A discussion of business start-up culture.

1. Startup Companies

2. What is a “start-up”?
A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating
history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of
development and research for markets. The term became popular
internationally during the dot-com bubble when a great number of dot-
com companies were founded.

3. Business incubator
Business incubators are programs designed to
accelerate the successful development of
entrepreneurial companies through an array of
business support resources and services,
developed and orchestrated by incubator
management and offered both in the incubator
and through its network of contacts.
Unlike many business assistance programs,
business incubators do not serve any and all
companies. Entrepreneurs who wish to enter a
business incubation program must apply for
admission.

4. Venture capital
Venture capital (VC) is money
provided to early-stage, high-
potential, high risk, growth startup
companies. The venture capital fund
makes money by owning part of the
the companies it invests in, which
usually have a novel technology or
business model in high technology
industries, such as biotechnology, IT,
software, etc.

5. Angel investor
An angel investor or angel (also known as a
business angel or informal investor) is an affluent
individual who provides capital for a business
start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt
or ownership equity. A small but increasing
number of angel investors organize themselves
into angel groups or angel networks to share
research and pool their investment capital. All the
same, angels typically invest their own funds,
unlike venture capitalists, who manage the pooled
money of others in a professionally-managed
fund.

6. Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (also known
as the Internet bubble and the
Information Technology Bubble)
was a bubble economy covering
roughly 1995–2000 during which
stock markets in industrialized
nations saw their value rise
rapidly, primarily from growth in
the new Internet sector and
related businesses.
Many people are always concerned about the rise of a new bubble economy, so it
is sometimes difficult to raise money for your start-up business if too many
investors believe that the market has peaked.

7. Exit strategy
An exit strategy is a means of
leaving one's current situation,
either after a predetermined
objective has been achieved, or as
a strategy to mitigate failure. An
organization or individual without
an exit strategy may be in a
quagmire. At worst, an exit strategy
will save face; at best, an exit
strategy will peg a withdrawal to
the achievement of an objective
worth more than the cost of
continued involvement.

8. Liquidity event
In corporate finance, a liquidity event
is an umbrella term that describes one
of several events, typically a purchase
of a corporation or an initial public
offering. A liquidity event is a typical
exit strategy of a company, since the
liquidity event typically converts the
ownership equity held by a company's
founders and investors into cash.

9. What do you think?
• Do you think anyone can start their own
business?
• What are the dangers of having your own
business?
• What kind of business would you like to start?
Would you prefer to start a “bricks ‘n’ mortar”
business or an Internet business?

10. Entrepreneurs
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a
business enterprise who makes money through
risk and initiative. The term was originally a
loanword from French and was first defined by
the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon.
Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a
person who is willing to help launch a new
venture or enterprise and accept full
responsibility for the outcome. If a business
person is known for starting several different
businesses, that person might be known as an
entrepreneur.

11. Sean Parker
Sean Parker (born 1979) is an American
Internet technology businessman and
entrepreneur. He co-founded Napster, Plaxo,
Causes, and Airtime, and was Facebook's
founding president. His net worth is
estimated at $2.1 billion.
When Parker was 15, he met 14 year-old
Shawn Fanning over the internet. A few years
later, Fanning and Parker co-founded Napster,
a free file-sharing service for music. Parker
raised the intial $50,000, and they launched
Napster in June 1999. Within a year, the
service had tens of millions of users. Lawsuits
by various industry associations eventually
shut down the service. Napster has been
called the fastest growing business of all
time, is credited with revolutionizing the
music industry

12. Elon Musk
Elon Musk (born June 28, 1971) is an
American engineer and entrepreneur best
known for co-founding PayPal, SpaceX and
Tesla Motors. He is currently the CEO and
CTO of SpaceX, CEO and Product Architect
of Tesla Motors and Chairman of SolarCity.
Musk is best known for having created the
first viable production electric car of the
modern era (Tesla Roadster), for designing
a private successor to the Space Shuttle
(F9/Dragon) and creating the world's
largest Internet payment system (PayPal).
Musk currently holds both a B.S. in
Economics and B.A. Physics from the
University of Pennsylvania. His net worth is
estimated to be over $872 million.

13. Tesla Motors
Tesla Motors, Inc. is a Silicon Valley-based
company that designs, manufactures and sells
electric cars and electric vehicle components.
It was the only automaker building and selling
a zero-emission sports car in serial production
(as opposed to prototype or evaluation series
production).
Tesla Motors' first production vehicle, the Tesla
Roadster, is an all-electric sports car. The car
has a range of 245 miles (394 km) per charge.
The Tesla Roadster can accelerate from zero to
60 mph (97 km/h) in under 4 seconds and has
a top speed of 125 mph (201 km/h). The base
price of the car is US$109,000.

14. Larry Ellison
Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellison (born August 17,
1944) is the co-founder and chief executive officer
of Oracle Corporation, one of the world's leading
enterprise software companies. As of 2011, he is
the third wealthiest American citizen, with an
estimated worth of $33 billion.
During the 1970s, Ellison worked for Ampex
Corporation. One of his projects was a database for
the CIA, which he named "Oracle". In 1977, he
founded Software Development Laboratories (SDL).
In 1979, the company was renamed Relational
Software Inc., later renamed Oracle after the
flagship product Oracle database. Today Oracle is
the largest database software company in the world
with an annual revenue of $35.6 billion.

15. What do you think?
• What business skills do you have?
• Do you think you’d be a tough person to work
for?
• Do men or women make more successful
business people?
• Who would be your business hero?