Ask HN: What's a startup and what's a web app?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=645049

by speek • 17 years ago

23 24 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

How do you define a web startup with respect to a single web application?

I've seen things on HN that I would have classified as a web app, but the submitter touted it as a startup, so I was wondering what y'all had to say about that issue.

daleharvey• 17 years ago

if it is to make money, it is a startup. if it an application on the web, its a web app.

it can be any combination of true or false for either.

pg2• 17 years ago

And web apps can switch state. Delicious wasn't originally a company, but it turned into one.

zackattack2• 17 years ago

I've been reading Founders at Work and I've been thinking about this. It seems that there's basically two main paradigms when it comes to tech startups:

1) Start out building a product/service that you think people will pay for (Viaweb, Excite, VisiCorp) and evolve the idea where appropriate

2) Start out building a product/service that you want to use, and its immense popularity makes it become a company (Facebook, Delicious, Yahoo, Google)

A lot of people (myself included) have thought "the way to make it big is by doing #2: making a neat website, and hoping it takes off incredibly". But perhaps a more statistically sound approach is to do #1. Has anyone done a study of this kind of thing and looked at expected value?

philwelch• 17 years ago

The startup is the business itself. A web app is an app on the web. Gmail is a web app, even though it's a product of a largish corporation. Windows Live is a collection of web apps made by a company that hasn't been a startup since the Altair was the hot new thing.

Likewise, a startup doesn't have to be or use a web app. Loopt runs on cell phones.

vaksel• 17 years ago

To me a startup is something which is built with hopes for it to eventually be profitable. A web app is something that you build that you don't really expect to make money from

sgrove• 17 years ago

I think the webapp/startup line blurred together in the funding frenzy of the past few years where revenue-less webapps could be acquired profitably for the founder.

But the line is growing more distinct starting as revenue regains its importance in the scene. Startups are projects with clear revenue goals, and relatively detailed plans by which to attain those goals, that the founders expect to turn into some sort of business.

Webapps may just be useful and fun distractions without concrete monetization plans and/or goals. They have the potential to grow into startups, but are missing a lot of the other components that go along with it (business planning, revenue projects, goal deadlines, etc.).

That said, there's still no absolutely clear delineation. Some may alternate between the two definitions.

IsaacL• 17 years ago

I think a lot of "startups" would be better off calling themselves projects. There's nothing wrong with being a project: Wikiepdia's a project, GNU/Linux is a project. But neither of them ever expected to make money; the same could be said for many (by no means all) web apps that call themselves startups.

rokhayakebe• 17 years ago

A web app is a product. A startup is the structure that monetizes/wants to monetize the web app.

patio11• 17 years ago

Arguing about the definitions of words is productive if you're a lexicographer or a lawyer.

For the rest of us, it absorbs time which could be used to separate customers from their money by selling them things they want.

bcl• 17 years ago

You are obviously a startup then ;)

davidw• 17 years ago

Well, it is good to be clear about what things are and where you'd like to go with them. The 'project' comment elsewhere here is right on - not everything can or should be about making money, and it's good to recognize what sort of thing you're dealing with at any given point in time.

speek• 17 years ago

I always considered a startup as an incorporated legal entity and a web app as an application on the web.

quizbiz• 17 years ago

At what point do you incorporate?

aditya• 17 years ago

When you absolutely must, ie. something would break horribly if you weren't an incorporated legal entity. Like you have a term sheet from investors, or you want to start charging people. Incorporating early is fairly pointless, especially if you're just at the idea stage.

jack7890• 17 years ago

They aren't mutually exclusive.

arasakik• 17 years ago

"A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty." -Eric Ries

mahmud• 17 years ago

A startup offers services or products, some of which could be web apps.

A web app is another form of software distribution, via the web.

christonog• 17 years ago

Just to piggy bank onto your comment:

A start-up doesn't necessarily have to be a webapp or even in the technology space. I believe any new business that could disrupt the status quo in an industry to the benefit of customers could be called a startup. In it's early days, Dell was considered a startup because of its disruptive distribution system, not necessarily the technology.

I think the question should be more precise. What's an _internet_ startup and what's a webapp?

jmonegro• 17 years ago

They're independent from each other. A startup is young company/business offering a product or a service. A web app can be the service that a startup provides, which is why you see many web startups as web apps.

I can create a web app without making it a startup/business, and vice-versa.

wlievens• 17 years ago

A web app is a product. A startup is a business. A business can field one or more products or services in an attempt to make money. In the case when a startup has one main product, a web app, the terms are sometimes conflated (which I don't really like).

Ask HN: What's a startup and what's a web app?

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