A company that is in the first stage of its operations. These companies are often initially bank rolled by their entrepreneurial founders as they attempt to capitalize on developing a product or service for which they believe there is a demand. Due to limited revenue or high costs, most of these small scale operations are not sustainable in the long term without additional funding from venture capitalists.
In the late 1990s, the most common type of startup company was a dotcom. Venture capital was extremely easy to obtain during that time due to a frenzy among investors to speculate on the emergence of these new types of businesses. Unfortunately, most of these internet startups eventually went bust due to major oversights in their underlying business plans, such as a lack of sustainable revenue.
However, there were a handful of internet startups that did survive when the dotcom bubble burst. Internet bookseller Amazon.com and internet auction portal eBay are examples of such companies.