Freelancing vs. Startups

IMO startups should have some new idea, something different than what other companies do or offer, they should have a product.
Freelancing on the other hand is working on your own time to offer services, whats good about it is that you are in control of your schedule,your work pace and your working time.

Startups are about the idea more than the company

Is it still considered entrepreneurship?
who cares! as long as your are having fun everything is ok

I think any sort of activity where you're working for yourself is entrepreneurship. Freelancing and starting a company are slightly different things in my opinion, but then, what I think might be the total opposite of what someone else thinks.

I guess my definition of freelancing versus startup is that freelancing is more about offering a service or services to other companies or individuals for money. A startup is more about offering a product or a range of products to other companies and customers. The confusing part is that the product you're offering can sometimes be the same service you offered as a freelancer! :)

Maya,

I have faced same situation for quite some time and here is the difference scale. When you are a freelance you are a single man/woman company, you derive enough economy based on different factors like skill, experience etc. But above all your limited time (24 hours a day) is your upper bound to your economy.

You build a company to remove that upper bound by recruiting and managing different people to take on lost contracts due to your scale problem. Then you are a service company. The situation is a bit better but not a whole a lot. Scale is still bound to the # of people in your company. To grow contracts you have to grow people and managing a large number of people is so hard.

Of course the term startup applies to all sorts of starting companies, but I think you are talking about blockbuster's :), in that case you try to avoid labor intensive services that cause the above scale problem by creating a product that derives the economy other than # of people in your company.

I would suggest that your read this book ASAP, http://www.amazon.com/Business-Software-Manager-Programmer-Entrepreneur/dp/074321580X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263914181&sr=1-1

A designer friend of mine goes through this debate on a daily basis. My main argument to her for establishment of some form of legal entity that shifts the set-up from freelance to startup is to enable her to grow out of a 1-person show with the help of sub-contractors or junior designers as her workload increases.

More importantly, I personally feel there is more protection for you should you set up a legal entity when dealing with clients. It might be nothing more than perception, but clients would be more reluctant to renege on an agreement when dealing with a company. Some clients are also averse to dealing with individuals so there's also the added benefit of greater opportunity (example: Government and semi-gov organizations that require bids and tenders)

Lastly, there are so many opportunities presented to start-ups in the form of assistance programs, access to funds, training, business development opportunities, etc... that you wouldn't qualify for as an individual.