Startup or Small Company?

"Small company" makes me think of an established company with less than 50 or so employees -- lean and mean -- yet turning a profit with little or no debt.

When I think of "startup," it makes me think of a company running on venture capital and/or some other debt, and still focusing mostly on R&D. Also, a "startup" may not have anything to do with the number of employees.

Agreement with first comment. Somewhere around 25 to 50 people things change. Between 100 and 250, depending on the company and type of business, things change again and you see a transition from small to medium company.

These aren't the classifications analysts use, I'm just thinking of the difference between what I've seen where...

a.) A startup is all about getting airborne, the back office practices and processes are all very much back of the napkin, ad hoc or even worse.

b.) When you move out of startup mode, you see the sustainability pieces come in, things like actual h.r., finance, office/logistics start to get attention. You see some actually efforts to become a repeatable/consistent environment.

c.) When you get to the next level, you're laughing at the your efforts to make things systematic in SmallCo mode, you're starting to actually get them right. Maybe you retain outside counsel to vet your HR manual, you have an outside auditor. Policies and governance start to take precedence over individuals and ad hockery.

A "startup" company indicates to me a question of viability. Once that question is removed, you have essentially become a "small" company. The size of the company is independent of this designation in my mind and as the need for more and more policies and procedures (or departmens as Grant mentioned) present themselves, you move out of the realm of startup.

self sustaining revenue and sustaining momentum in the sales cycle have to be proven in order to get out of startup and into small company mode.

Yes it’s definitely viability. Start-ups are funded, small companies are self sufficient.

You might be a small company if...

* ...the entire company cannot fit into the smallest conference room
* ...you purchase business cards for developers
* ...an email is sent to the entire company stating that "only business casual attire" is acceptable, then tries and fails to define what "business casual attire" means
* ...anyone in the company refers to the company CEO by anything other than his/her first name
* ...the company year-end party is somewhere other than someone's home or company lobby
* ...sleeping bags are bannished from the workplace

When you have more than 5 employees I believe you have progressed to a small company.