[pg]

I don't know what you're doing, but consulting is not the only way to have limited growth prospects. A company could also be making a product for a niche market (and not be doing it merely as a way to get started engaging with users). I believe some people call these niche software companies MicroISVs.

[netcan]

I think you need to start qualifying 'startup'a little more, particularly when the topic tends towards hair splitting.

It looks like the definition a lot of people use is one that includes your startup as a subset.

I find it so frustrating reading through threads like this that get all bogged down in semantic nitpicking. It also opens a door to a particularly annoying type of quasi-trolling or baiting. Maybe 'startups that exit' or something

[pg]

I've found the best strategy (as with most words) is just to use the word the way it's used in standard, educated usage.

In standard usage, a startup does not mean any newly created company. It means a newly created company designed to scale dramatically. Most of the 20 million businesses in the US are not startups, because they aren't designed to scale. They're either service businesses or niche product businesses.