Trends and Concepts of Startups

Trends and Concepts of Startups Definition of startup Similar to SMEs, there are quite a lot of definitions on startup. According to Eric Ries, the creator of Lean Startup Methodology, as well as the author of the popular entrepreneurship blog – Startup Lesson Learned, startup – in its essential nature, is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainties. The first thing to emphasize in this definition is that startup is a â€Å"human institution†, which means process, authority, or sometimes even idleness. They do not seem to be a part of startup. However, all sorts of stories about successful startups all over the world have institution lie somewhere in them, such as recruiting staff, coordinating their work, and creating the enterprise’s culture. Although some startups may conduct these activities radically, they are still the essential components for a successful startup. For the â€Å"human† part, we often neglect that the value of startup is not the product, technology, or the company’s confidential data. Even when the company only possesses one product, the value still lies in all the people and the organization that creates it. To be more specific, we can take a look at the major acquisitions of startups. In most cases, the important aspects of the original startup disappear, including brand, products or documents. The only thing that lasts is the â€Å"human† part. The novelty of the products or services delivered by the company is such an important yet complicated factor of the concept. Product, in its broadest meaning, encompasses any value for a set of people who voluntarily choose to be the customers. This stays true to any kind of startup, from packed products in a grocery store, an e-commerce website, a non-profit service or programs organized by the government. In all cases, the organization is establish to identify and deliver new value for the customers, as well as take care of the impact it brings to customers. The last important component of this definition is the background of innovation. Startups are made up to confront extreme uncertainties. To open a new business that is the exact clone of the original ones, focusing on the business model, targeted customers, pricing and products in most cases is a fascinating kind of investment. However, it is not a startup because its success depends loads on only good execution. That is why a small enterprise may get loan for capital from the bank with uncertainties and risks for the loan owner to assess its potential. In another research on startup and other relevant concepts, startup is a temporarily designed organization to search for a business model that is repeatable and scalable. Therefore, the supreme objective of a startup is not profit-making, customers-attracting or brand-developing. It is not that these factors are not important and should not be built in this stage, it is just that they are not as important. The objective of this stage is to experience and incessively alter the business model to develop one strong, practical and standardized model for growth and stability later. That is why MBA learners, CEOs or Directors from big corporations still may fail when facing a startup. Another relevant concept to startup is the advantages of it. Some people may think that obvious advantage is to have an extraordinary founder that has extremely creative ideas and technology no one else can copy from. Though having such founder is definitely a privilege for any startup, it is still not the core element. The core element here should be the startup culture. It is the culture that creates passion, elevates innovation potential, work efficiency and help founders stay true to their original targets. One clear example for this is the way Larry Page brings Google a distinctive kind of culture since the very beginning of the brand. The next relevant concept to startup is startup culture, as mentioned above. It is so hard defining exactly what startup culture is, but there are some features deciding the startup culture. That is the passion and determination to create a useful type of product for the society. According to Paul Graham, a well-known essayist, programmer, language designer and the co-founder of Viaweb, a â€Å"useful product† is the one that can make wealth for the creator of it. While to Guy Kawasaki, the chief evangelist of Apple and advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google, it is the product that can change the world. This helps the founders constantly make innovation, develop the products , but it carries a deeper meaning lying within, which is â€Å"helping the founders to keep an eye for technology, keeping technology and creativity above profit-making and creating wealth for themselves†. To choose the most important thing that makes startup culture, it would be the passio n to create truly valuable products. If the founders can spread this spirit to their co-workers, the startup will surely be successful. Innovation is the best field for anyone who wants to start their own business. The innovation market, compared to other markets, is the least unfairly competitive market. To conclude, almost everyone in this world has that startup dream, but no everyone is daring enough to create opportunities and determination for themselves to make that dream come true. Measures for startups Researchers on economics have long been established different indexes and criteria to measure the success of an enterprise. Some are used more frequent than others. In the scope of this thesis, some popular indexes used for assessing the success of a startup. Internal/Economic Rate of Return The internal rate of return (IRR) is the rate of return used in capital budgeting to measure and compare the profitability of an investment. IRR is often used to calculate the potential of a project or investment. The higher the IRR, the more desirability it is. In theory, a firm should undertake all investments that have IRR rate higher than the cost of capital. In a case that the investment is considered by an enterprise that has shareholders, the minimum rate is the cost of capital. This ensures the project to be supported by the equity holders since such project would add more value to the company. Another use of IRR is to compare capital projects. For instance, a startup firm may consider between launching a new type of product or expanding the market of the existing product. They can use IRR to compare the feasibility of these two projects. The one that has IRR higher than the cost of capital proves itself to be effective. However, the company should invest in the project with higher IRR as it appears to add more value to the company than the other. Thirdly, IRR is also useful in evaluating stock buyback programs. Apparently, if a company joins in a stock buyback program, it must proves that its stocks is a better investment than others’, Therefore, they often use IRR as a trustworthy index for this matter. In terms of calculation, IRR is the â€Å"annualized effective compound rate† that makes the net present value of all cash flows in that particular investment equal to zero. This calculation is simple and easy to conduct, so it is widely used by investors and firm runners in the world Despite its strengths, IRR still has drawbacks. The biggest drawback of this index is that it only measures the effectiveness of one single project at a time, but not used to rate mutually exclusive projects. For example, if a project has lower IRR than another, but has higher NPV, it should thus be accepted over the second project, assuming that there is no capital constraint. Also, IRR should not be used to compare projects with different duration. For example, the project with higher NPV but lower IRR could be greater than that of the project with similar size, in terms of net cash flow. Return on equity Return on equity (ROE) is the amount of net income returned as the percentage of shareholders’ equity. ROE reflects the effectiveness on operation of a company by calculating how much money returned by 1 unit of money that the shareholders have invested. The equation for ROE is as below: ROE = net income/shareholders’ equity High ROE yields do not guarantee immediate profits. Since stock price is mostly influenced by earning per share, a company with 20% ROE costs twice as much as the one with 10% per share (in book value) However, the ROE model can contain some underlying problems. If the investors are not cautious enough, it can distort the basic principles of economics and lead to terrible consequences. The company may have to resort to the financial strategy to maintain artificially a good ROE ratio and hide decreasing business performance. Rising investment levels and the acquisition of shares by support from hoarding cash resources can help maintain the companys ROE ratio even when the operating profit is reduced. Competitive pressure is increasing plus artificially low interest rates, as characterized in the recent several decades, has created motivation to mount these strategies and stabilize the psychology of investors. Overload debt investment becomes a burden for the company as the market demand for the companys product categories tend to change, as many companies discovered during the current economic downturn. It actually creates risk to a company in difficult times. Return on Assets Return on Assets (ROA) is an often overlooked but indeed one of the most effective indexes in measuring the success of an investment. It can avoid the distortion created by business strategies. ROA is an indicator of how profitable a company is in relation to its asset. To be more specific, it measures the total profit a company can make when it has one unit of asset. ROA gives an idea of how effective the management is with its assets. The calculation is fairly simple, which is illustrated as below: ROA = net income/total asset Obviously, ROA has calculated the amount of property to be used to support the business activities. This index determines whether the company can generate large enough a rate of return on net assets than simply show that the rate of profit on sales. Those companies that own a large amount of properties need a higher level of net income to support operations than those that own less property. Many companies use external resources for production and logistics operation from many specialized providers in an attempt to depend less on assets. These assets do not disappear they simply shift from a company to the next. However, in nature, even the business type that depends less on assets has limited number of liquid assets and needed fixed assets to continue with business operation. Using ROA as a primary measure of effectiveness has quickly attracted the attention of the managers on the necessary assets to maintain business operations. The senior managers today have more freedom to manage external resources of the assets and business activities related to the more specialized companies. Trends of startups nowadays According to investors, economists and business associates around the world, the startup trend is something that continuously changing and evolving, which leads to the fact that it is almost impossible to predict the trend in the next upcoming years. However, in recent years, people have noticed a clear pattern of startup, which is to shift from â€Å"wall and brick†, also known as physical business to technology – related startups. Some startup giants like Google, HP, Facebook†¦ are all technology – related. This is quite understandable since innovation and technology is something that is original and hard to copy from. Also, in a world that people are already filled in with their basic needs, they need something to elevate the quality of life, something that satisfies the higher level of needs. Below are some examples of increasing startup trends nowadays Virtual reality: This is the dream of all technology and science fiction addict. This innovation almost seems unreal. However, with the help of Moore’s Law and the rapid improvement of processors and accelerometers, it will come true in the near future. Software for enterprises: Scott Weiss – partner of Andreessen Horowitz – a famous venture capital firm – one said: â€Å"2015 is the year that firms need to thrive a lot to fit in the â€Å"hide and seek† game, which means they must be fully aware that the demand for customers to communicate with the enterprises via software or applications is increasing. Therefore, apart from the hardware, the companies now need software with user-friendly design, layout and usage, especially on the mobile version. Machine learning and big data: In recent years, machine learning and big data have become common terms in the technology industry. Differ from the past, when questions like â€Å"How many red shoes have been sold in Kentucky?† were asked and analyzed, nowadays, we need to answer questions like â€Å"How many red shoes will be sold in Kentucky?†. And these questions will be responded with the help of these technology. The machine learning will not work separately, but they have connection via applications. There will be no functions standing alone, and ultimately, we can use it as prediction device. Full-stack startup: Full-stack is a relatively new term to the market. It is how the company knows and implements the whole process. Apple makes a perfect example of this as it makes its own chips, apps and retail stores. For startups, Uber is considered full-stack. Instead of selling software as an add-on, they build the whole service using the modern software. Containers: Containers is not any new, they have been around for ages, but their popularity rises for a few reasons. Since Windows is no longer the data center, containers can run on other data system. Another reason is the â€Å"microservices† app is rising, and these apps are especially suitable for containers because they are discrete pieces that can scale independently. Digital health: Some kinds of medicine as well as health equipment are now manufactured by people with no medical license. The mobile medical data system is like a container for all diagnoses and test results of the patients, just like Apple’s Healthkit. All these histories are not necessarily â€Å"big data†, it can never be tracked or cross-correlated before. When technology like Healthkit receive support, millions of software technicians can build top applications based on data but not affect the privacy of the device’s owners. Online market: The online markets like eBay or Craigslist have achieved great success, However, the trend of related startup would likely be businesses that provides niche services that can be found on Craigslist, like cab sharing or sublets. This is the marketplaces where customers can find more customized services, like Instacart or Glamsquad. Security: In 2014, there are numerous recorded security faults, such as: information leakage of Sony, security breach in Target, hacked personal photo on iCloud that leads to reveal nude photos of many celebrities†¦ That makes people suffer from privacy issue. Therefore, it is no surprise that security and privacy are trends for startups in 2015. If the companies can provide services which identify how and when personal information is breached and lock all â€Å"data† to prevent severe damages, it would be amazing. Bitcoin: Bitcoin – invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, is an online payment system. The system works based on a peer-to-peer basis, which means that users can transact directly without using an intermediary. Bitcoin works differently from other typical monetary units. There is no central bank that manages and it only depends on other Internet websites. Balaji Srinivasan – a Stanford academic and co-founder of a genetic-testing company called Counsyl, said that bitcoin is relatively new, so it is likely to be adopted and increased significantly in 2015. Also, he pointed out that we could expect new payment apps to develop for bitcoin, and we should consider them infrastructure. Crowdfunding: Crowdfunding is a popular term nowadays, even in Vietnam. It is basically a business investment or model that receives funds from the general public. With smartphones as platform, we can not only access to crowdfunding platforms wherever we want, whenever we want but also access to the crowd itself to get the funds. To sum up, there are myriad of trends involving startups nowadays. Above are only ten typical trends, which means there are many more to count. People will no longer struggle to find out a way to start their own business. For the government, if they can predict trends in the upcoming years, it is likely for them to come up with a suitable set of policies to support startups.

Thoughts on Love Dating and Marriage

There are many different thoughts about dating, love and marriage. I had the pleasure of interviewing six co-workers from different lifestyle regarding their views on these matters. I will compare their thoughts with the theories of love and attachment. The social science theories that help us understand the components and processes of love include attachment theory, Reiss’s wheel theory of love, Sternberg’s triangular theory of love, Lee’s research on the styles of loving, and exchange theories. Many people perceive marriage as an important occasion in their lives, while others take marriage for granted and not that serious. Do people just hate each other after a while? What happens when the vows are in place, do people get too relax into their real selves? Or is it just unrealistic today? Dan a Gay Caucasian 43 yr. old male feels that marriage is fading away. He doesn’t know if people understand what they are entering into, rather it is love or lust. Dan feels that these idealistic dreams often sweep people off of their feet and then in a few years or less – Reality Hits – Ouch! Marriage is no longer a bringing together of a family, business or wealth. † It is actually based on this strange concept called love and with the concept of family to some people. Families are not the stable, strong and the dominant group that is shaping the young. â€Å"Families are unstable and weak however bonds are weaker. † As far as Gay marriages goes Dan fee ls that it should be legal and that it should not be called or treated and different than a marriage. Even though the church doesn’t rule the populace anymore Dan feels that marriage should be a legal coupling and not a religious coupling. Then he yelled â€Å"WHY DON’T PEOPLE STOP SAYING MARRIAGE IS SOME SACRED INSTITUTION THAT CANNOT BE DARKENED BY THE EVIL GAYS. WITH THE DIVORCE RATE THAT WE HAVE, the agreement that marriage is some sacred institution just rings hollow. Dan feels that an arranged marriage seems to last longer than marriage of choice and that people seem to grow to love each other that are put together by religion or family. However he will never support the mandating of an arranged marriage. Dan was heartbroken over premarital sex due to people not being responsible and protecting themselves. It saddened him to think about the many unwanted babies and the quantity of single mothers that we have in the economy today. These children and mothers are really being robbed of the American Dream. Dan believes that some people can find love on the internet the same way that his mom found her soul mate there. He believes that everyone should be happy. Next I interviewed three Caucasian women, Marcie a29yr old woman divorced once and remarried again with one child by the second marriage. Nikki, divorce twice and she is single mother of two with one child that diagnosed as being autistic. Then there is Kaitlyn a 22yr old white bisexual lady. Even though these women came from different beliefs and lifestyles their opinions on these issues were pretty much the same. They believe that choosing a lover, a husband and a partner is based on one’s personality and the way that they were raised. All three believes that people should live together before getting married. Nikki and Marcie do not believe in open marriages and feels that an open marriage allows each other to cheat and be with someone else. Kaitlyn on the other hand feel that an individual can love more than one person. She is all for open marriages. It’s funny, but all three women have found their recent husband or lover on the internet. They seem to be happy and would recommend internet dating to their friends. Marcie and Kaitlyn believe in premarital sex while Nikki is still deep-rooted by some of her family beliefs which are not to have sex until married. As you can see love is beyond constraints in these women lives. Last but not least there is Craig and Shon. Craig is a 52yr old Caucasian male and Shon is a 40year old African American. Both men were married and are now divorce with children in their twenties. Soon these men will be moving in with their girlfriend of three years. Even though open marriages are not for them, Craig believes in â€Å"What floats your boat. † While Shon showed a little jealously about the situation. He feels that people should not play with emotions because when he is with someone he is with that person. In these men lives, they believe that marriage is the act of a physical union. They have free choice over arranged marriages even if cultural differences play a role in certain marriages. They support two people who have a bond to be able to have their marriage recognized by the state and church. In their eyes Gay marriages is a civil rights movement and have no complaints about a person who wants to stay single. It’s your choice and whatever floats your boat. Just live life and be happy. Even though I have not talked about the theories one on one in this report one can see that all theories applied to every person that was interviewed. However I will explain each theory the way that our text clarified it. Attachment theory proposes that our primary motivation in life is to be connected with other people because this is the only true security we will ever have. The Attachment theory comes in three different styles. * Secure style: I find it easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depends on me. I don’t often worry about being abandoned or about someone get-ting too close to me. * Avoidant style: I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely and to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close and when lovers want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being. Anxious/ ambivalent style: Others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or won’t want to stay with me. I want to merge completely with another person, and this desire sometimes scares people away. Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love According to Sternberg, the mix of intimacy, passion, and commitment can vary from one relation-ship to another. Relationships thus range from nonlove, in which all three components are absent, to consummate love, in which all the elements are present. Intimacy encompasses feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bonding. * Passion leads to romance, physical attraction, and sexual consummation. * Decision/ commitment have a short- and a long-term dimension. In the short term, partners make a decision to love each other; in the long term, they make a commitment to maintain that love over time. Lee’s Styles of Loving According to Lee, there are six basic styles of loving: Eros, mania, ludus, storge, agape, and pragma, all of which overlap and may vary in intensity * Eros means love of beauty. Because it is also characterized by powerful physical attraction, eros epitomizes â€Å"love at first sight. † This is the kind of love, often described in romance novels, in which the lovers experience palpitations, light-headedness, and intense emotional desire. Erotic lovers want to know everything about each other— what she or he dreamed about last night and what happened on the way to work today. They often like to wear matching T- shirts and matching colors, to order the same foods when dining out, and to be identified with each other as totally as possible. MANIA Characterized by obsessiveness, jealousy, possessiveness, and intense dependency, mania may be expressed as anxiety, sleeplessness, and loss of appetite, headaches, and even suicide because of real or imagined rejection by the desired person. Manic lovers are consumed by thoughts of their beloved and have an insatiable need for attention and signs of affection. Mania is often associated with low self- es teem and a poor self- concept. As a result, manic people typically are not attractive to individuals who have a strong self- concept and high self- esteem. LUDUS is carefree and casual love that is considered â€Å"fun and games. † Ludic lovers often have several partners at one time and are not possessive or jealous, primarily because they don’t want their lovers to become dependent on them. Ludic lovers have sex for fun, not emotional rapport. In their sexual encounters, they are typically self- centered and may be exploitative because they do not want commitment, which they consider â€Å"scary. † * STORGE is a slow-burning, peaceful, and affectionate love that comes with the passage of time and the enjoyment of shared activities. Storgic relationships lack the ecstatic highs and lows that characterize some other styles. Sociologist Ira Reiss and his associates proposed a â€Å"wheel theory† of love that generated much research for several decades. Reiss described four stages of love: rapport, self- revelation, mutual dependency, and personality need fulfillment. In the first stage, partners establish rapport based on cultural backgrounds with similar upbringing, social class, religion, and educational level. Without this rapport, according to Reiss, would- be lovers do not have enough in common to establish an initial interest. In the second stage, self- revelation brings the couple closer together. Because each person feels more at ease in the relationship, she or he is more likely to discuss hopes, desires, fears, and ambitions and to engage in sexual activities. In the third stage, as the couple becomes more intimate, the partners’ mutual dependency in-creases: They exchange ideas, jokes, and sexual desires. In the fourth and final stage, the couple experiences personality need fulfillment. The partners confide in each other, make mutual decisions, support each other’s ambitions, and bolster each other’s self- confidence. Like spokes on a wheel, these stages can turn many times that is, they can be repeated. For example, partners build some rapport, and then reveal bits of them, then build more rapport, then begin to exchange ideas, and so on. The spokes may keep turning to produce a deep and lasting relationship. Or, during a fleeting romance, the wheel may stop after a few turns. Information taken from Marriages & Families: Changes, Choices, and Constraints, Seventh Edition by Nijole V. Benokraitis My personal interviews with Nikki, Dan, Craig, Shon, Marcie and Kaitlyn.

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Child Abuse And Its Effects On Children - 1747 Words

Child Abuse No one ever thinks it will happen to them, or to anyone that they know. It is a tragic event that can be life changing. â€Å"More than four children die every day as a result of child abuse(AmericanSPCC,2015).† There are five main types of abuse and they are neglect, physical, sexual, emotional/psychological, and medical neglect. The most common one according to the American humane society is neglect with sixty-two point eight percent. â€Å"Boys and girls are equally likely to suffer maltreatment (American Humane, 2013).† It can happen to anyone it does not matter the gender. The ones who are most likely to abuse children or neglect them are their own parents. â€Å"According to NCANDS, in 2005, 79.4 percent of perpetrators were other†¦show more content†¦Many people may believe that people are lying about mental illnesses to get out of being in trouble, or people looking down on them. It is the easy way out of getting in trouble by saying that t he person was depressed. It does not take a scientist to be able to figure out how to fake depression. There are some cases where the abuser really does have a mental condition, in all cases though there is something really wrong. Is there any other way to really explain why someone would hurt a child? According to the Symbolic theory, the reason that parents would act in such a way is because that is how they grew up. Their parents are the ones who had most likely abused them and so that is how they associate raising a child should be. That was their model of how parenting should be. They figure that since they grew up that way that is how their kids should grow up and how their grandchildren should grow up. Now that is not always true; that is just how it would be according to the symbolic theory. According to the American SPCC, â€Å"researchers estimate that one-third of abused and neglected children will grow up to abuse their own children when they become adults (2015).† The symbolic theory does not necessary apply to all cases in this situation, but it does for about one-third and that is still a