Garagista

New word for the day #9564

A Garagista is a Gen Y entrepreneur that either wants to, or has founded a start-up.

Typically these will focus on disintermediating some existing service such as pizza delivery or football coaching using a web-based app.

The business so formed will have a website and an app.

They will tell investors that there is a big data opportunity lurking in the background in addition to the revenue they can earn from directly providing their almost free services.

They will self-fund the original alpha versions of their app and then seek investment to take over the global market.

There will be no new technology developed in their efforts; they will use off-the-shelf software tools for all their product development.

They will join an incubator with a hot desk environment.

On Friday afternoons they will drink 2 or 3 craft or imported beers (sometimes from Mexico) with all the other garagistas and maybe they will chuck around a nerf ball or play foosball.

Apple Macs and iPhones will dominate their personal device choices.

They will dream of becoming the next Uber or Facebook but most likely will go out of business or create a revenue stream suitable for near poverty-like existence.

Although garagistas will likely never go near a garage for any purpose other parking a car, the term garagista derives from the urban myth that start-ups are formed on the cheap by the use of a parent’s garage for free real estate.

The cheap real estate option of the garage has now been replaced by the incubator space. Although not as cheap as a garage, an incubator comes complete with a mutual appreciation society and avoids the issues associated with parents having to park their car on the street.

Just for completeness, the first genuine tech start-up was started by Hewlett and Packhard in one of their parent’s garage in Palo Alto in 1938.

It is highly likely that Hewlett and Packhard would have joined an incubator had one existed at the time.