Accelerate This: Lingo

Crowdfunding startups. The millennial workforce. Big data.

Ten years ago, such terms were likely unknown to those not dialed into e-commerce or social sciences. They’ve since gone from buzzwords to part of everyday vocabulary, while the Rolodex and personal digital assistant have slipped into antiquity.

As business evolves, so does its language.

For those who have wondered what the entrepreneurs down the hall are talking about, here’s a guide to the startup lexicon.

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A/B tests – noun
Stands for Option A and Option B; beta testing with multiple versions of a website created to determine the pathways users most easily access and accomplish tasks, such as purchasing a product or signing up for company updates.

“An intentional, slight difference to your website and measuring how that affects the outcome you’re going for.”
—Charlie Rosenbury, Self Interactive

angel (investor) – noun
A startup funder, typically at an early stage; opposed to venture capitalists who fund long-term goals and operations.

blue ocean/red ocean – adj.
A description of how unique a company’s product or service offering is, and how competitively the company is positioned.

“If it’s too blue, you’re the only one doing it, it’s tough to build the market. If it’s red, there’s too much competition.”
—Dan Cobb, entrepreneur and investor

bootstrap – verb
Performing a function of the business internally, rather than hiring a subcontractor or taking on an investor to assist; starting with little capital and largely personally financed.

“It’s probably the best way because you get to keep control of the company.”
—Eric Ham, Mofin Labs

CRM – noun
Customer relationship management; a platform for interacting with and analyzing customers, particularly built to collect and store contact information and history.

elevator pitch – noun
Short version of a company’s pitch that could be stated during an elevator ride.

“The 20 second ‘who we are, why we’re compelling, why we’re different.’”
—Cobb

exit – verb, noun
The eventual sale of a company, usually strategically formulated in the early stages of a startup.

“It should guide the decisions to make the company more valuable.”
—Cobb

growth hacking – verb
Testing marketing methods and channels to determine the best way to grow the business.

KPIs – noun
Key performance indicators, or metrics to measure progress toward internal goals.

MVP – noun
Minimally viable product, a functioning prototype of a company’s product or service to gather user data with a minimal capital investment; ideally proves the concept solves a problem, has a qualified sales market and attracts investors.

“I’m pushing them hard to get their minimally viable product out in the hands of users as quickly as possible.”
—Cody Stringer, Mercy Research and Development

on-boarding – verb
The process of gaining paid customers.

pilot – noun, verb
A type of beta test or user; a process in which a company has secured a client using an initial stage of the company’s offering and providing feedback geared toward enhancing the product or service.

“We’re going to target schools to pilot our software and start building our client base.”
—Andrew Goodall, The Daily Scholar

scalability – adj.
The plan, ability and capacity to grow beyond the startup stage.

UI/UX – noun, adj.
User interface and user experience, referring to the ways in which a customer interacts with a product, primarily software, and how intuitive it is to use.

“We’re innovating things that don’t exist. You do more user experience testing, at least starting out – for things that are confusing to the user.”
—Jason Arend, Eagle Speak LLC