We've all noticed it: every profession, every field of endeavor, every industry seems to have its own
unique language, its own special vocabulary. And if you're not from that particular field or haven't been
trained in that discipline, you find yourself on the outside looking in. You know the feeling: even though
everyone else in the room is speaking English, the strange words make it sound like a foreign language –
as if they're communicating in code, and you're the only one in the room who wasn't issued the secret
decoder ring. We think of this phenomenon as Secret Code Syndrome (SCS) – don't worry, it's not fatal.
We encounter Secret Code Syndrome in fields ranging from medicine to the military, from journalism to
jazz, from insurance to information technology. But one of the worst culprits of all is the field of business,
and in particular entrepreneurship – that is, starting new businesses from scratch.
At CompanyCrafters, we think that's silly. We understand that the vast majority of new businesses are
launched by people who have deep expertise in and a passion for their particular field – say, wireless
networking, or construction materials, or healthcare software, or graphics design – while 99 percent of
those founders do not come equipped with an MBA degree or years of previous startup experience.
As serial entrepreneurs ourselves, we've already been through the drill and picked up the "secret code" of
startup businesses. And, because our mission in life at CompanyCrafters is to apply our "useful scar
tissue" to help others plan and launch great new businesses – whether from under the corporate umbrella
or as stand-alone ventures – we thought we'd clear the air. So we created The CompanyCrafters
Entrepreneur's Dictionary to lay out a guide to business terminology for everyone in the startup game:
entrepreneurs, startup executives, service providers, corporate new-business-development specialists,
university tech-transfer professionals, inventors and anyone else considering launching a new venture.
So congratulations: You've just been issued your entrepreneurship "secret decoder ring." Here's to
successful venturing!
James D. Price
Founding Partner, CompanyCrafters
and
Adjunct Lecturer of Entrepreneurial Studies
Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan, 2006
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