| A | Angel Investor | A private individual who invests capital (usually in the early stages of a startup), generally in exchange for equity.
Accelerator – investment-fund program that provide funding and mentorship to budding startups in exchange for a stake |
| B | Burn Rate | The amount of cash a startup is spending each month
Bootstrapping – initial funding stage of a startup deploying only your personal savings or with help from friends and family (rather than angel or seed investment) |
| C | Cash Flow Positive | (The dream!) When a startup’s cash coming in is greater than its cash going out. Note this is different to being profitable! |
| D | Disruptive | A product or service that aims / is about to (hopefully) change or revolutionise an existing industry. A buzzword in the startup world! |
| E | Equity | Several geeky accounting definitions, but generally in startups equity refers to the relative amount (share) someone owns in the company |
| F | Freemium | When your core produce or service is free, but there are premium / non-free features available which are designed to improve the user experience even further
Frontend – the pretty face of software engineering (obviously so much more that). In short: the bit on startup websites that you (the user) see and interact with! It runs in tandem with the
Backend which does the heavy lifting behind the scenes |
| G | Growth Hacking | A startup marketing term focused around experimentation on growth strategy – working out ways to acquire as many users as quickly / cheaply as possible
Gamification – implementing elements or features you would find in a game in a non-gaming product
GA – (Google Analytics) this is the big boy for tracking just about anything activity-related on a website. Given its heavy use, “GA” is an easier term to spit out! |
| H | Hockey Stick | A growth curve on a chart – an initial dip (where you’re investing) followed by a strong upward trajectory, leaving the progress line looking a bit like a hockey stick! |
| I | IPO
| An “Initial Public Offering” – the first time a startup (or any company) lists its shares on a public stock market |
| J | Javascript/Java/JS | One of the most commonly recognised programming languages – generally if you see knowledge of this as a requirement for a startup job and you don’t know what it means, don’t apply for it! |
| K | KPI | Key Performance Indicators – a measurable value tracked by a startup to gauge progress. When the name of the game is growth, we are slaves to the KPIs! |
| L | Low-Hanging Fruit | The easiest, quickest wins available in a given project. Essentially the fruit you don’t have to climb too high (or work too hard) to collect
Liquidity Event – some form of opportunity for investors to cash in their stake, therefore turning some (or all) of their assets on paper into “liquid” cash
Lifetime Value – the prediction of value you expect a customer (or supplier) relationship to generate over the whole of its existence. So hopefully more than just one transaction |
| M | MVP | Minimum Viable Product – the most basic version of the product that can viably work and be rolled-out, it often gets expanded with new features later on.
Minotaur – a startup that has raised $1bn+ from investors (it might not necessarily be worth that much to prospective buyers!) |
| N | Ninja | A very startuppy title for a supposed expert in a field (e.g. after reading this article , you’ll be a startup lingo ninja!) |
| O | (Stock/Equity) Options | An agreement giving someone (most likely a startup employee or investor) the option to purchase shares in a company at a given strike price (which you can then hopefully sell later for a profit). You might well get offered these when you join a startup – take them!
OKRs – Objectives and Key Results – tangible goal-setting framework. You set your objective and then pick the metrics (key results) that will quantify your progress |
| P | Pre & Post Money Valuations | Terms referring to the valuation of a startup before investment or financing and then after (after factoring in the new cash).
Product Manager – the person responsible for developing the product, owning the business strategy, features and functionality!
Pivot – a shift (quite often a significant one) in business model following feedback on / performance of an initial product |
| Q | QA Testing | Quality Assurance Testing. This is basic testing of the product, usually with an eye on user experience – think beta-tests and bugchecks a-plenty! |
| R | ROI | Return-on-Investment. At a very high level, and without getting too geeky about it, this is something that investors will monitor to determine the efficiency (usually financial) of a given investment. Bigger ROI generally means a better use of their funds! |
| S | Seed Round | The first round of external capital funding for a startup.
SEM/SEO – Search Engine Marketing/Optimization – two distinct areas, but both relate to promoting a startup’s product by increasing its visibility on search engines. Best ask your marketing team directly if you want to learn more about the nuances (as there are many!) |
| T | Traction | A sign that all your startups growth efforts are taking effect, and whether people are actually buying or using the product.. |
| U | Unicorn | A term to refer to startups that have been given a $1 billion valuation. Note this doesn’t have to have been realised in cash! |
| V | VC | Venture Capital. In a nutshell, this is financial investment (or investors) in startups that are looking for high growth opportunities in exchange for equity
Silicon Valley – The name given to an area in the southern San Francisco Bay where lots of startups and tech companies are based. |
| W | Waterfall | The “last in, first out” order that investors often get their money in a liquidity event. Those coming later to the table have often had the opportunity to negotiate better terms for themselves since they can see what others have committed to! |
| X | Xenopus | A startup that has grown revenue at over 100% a year…. Just kidding (unless it catches on)! It’s actually a weird frog – it’s hard to find an X word for this list! |
| Y | Y-Combinator | Y-Combinator is a big seed accelerator with many ‘y-backed’ startups in their portfolio… (Cut us some slack, Y is hard too!) |
| Z | Zebra | A term used to refer to startups focused more on building a sustainable growth business than a “boom or bust” approach |
