Business Glossary
Plain-English definitions of business, finance, legal, and crypto terms — from Business Dog. No jargon, no gatekeeping, occasional jokes.
A
- Angel InvestorA wealthy individual who invests their own money into early-stage businesses.
B
- B2BBusiness-to-Business — selling products or services to other businesses.
- B2CBusiness-to-Consumer — selling directly to individual people.
- Bear MarketA period when prices are falling and pessimism dominates.
- BootstrappingFunding a business from your own pocket and its own revenue, instead of taking outside investment.
- Break-Even PointThe level of sales where you stop losing money and start making it — revenue exactly equals costs.
- Bull MarketA period when prices are rising and optimism is high.
- Burn RateHow fast a business spends money it hasn't earned yet, usually measured per month.
- BusinessAn organization or activity that provides goods or services in exchange for money.
- Business Bank AccountA dedicated bank account for your business, kept strictly separate from personal money.
- Business Email CompromiseBEC — a scam where fraudsters impersonate a trusted party by email to redirect a real payment.
- Business ModelThe specific way a business makes money.
C
- Cash FlowThe actual timing of money entering and leaving your account — which is not the same as whether you're profitable.
- Customer Acquisition CostCAC — how much it costs, on average, to get one new paying customer.
D
- Dark PatternA user-interface trick designed to nudge you into choices you didn't mean to make.
- DEXA decentralized exchange — trade crypto peer-to-peer with no company in the middle.
- DividendA share of a company's profits paid out to shareholders.
- Due DiligenceActually checking something before committing money to it, rather than deciding you like it.
E
- EBITDAEarnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization — a measure of core operating profit.
- EINAn Employer Identification Number — a free federal tax ID for your business.
- EquityOwnership in a company — the share you actually hold, and what would be left if everything were sold and every debt paid.
G
- Gross MarginThe percentage of each sale left after the direct cost of producing it — the number that decides whether scale helps you.
I
- IPOInitial Public Offering — when a private company first sells shares to the public.
L
M
- Market CapPrice per unit multiplied by the number of units — a headline figure that is not the amount of money involved.
- MemecoinA cryptocurrency built around a meme, community, or joke rather than a technical use case.
- Minimum Viable ProductMVP — the simplest version of a product you can launch to start learning from real customers.
- MLMMulti-level marketing — selling products through a network of distributors who also recruit.
- Money MuleA person who moves stolen or laundered money for criminals — often without realizing it's a crime.
O
- OverheadThe costs you pay whether or not you sell anything — rent, software, insurance, the lights.
P
- Ponzi SchemeA fraud that pays existing investors with new investors' money instead of real profit.
- ProfitWhat's actually left after every cost is paid — the 'bottom line,' and the only line that pays you.
- Pyramid SchemeAn illegal model where money comes from recruiting others, not selling real products.
R
- RevenueAll the money a business takes in before any costs are taken out — the 'top line.'
- Revenue vs ProfitRevenue is what you took in; profit is what you kept. Confusing them is the most expensive mistake in small business.
- ROIReturn on Investment — how much you gained relative to what you put in.
- Rug PullA crypto scam where creators abandon a project and run off with investors' money.
- RunwayHow many months you can keep operating before the money runs out.
S
- S-CorpA tax election that can save established businesses money on self-employment taxes.
- Self-Employment TaxThe 15.3% covering both halves of Social Security and Medicare, owed by people who work for themselves.
- Shell CompanyA business that exists on paper with no real operations — legal, but a scammer favorite.
- SolanaA high-throughput blockchain known for fast, cheap transactions — and the home of most memecoin activity.
- Sole ProprietorshipThe simplest business structure: you and the business are legally the same person.
- StockA share of ownership in a company.
V
- ValuationWhat a business is estimated to be worth, often set during fundraising.
- Venture CapitalInvestors who buy equity in high-growth startups, expecting most to fail and a few to be enormous.
W
- Wash TradingFaking trading volume by buying and selling to yourself to make an asset look popular.