[mindcrime]

You can be an entrepreneur today and a startup founder tomorrow, or both at the same time, or just a startup founder.

I don't exactly agree with this distinction between "startup founder" and "entrepreneur". What I mean is, I think "startup founders" are a subset of "entrepreneurs". So while you can clearly be an entrepreneur without being a startup founder, I don't see how you can be a startup founder and not be an entrepreneur.

That said, I think I agree with the overall point that I think swombat was making, regarding the different "paths" a business can take: take VC money, plan on being scalable, go for the moonshot, etc., versus looking for profitability early on, and choosing organic growth, and a slow, steady progression.

That bit is definitely an important distinction, and founders (of all ilks) should think about it. But I don't quite think it maps to "entrepreneur" versus "startup founder" from a terminology point of view. But that's just me and my biases.

It also strikes me that you aren't committed to one "path" forever. A company could, theoretically, start with the "slow and steady" approach, self-fund / bootstrap, grow slowly while seeking product /market fit, business model validation, etc. and then, once the foundation is laid, go out and look to raise VC money or private equity money to accelerate growth to the "big time".

[swombat]

Having observed quite a lot of startup founders at incubators, networking events, and of course online, I think there definitely are "startup founders" who are not entrepreneurs. They are looking for a job that happens to be CEO of their own startup, rather than to create a business that meets a need and makes some money.

Totally agree with your other points though - you can shift from one path to the other, and back, both as a person and as a business. As a person, I myself was certainly a "startup founder" on my first two startups, as I considered myself a startup founder and entrepreneurial but I actually had zero clue about how to create a business.

It's only when I started GrantTree, and I took on the role of creating all the pieces of the business around my cofounder's sales abilities, that I learned to be an entrepreneur. Before that, I had a job whose title was "cofounder". My thesis is that's the case for many "startup founders".

PS: We can of course disagree on this, and that doesn't make your or my opinion any less, but just thought I'd restate in case I was unclear.

[mindcrime]

PS: We can of course disagree on this, and that doesn't make your or my opinion any less, but just thought I'd restate in case I was unclear.

Sure, I don't even think we disagree about much. I'm really just quibbling about terminology, and - as you mentioned - people are constantly arguing about the exact definition of terms like "entrepreneur" and "startup" etc.

I will just add that I haven't met a lot of the kind of people you talk about here:

I think there definitely are "startup founders" who are not entrepreneurs. They are looking for a job that happens to be CEO of their own startup, rather than to create a business that meets a need and makes some money.

which may come down to geography, or maybe I do meet those people but they don't register because I mentally filter them out very quickly, or whatever. But now that you word it that way, I can see how you could reasonably talk about a "startup founder" who isn't really an entrepreneur.

As a person, I myself was certainly a "startup founder" on my first two startups, as I considered myself a startup founder and entrepreneurial but I actually had zero clue about how to create a business.

I know the feeling. Before I read The Art of the Start and The Four Steps to the Epiphany I had only the very, very vaguest of notions of exactly how to go from "I have an idea" to "I have a business". Luckily, between those books, and a lot of great articles linked here at HN (and very pointedly, a lot of yours, swombat!) I think I now have a reasonable idea of what it takes to turn the idea into a business. Now, we might still fail for any number of reasons, but at least we're not just stumbling around in the dark.

And, for what it's worth, we are currently going with the bootstrapped, "try to be profitable as as early as possible" model. These days, I try to frame most of my decision making in terms of "What is the most important thing I can do right now, in terms of getting to revenue"? (And no, posting here isn't contributing much to that goal, but everybody needs an outlet of some sort now and then, besides work!)