David Cummings on Startups

Boutique vs Lifestyle Business

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David Cummings

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There was a meme a few months ago where people were trying to come up with a better term than lifestyle business to describe a non Venture-backed startup company that could scale. Last week, I was reminded of this when I talked to an entrepreneur and she described her company as a boutique services provider, and said her aspirations were to work for herself and not get big. Boutique businesses often get overlooked in the technology world.

Now that I think about it, I can name several entrepreneurs, in technology, that run boutique businesses and love it. They are some of the more successful and passionate people I know. My advice for entrepreneurs is to think hard about boutique businesses, generally with no employees, vs a lifestyle business, with employees and more visions of organically-grown grandeur when thinking through what they want to be as a company.

Comments

4 responses to “Boutique vs Lifestyle Business”

  1. Craig Johnson Avatar
    Craig Johnson

    I was thinking through different business models recently and someone said that you are either:
    1. an innie (work in the business and close it down when you’re done)
    2. an outie (get it to a point, and get out/sell)
    3. a passer (pass the business on to someone else internally)

    That helped my thinking.

    Reply
    1. davidcummings Avatar
      davidcummings

      Thanks Craig. I hadn’t heard that before but I like that thinking as a way to describe it.

      Reply
  2. Paul Freet Avatar
    Paul Freet

    Why do we need a name? There are Venture-backed startups and startups. The normal MO for creating a startup is to build a product, get customers, repeat. We don’t a special name for it. Venture-backed startups are the outlier.

    Reply
    1. davidcummings Avatar
      davidcummings

      Thanks Paul. I agree VC-backed startups are the outlier and don’t need a special name.

      Reply

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