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Entrepreneurship & Startups vocabulary · Pivots, Failure & Exits

Shut down

Meaning in entrepreneurship & startups, with examples

phrasal verbCommon term

In entrepreneurship & startups, shut down means: To close a company or product and stop operating, usually because it has run out of money or the business is not working.

In Turkish: kapatmak, faaliyetlerine son vermek, şirketi kapatmak

How it is used

Founders shut down a company, a product or a service. The noun is shutdown, written as one word. Shutting down well means paying staff and suppliers, returning any remaining money to investors and closing the company legally.

Example sentences

  1. We decided to shut down the company after the last two investors said no.

  2. The startup shut down its delivery service but kept the software business.

Common collocations

  • shut down the company
  • shut down a product
  • wind down
  • shutdown costs
  • pivotTo change a basic part of your business, such as the product, the customer group or the way you make money, because the original plan is not working.
  • post-mortemA review done after a project, launch or company has ended, especially after a failure, to understand what went wrong and what can be learned.
  • runwayThe number of months a startup can keep operating before its cash runs out, usually calculated as cash in the bank divided by monthly net burn.
  • fail fastThe idea of testing ideas quickly and cheaply so that you find out early what does not work and can stop or change direction before wasting time and money.

More terms: Pivots, Failure & Exits

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