Being new to the startup world, one often comes across various startups terms or jargons. Some of these words are often&nbsp; used in general conversion with our colleagues or friends or even in the news or social media.&nbsp;

With this ever growing rate of <a href="https://earthweb.com/how-many-startups-are-created-each-year/">startups launching every year</a>, it becomes difficult to keep track of these new terms. Don't worry, out of 100 most popular startup words we have created a list of 30 most popular ones. You can learn these quickly and start using in day-to-day conversations in the corporate.

Keep your notepad handy. Let's get started!

Decacorn is a term that is used for startups that have achieved
a ten billion dollar evaluation in total. Both Byju’s and OYO are
decacorn startups in India.


Dragon startups are those which raise funding of one 1 billion dollars
by investors in the first go. Famous startups like SpaceX, Airbnb and&nbsp;Epic Games are few such examples

A scalable business is one that can grow exponentially because of the
high demand for its products or services in the market. Such
businesses don’t require any hampering or push because it is already
in demand.&nbsp;

Valuation indicates the worth of a company. It is the combination of
the total assets of an organization. We need the valuation for
investment analysis, merger, acquisition, and financial reporting. There are many <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/business-valuation.asp">valuation methods</a> available to use, the choice generally depends on your business model and industry.

Value proposition refers to the value a company promises to deliver to
customers if they choose to buy their product. It can be presented as a
business or marketing statement that the company uses to
summarize why a consumer should buy a product or use a service. To
know more about how companies put forward their value proposition,
visit this blog.


Startups go through various funding rounds, which are periods during
which companies seek different types of funding. Funding rounds are
lumped into three groups: Series A, Series B, and Series C funding,
each corresponding with the stage of the company.


This term refers to the total market value of a company's outstanding
shares of stock. Outstanding shares are those shares that are held by
the public. It is calculated by multiplying the value of 1 share into the
total shares available in the market.


Incubators are basically organizations designed specifically to help
startups grow at the very initial stages. They can work for profit or on a
pro bono basis as well. Their objective is to train, fund, and mentor.
Other benefits include networking, working place or a subsidized
subscription to a service, software, or tool.


In order to motivate employees and ensure their long-term
commitment, startups give them stock options known as ESOPS. If a
startup offers Employee Stock Options it means that it is promising its
employees to sell them the stocks in the future at a discounted price
(can be free in some cases).


As soon as the cliff period is over the employees start getting ESOPS.
Once the exercise period begins the employees can convert these
ESOPs into shares of the company but at a discounted rate that was
mentioned in the contract. Generally, this price is quite lower than the
market price at that time.

A bubble occurs when a startup is over valued by its investors as
compared to the real market value of the company. Metrics like
price/earnings ratio and price/sales indicate whether there is a bubble
or not. To know more about how to identify a bubble refer to this
article.


Bootstrapping means running a startup only with your savings and no
other external source of investment. It could also include money
contributed from your family, friends, and relatives. It is also known as
a self-starting process, as an entrepreneur relies solely on his/her
finances.


In the 19th century, Bootstrapping meant "pulling up by one's own
bootstraps” and used to refer to an obviously impossible feat. Later, it
became a metaphor for achieving success with no outside assistance.


As the name suggests, ARPU (avg. revenue per user) refers to the
amount of money that a company can expect to generate from an
individual customer. This is generally used by subscription-based
services such as OTT platforms, media channels and
telecommunication companies. ARPU is sometimes the most
important matrix to predict/calculate the profitability of a business.


Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a metric that tells how much a
company spends on an individual to turn into a paying customer.
CAC considers all the costs that directly contribute to acquiring a
customer, including marketing costs.


To sell a product or service, we need efforts in sales and marketing. To
focus our resources we need to use customer segmentation. It is the
process of dividing our most relevant target audience, who would be
interested in purchasing or products or services, into different groups
based on age, location, interests, values, and personality traits.


Growth hacking is a marketing strategy that a startup uses in its initial
stage to grow its business in a short time, using inexpensive solutions
like social media. The primary reason for Growth Hacking is to expand
the existing customer base at the fastest pace possible with the use of
a minimum budget possible.


Getting the right customers is hard for any new business. That is why
most startups adopt a pricing strategy, such as Freemium, which
unlocks most of the features or services to the public. However, there
are other rich features, which are available to people after paying
some price.

This method is now commonly used by <a href="https://www.digitalmediastream.co.uk/blog/10-saas-companies-who-rocked-the-freemium-model">SAAS companies</a> to acquire new customers and increase their market penetration.

Gamification is the technique of adding game mechanics into nongame
environments, like a website or online community to increase
participation. The goal of gamification is to engage with consumers,
employees and partners to inspire collaboration, sharing and interaction.
Google Pay Go India Game.

A go-to-market strategy refers to a tactical action plan that outlines the
steps necessary to succeed in a new market or with a new customer. It
can apply to pretty much anything, from launching new products and
services, to re-launching your company or brand or even moving a
current product into a new market.


KPIs, abbr. for Key performance indicators, are the metrics used by
startups and organizations to check whether a company is meeting its
business goals effectively. Depending on a company's objectives, they
can define their KPIs. For example, Monthly New User Acquisition can
be used by a startup as an effective KPI for its marketing efforts.

It takes a lot of deliberations to i<a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/choosing-kpis">dentify the right KPI </a>for your firm

For a business, the Market Penetration rate tells the reach of its
products in the relevant market, compared to the approximate
merchandise for such products. It is calculated in percentages.


Network Effect is an effect created when a good or service becomes
more valuable with more engagement.


A Revenue Model is a business plan focused on generating revenue.
With the help of the revenue model, startups strategize various
revenue sources. There are many <a href="https://thestartuplab.in/revenue-models-for-startups-how-can-startups-generate-revenue-in-early-stages/">revenue models</a>, which are
implemented depending on the size of the business. The most
common in use today is ad-based.

A mind map is essentially a diagram used to visually organize
information, designed to help businesses improve brainstorming
sessions, as well as collaboration and communication. A mind map can
be used by businesses to brainstorm thoughts and ideas organically.


An Elevator Pitch is a short, brief, and persuasive sales pitch delivered
at an event to engage listeners with the objectives of your
organization. A perfect sales pitch lasts from 30 to 60 seconds. The
goal of this is to gather a user base for your products or raise funds.

For a given period, the churn rate takes into account the percentage
of paying users that you are losing. This term is also used in the
Human Resources Department to refer to the rate at which employees
are leaving the company.


After Alpha Testing, there comes Beta Testing. In this type of testing,
the startup creates a basic version of their product, including the
changes made from the feedback received from Alpha testing, and
then the product is given to a small sample customer base. However,
the product is not yet fully launched into the market. The idea is to get
the first exposure to the actual market scenario.


At an initial stage of a startup, the burn rate refers to the rate at which
a company spends its funds to finance overhead before generating
positive cash flow from operations. It is a measure of negative cash
flow. It is measured by cash spent per month.


All senior-level executives in a company come under the C level
umbrella. They work together closely, making sure the company runs
perfectly and follows the established rules and policies. CEO, CFO,
COO, and CIO come under C level.


Making decisions can often be difficult but, diagrams and charts make
it easy by highlighting the statistical probabilities of each action. These
diagrams are called decision tree because of their resemblance with a
plant that can be outlined as a straight diagram that branches out.

Soonicorn is a startup slang, not an actual word, used to refer to those
startups that have the potential of becoming a unicorn. To view a list
of startups who recently became unicorns in India visit here.

(Following startup words might not be the most popular ones but can be super interesting to know and use in a conversation)

A serial entrepreneur is someone who generates business ideas quickly and puts them into action. He/she opens new businesses continuously, one after another. This individual is good at multitasking and networking.

Ramen Profitable is a startup term that indicates that profits generated from your business are enough to pay your bills and living expenses. However, it doesn't mean that a company is successful.

Where did the term come from? Well, you probably guessed it right. Ramen noodles are considered an affordable food item all over the world-here it signifies basic requirements. How about if we use Maggie Profitable in Indian context.

When a startup fails to generate revenue and gets out of funds, but it manages to build an excellent working force and technology, other corporations can acquire its employees and technology, leaving out the services and products of the startup. This process is called Acqui Hired.

Unicorpse is a former unicorn - a startup having a value of more than $1 billion. Snapdeal, a fashion brand, was a Unicorpse.

Hope you found the list to be interesting and useful. Don't forget to share it with your friends and colleagues.

If you want us to cover more terms please drop it in the comments below.

To dive deeper into more such terms, you can download our Free Guide on Startup Vocabulary with 100 most used terms.&nbsp;

Some of the the more terms covered in the ebook are:&nbsp;

To avoid getting confused with startup terms, we give you a list of over 100 startup jargons that you must know before joining a startup or launching one.

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