I don't understand, "startups" are an industry in their own?
Would a food delivery startup not be in the food service industry? A logistics startup not be in the logistics industry?
Some, but not necessarily all of the following apply:
1) Younger people
2) Educated (can be self taught)
3) College grads or dropped out of college to do a startup
4) Have more to gain than to lose by participating in a startup. (Little assets, [1] not leaving a traditional job but perhaps going from another "startup")
5) Working primarily with other people's money
6) Has the interest and/or money of "angels" "Vc's" or "incubators".
7) Doing something that could get big and stands a high chance of failure. (In other words, not starting an Italian restaurant that's going to be a single location sauce and cheese place)
8) Located or able to travel and possibly relocate to a place that startups are typically. (Silicon Valley, NYC or the other hubs..)
What am I missing? (Please fill in the other things I am almost certainly forgetting).
[1] Unless they have family money or have done a previous startup where they hit the pay window.
However the reason I used "definition" was because what comes to mind with SCOTUS and porn,[1] that is "we know it when we see it" in a sense that it can't really be defined in the traditional sense and probably never will be.
Team composition is literally irrelevant.
Nassim Taleb makes a similar argument about size. He says that small things and big things of the same type are more different than they are the same. They should be grouped by size rather than by their nature.