If you mean generating a profit you're correct. Anything that's not generating its own profits is nothing more than a hobby. Twitter is only a hobby. So is Facebook. Neither are generating their own profits, they exist solely on funds provided by investors -- and that's not a business, it's a privately funded hobby.
When a hobby starts generating more income than expenses then maybe it has earned the right to be called a 'small business' or even a 'large business' depending upon where you draw the line in terms of scale, but until then it is in no way a business.
A startup is anything that's being started. Whether it's still a hobby or a business does not matter in the least. Some people may delude themselves by calling hobby startups 'businesses' but that doesn't make them businesses.
If you mean generating a profit you're correct. Anything that's not generating its own profits is nothing more than a hobby. Twitter is only a hobby. So is Facebook. Neither are generating their own profits, they exist solely on funds provided by investors -- and that's not a business, it's a privately funded hobby.
When a hobby starts generating more income than expenses then maybe it has earned the right to be called a 'small business' or even a 'large business' depending upon where you draw the line in terms of scale, but until then it is in no way a business.
A startup is anything that's being started. Whether it's still a hobby or a business does not matter in the least. Some people may delude themselves by calling hobby startups 'businesses' but that doesn't make them businesses.