Is my startup still a startup?

Last week, MAGIC AI turned five. In startup terms, we’re no longer the new kid on the block. Our community recently passed 10,000 members, and earlier this year, we completely sold out stateside shortly after our launch there. That’s the sort of sentence I used to optimistically sneak into pitch decks and it still doesn’t feel quite real.

As I sat blowing out the candles (I’m kidding – although maybe we should get a cake?), a strange little thought crept in and refused to leave: am I still running a startup? Or has MAGIC AI quietly become the sort of company that startups are going into battle with?

I mulled it over one evening while thinking about my daughter’s life. Right now, she’s a “toddler, but soon she’ll be a “child” and then, terrifyingly, a “teenager.” And one day, she’ll be an “adult” with her own job, her own projects and hopefully, her own wonderful children. The milestones will happen every few years whether I’m ready for them or not.

But not one of them touches the only fact that actually matters: she’s my daughter. That bit doesn’t change, and she’ll never outgrow that, no matter how old she gets.

I think there’s a lesson in there. On paper, we’ve probably aged out of the word “startup”. For most people, I think it tends to conjure up images of a pre-revenue, pre-product business, with a few people with a dream in a room that smells faintly of instant noodles and burrito bowls. That’s not really us any more.

I guess you could say we’re a “scaleup” now, or a “growth-stage company,” or whatever new term is doing the rounds on LinkedIn this quarter.

But what I actually care about is whether we still behave like a startup. Does my team still have the autonomy to make big decisions themselves? Are we still filled with ambitious subject experts who love learning faster than is strictly comfortable? Can someone still walk into my office (fine, my corner of the room) with an ostensibly bonkers idea and get a “go on then, let’s try it”?

These are the kind of cultural artefacts of startup life that sometimes whither away after several grueling funding rounds and headcount increases.

Because the honest truth is that none of those things survive by accident. The bigger you get, the harder you have to fight for them. With growth comes caution, hierarchy, and that deadly little phrase, “that’s not how we do things.” I would have hated that phrase when I founded MAGIC AI, so a good chunk of my job now is simply to stay allergic to it.

So, is my startup still a startup? Technically, probably not. Honestly? It doesn’t matter. My daughter will reach a hundred different milestones as she grows up, and she’ll be entirely herself the whole way through.

I’d like MAGIC AI to be the same. Call us whatever you like, as long as we never lose the thing that made us worth starting in the first place.

This content is contributed by a guest author. Startups.co.uk / MVF does not endorse or take responsibility for any views, advice, analysis or claims made within this post.