Start-up is a mythical world designed to imprison and deceive. It is used by those that claim to be expert as justification to get paid without providing truly measurable results.
Start-up Guru's abound. Most encourage cycles of action that DO NOT lead to cash flow. Thereby avoiding any assessment of their true worth. Postponing sales in deference to an extended Branding campaign, is one common ploy. Pay them money with no expected monetary return. By the time you find out that the branding exercise was worthless, they'll have been paid and long gone.
Spending money on structuring for "start-up" instead of structuring for "success" is worse than wasted cycles of action it is actually a negative impact.
Use this standard when discussing "Start-up": Everything before cash-flow.
Until you make your first sale you are a start-up. But once you prove that your product or service has market value, everything changes. The problem is that many of the failed businesses that crashed and burned after their first flare up was because they stayed in Start-up mode too long.