The Startup Glossary is a collection of terms used in startup culture, venture-backed business, and growth-stage operations. It serves founders, operators, and investors navigating the language of building and scaling companies.
Glossary
B
- 📝Blue Angel — An investor focused on ocean and marine technology ("bluetech"), working to make ocean-focused ventures the next major sustainability investment category.
C
- 📝Cap Table — A structured record that outlines ownership stakes, equity dilution, and the value of shares in a company.
- 📝churn — The rate at which customers cancel subscriptions within a given period, often measured as a percentage of the total customer base.
- 📝Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) — A financial metric that measures the average cost incurred by a company to acquire a new customer.
- 📝Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) — A financial metric that estimates the total revenue a business can expect from a customer over the duration of their relationship.
D
- 📝Daily Unique Reach (DAU) — A metric measuring the number of distinct individuals who encounter a piece of content or platform within a single 24-hour period.
E
- 📝exit — The event through which a founder or investor liquidates their stake in a company, typically via acquisition, merger, or IPO.
F
- 📝first-party data — Information an organization collects directly from its audience, customers, or users through its own channels and interactions.
G
- 📝Growth Loop — A cyclical process in which the outputs of one stage feed into the inputs of another, creating a self-reinforcing system that accelerates results over time.
K
- 📝Key Performance Indicator (KPI) — A quantifiable metric used to evaluate the success of an organization, team, or individual in achieving specific objectives.
- 📝Keystone User — A participant whose engagement, advocacy, or contributions have disproportionate influence on retention, adoption, or cultural shaping within a platform.
L
- 📝Lean Methodology — An approach to product development and business strategy that emphasizes efficiency, iteration, and customer feedback to minimize waste and validate assumptions early.
- 📝Lifetime Value (LTV) — A financial and marketing metric that estimates the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer account throughout their entire relationship.
M
- 📝Monthly Active Users (MAU) — A KPI that counts the number of unique users engaging with a product or platform within a 30-day period.
- 📝Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) — A financial metric measuring the predictable, recurring revenue generated by a subscription-based business within a given month.
O
- 📝One-Person Unicorn — A billion-dollar company founded and run by a single individual, made possible by AI and automation that allow one person to manage various business functions.
P
- 📝pivot — A fundamental shift in a startup's business model, product, or strategy based on lessons learned from market feedback.
- 📝private equity — A form of investment capital raised and invested in privately held companies, typically outside of public stock exchanges.
S
- 📝Software as a Service (SaaS) — A model of software delivery in which applications are hosted remotely and made accessible to users over the internet via subscription-based pricing.
T
- 📝Techno-Fundamentalism — The belief that every problem will be solved by technological advance, often translating social problems into technical solutions.
- 📝third-party data — Information collected by entities that have no direct relationship with the user, typically aggregated from multiple sources and sold to other organizations.
- 📝Two-Sided Marketplace — A business model in which a platform enables interactions and transactions between two distinct user groups, typically buyers and sellers.
V
- 📝Valuation — The estimated or determined market value of a company, shaped by investor supply-and-demand, traction milestones, and de-risked business fundamentals.
- 📝venture capital — A form of private equity financing provided by investors to startups and small businesses with strong growth potential, typically involving high risk and high return.
- 📝Venture Studio — An organization that systematically builds new startups by providing capital, talent, infrastructure, and strategic guidance, retaining significant equity in the companies it creates.