This is an interesting perspective (via: John Nosta).
My take is the ‘C’ word which is often associated with businesses and when they stop being a startup.
But first, What exactly is a startup?
That difference is why there’s a distinct word, “startup,” for companies designed to grow fast. If all companies were essentially similar, but some through luck or the efforts of their founders ended up growing very fast, we wouldn’t need a separate word. We could just talk about super-successful companies and less successful ones (source)
For a company to be designed to grow fast, tech is ‘the’ enabler. Tech eventually gives you lot of customer data which feeds more ideas for growth.
Back home, take a look at Big Bazaar – what do they actually know about you? Vs. Flipkart/Amazon which knows what (and where) you did last summer.
Ditto with Meru and Ola/Uber.
So yeah, nobody kills anybody.
Just that some businesses tend to get ‘comfortable’ (that’s the ‘c’ word) in their zone and lose sense of the future (and growth).
Growing businesses are hungry. Always.
