Disrupting disruption with disruptive disruptions since 2010.
A delightfully depressing portmanteau describing the growing army of hustlers who call themselves entrepreneurs but are really just unemployed people with a business card and a prayer. These brave souls combine the precarious instability of gig work with the delusion of startup success, making "founder" sound way better than "between opportunities." Welcome to late-stage capitalism's participation trophy.
Emergency financing raised by a struggling startup at unfavorable terms just to avoid immediate shutdown. It's the fundraising equivalent of pulling the ripcord on a failing skydive.
Actions taken to make existing capital last longer, typically through cost-cutting, down-rounds, or revenue generation—whatever keeps you alive until the next funding round. Financial life support for startups.
The soul-crushing moment when a startup issues new shares, and existing shareholders watch their ownership percentage shrink faster than a wool sweater in a hot dryer. While you still own the same number of shares, you now own a smaller slice of the pie—assuming the company actually grows enough to justify the dilution. It's the price founders pay for other people's money, and the reason early employees cry into their vested options.
The practice of revaluing portfolio companies to reflect current fair market value rather than cost basis, theoretically providing accurate fund performance but practically involving educated guesses and wishful thinking. Quarterly existential crisis as an accounting process.
Additional capital raised on the same terms as the previous round (like a Series A-1) rather than progressing to the next stage, buying time without the stigma of a flat or down round. The startup equivalent of taking an incomplete rather than failing the course.
Optimistic individuals who voluntarily choose unemployment with extra steps, convincing themselves that working 80 hours a week for no salary is better than working 40 hours for someone else. They're essentially professional risk-takers who transform caffeine and delusion into businesses, with a success rate that would make a Vegas gambler nervous. Society celebrates them when they succeed and conveniently forgets them when they fail.
A valuation metric calculated by dividing company valuation by annual revenue, popular in tech because it works even when profits are mythical. Allows investors to justify astronomical valuations by citing "industry standards."
Raising capital by selling ownership stakes in the company rather than borrowing money. It's the fundamental bargain of venture capital: you get money now, investors get a piece of your future success (or failure).
A funding round where the company valuation is explicitly set and shares are sold at a specific price per share, unlike convertible instruments that defer pricing. It's the grown-up version of fundraising, with actual valuations and everything.
To launch a startup or project with minimal external funding by leveraging existing resources and sweat equity. The term originates from computing (where an OS loads itself into memory) but has become startup gospel—basically, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps while investors watch from the sidelines.
A Silicon Valley term for marketing on a budget, dressed up to sound like you're breaking into a mainframe. In practice, it usually means spamming people on LinkedIn and calling it a strategy.
Having the qualities of someone who starts businesses, takes risks, and believes their idea will totally disrupt an industry despite statistical odds suggesting otherwise. It's the adjective form of optimistic delusion mixed with genuine innovation and an unhealthy comfort with uncertainty. Basically, it describes people who see opportunities where normal humans see reasons to keep their day job.
A go-to-market strategy dependent on human sales teams to drive customer acquisition, typical in complex B2B products with long sales cycles. The opposite of letting the product sell itself.
Lifetime Value—the total revenue a customer generates before churning, which you compare against acquisition cost to pretend your business makes sense. Usually wildly optimistic because it assumes customers stick around forever.
The magical period where startup founders burn through investor cash while "validating their business model," ostensibly nurturing their fledgling company from idea to viable business. Like hatching eggs, except the eggs cost millions of dollars and most of them produce nothing. Incubators and accelerators love this word because it makes burning money sound scientific and inevitable.
The most stripped-down version of your product that customers will actually use without demanding a refund—or at least that's the theory. In practice, it's whatever you can ship before running out of money.
The magical property where your product becomes more valuable as more people use it—or what every social startup claims to have despite zero evidence. True network effects are rarer than honest user growth numbers.
The fancy business term for a proposal or offer, usually dressed up with adjectives like 'value' or 'unique' to make it sound more impressive than 'hey, wanna buy our stuff?' In startup pitch decks, the 'value proposition' is that one slide where founders explain why anyone should care about their idea, typically using a Venn diagram that doesn't quite make sense. A good proposition answers 'what's in it for me?' before the listener falls asleep.
Restructuring that gives early investors and employees liquidity without selling the company, like a pressure release valve for cap table tension. An exit without the exit.
Total Addressable Market, Serviceable Addressable Market, and Serviceable Obtainable Market—three increasingly pessimistic estimates of how much money you might theoretically make. The trilogy of optimism, realism, and 'if everything goes perfectly.'
In startup land, the terrifying gap between early adopters who'll buy anything shiny and the mainstream market that actually expects your product to work. Coined by Geoffrey Moore, this metaphorical canyon is where many promising startups go to die, usually because they assumed soccer moms would be as forgiving as tech bros. It's the entrepreneurial equivalent of realizing your mom's friends won't think your jokes are as funny as your college roommates did.
To forcefully resurrect a dead project, company, or relationship using emergency measures and borrowed energy. Like CPR but for your failing startup's momentum.
A business and startup jargon term describing an exit strategy or way to gracefully exit a situation, deal, or initiative. Think of it as the metaphorical highway exit when the original plan isn't working out.