For instance, big companies like Uber are start-ups too. So is Airbnb. These are companies ruling the world, but call themselves startups.
I'm not quite sure if Airbnb can still be called a start-up, but I catch your drift.
Well, a start-up stops being a start-up once it has discovered a repeatable business model. The key word here is repeatable.
When it stops taking money from venture capital and starts generating it's own profits.
Mev-Rael
Executive Product Leader & Mentor for High-End Influencers and Brands @ mevrael.com
Startup means high scale business with the aim to build new technology and/or test new business model at the beginning. Beginning where you have nothing, you only loose and stress a lot, you are not sure what do you do, what works and what doesn't.
As soon as you returned investors all the money (ROI) in at least x3 amount and you have profitable business, e.g.
you are no more a startup.
At the end it depends on your own definition of a startup. There is no clear standard of what startup is. If startup for you means keep moving forward, changing yourself and innovating, then you may be a startup forever.