As somebody, let's call it six months into a new business, what they did a generation

ago and they tell you I'm an entrepreneur or I run a company that does X. As somebody

six months into a new business, what they do now and they'll tell you I run a, quote,

start up or I may quote founder, semantics, right? Actually probably couldn't be moron.

So that simple change in language, well, it signifies both a shift in the understanding

of what you're really doing in the first, let's call it six to 36 months, along with

a deeper shift in psychology that allows for both more risk-taking and a greater willingness

to put failure on the table. So here's how it breaks down. The purpose of a business or

a company is to succeed and that can be defined individually, usually through some blend

of profit, service, joy and growth. Everything you do in a company is about succeeding at

the business you've chosen to build. When you use the word business or company, the

implication is that it's thought out. You know what you're here to do and your job is

to do it. Failure carries a certain gravity. The purpose of a startup though, well, that's

different. So a startup is an experiment in search of a business. Its job is not to succeed

at, you know, actually making money and building and scaling. Its job is to figure out whether

a viable customer, a viable business model, a viable product, a viable mode of delivery

even exists. The core metric for a startup is learning, not money, not scaling. If the

learning yields no clear answer, well then the startup has done its job and it folds and

for the most part, that's why a lot of people look at this as no harm no foul. Startups

are expected to fail more often than not because very often there isn't a viable customer

or business model or mode of delivery or whatever it may be. If the startup does yield

a viable customer model, product mode of delivery and scaling methodology, then the core metrics

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