee who is the only one who knows how the legacy spreadsheet works.
We have a slight key-person dependency on Barnaby, who is currently on a three-week tech detox in the Andes.
Translation
If Barnaby gets hit by a bus, we will have to wind up the company.
Startups60
Zombie company
A venture that generates just enough revenue to cover its basic operating costs, surviving in a permanent state of suspended animation where it can neither scale up nor comfortably die.
"We have completely run out of funding, but our minor consulting gigs keep us ticking along as a zombie company."
Translation
"We are too tired to innovate, but too polite to declare bankruptcy."
Startups55
Vaporware
A highly anticipated, revolutionary product that exists entirely within the confines of a slide deck and the founder's imagination.
Our vaporware is poised to disrupt the entire supply chain sector once we actually write the code.
Translation
It is a Google Sheet with a very expensive logo.
Startups55
Cap table
A highly speculative spreadsheet outlining who owns what percentage of a company, serving primarily as a motivational tool for employees currently earning below market rate.
"We need to clean up the cap table before we pitch to the VCs next month."
Translation
A pie chart of imaginary wealth.
Startups52
Bootstrapped
A prideful term for a company financed solely by credit card debt, parental goodwill, and the denial of market-rate salaries.
"We are a proudly bootstrapped operation, which keeps us incredibly agile."
Translation
We cannot afford heating.
Startups51
To democratise
The noble quest to sell an incredibly basic, pre-existing service via an app with pastel branding and a monthly subscription model.
"Our mission is to democratise the artisanal dog food space."
Translation
"We are making this slightly more expensive, but you can pay for it on your phone."
Startups48
Unicorn
A privately held startup valued at over one billion dollars, celebrated for its revolutionary ability to burn through vast quantities of venture capital without the distraction of making a profit.
"If we can just secure this next round, we're well on our way to becoming the next European unicorn."
Translation
A very expensive horse with a cardboard horn taped to its head.
Startups48
Fully Baked
Finished, in a world where nothing ever is.
"The idea isn't fully baked yet."
Translation
I made this up on the call.
Startups47
To build in public
The practice of broadcasting every minor software bug and existential crisis on social media, under the guise of transparency.
"We are building in public, so here is a transparent breakdown of why our database crashed for six hours yesterday."
Translation
We have absolutely no idea what we are doing, but we hope the venture capitalists think it's brave.
Startups47
Skunkworks
A semi-secret project team permitted to bypass corporate bureaucracy, usually resulting in a highly advanced product that the sales team has no idea how to sell.
"We’ve put together a skunkworks team to explore the next generation of our platform."
Translation
We hid three developers in a basement so they would actually get some work done.
Startups42
Stealth mode
An enigmatic status adopted by early-stage businesses to suggest they are safeguarding a highly sensitive, industry-disrupting secret, rather than simply having nothing to show yet.
"We are currently in stealth mode, but we are looking to raise our seed round next month."
Translation
"We do not have a product, a website, or a functioning printer."
Startups35
Game changer
A minor, incremental software update or product feature that is spoken of as if it will alter the course of human civilisation.
"Our new colour-coded dashboard is a real game changer for the supply chain sector."
Translation
We have changed the colour of a button.
Startups32
Fireside chat
An informal, carefully scripted stage conversation between executives, designed to project warmth and transparency while revealing absolutely nothing of substance.
"Join us tomorrow at 2 PM for an intimate fireside chat with our new VP of Monetisation."
Translation
Sit quietly in the artificial light of a PowerPoint presentation while we read pre-approved answers from a tablet.
Startups29
Exit strategy
A highly imaginative PowerPoint deck outlining how a loss-making enterprise plans to eventually sell itself to a larger, less alert competitor.
"Our current exit strategy is to be acquired by a major tech conglomerate within three years."
Translation
"We need to sell this company before anyone realizes it doesn't make any money."
Startups27
Iterate
To repeatedly launch slightly modified versions of an unfinished product, allowing the customer to perform the duties of the quality assurance department.
"It’s not quite perfect, but the plan is to launch and iterate."
Translation
We are releasing a broken product because the board is asking questions.
Startups27
Sweat equity
A polite euphemism for unpaid labour, where employees are compensated with the glittering promise of future shares instead of legal tender.
"We can’t offer a market-rate salary right now, but there is plenty of sweat equity on the table."
Translation
You will work eighty-hour weeks for free, and your options will eventually be worth less than a cup of coffee.
Startups23
Does it scale?
A grand, theoretical question asked to determine whether a business model can grow exponentially without the troublesome need for additional human effort.
"Hand-baking each artisanal sourdough loaf is a lovely narrative, Sarah, but does it scale?"
Translation
How do we replace you with an algorithm?
Startups21
To build the plane while flying it
A heroic metaphor used to describe launching a product that is entirely missing its wings, its engines, and its safety certification.
"Things are moving incredibly fast here, so we're essentially building the plane while flying it."
Translation
We have absolutely no plan, but we are panic-working at high altitude.
Elevator Pitch
A short summary of an idea or business, designed to be delivered in the time of a brief elevator ride.
"What's your elevator pitch?"
Translation
Thirty seconds. Fewer buzzwords, please.
Drink the Kool-Aid
To fully buy into an organisation's messaging or culture, sometimes uncritically.
"He's drunk the Kool-Aid."
Translation
He says "mission" without flinching.
Move Fast and Break Things
A startup mantra favouring speed of execution over caution, at the cost of occasional mistakes.
"Move fast and break things."
Translation
We will fix it after the outage.