Well we are really 4 french guys, we are located in Paris in a small office. This is not a wordpress, but a prestashop and the theme is not generic. And the stuff that is innovative is that all the products are created by the community using the studio (http://www.stickaz.com/en/studio). Have a look at http://www.stickaz.com/en/info for more infos about the Stickaz concept. Tell me if you find similar businesses (appart from sites that let's you decline an image on mugs or t-shirts). Hope you look at it with a different angle :)

PS: we know puxxle, we existed before them and there's no user generated content on puxxle.

What pfisch is saying, selling stuff on the Internet is not a startup. E.g. if I'm starting a flower shop business, that's not a startup, that's just starting a business.

The difference between a startup and a business is that a startup is usually trying to solve a problem (often through the use of technology, a.k.a. hi-tech) in the hope that the "invention" pays off. These sorts of high risk businesses often don't get loans from banks. That's where investors come in.

So, as pfisch is saying, selling stickers on the Internet is not a startup.

I hope you guys do well. It looks like a well executed project.

It definitely looks like wordpress, and it says it is wordpress and prestashop on the bottom. Also prestashop looks like it is just an ecommerce plugin.

Did you guys take VC money or something? This just looks like a normal business to me. I mean I run a small business that makes mobile apps. Is that a start up as well? Is any kind of business with a website that sells something a start up?

As much as I agree with the whole discussion surrounding the definition of a startup, your arguments are weak and pointless to say the least.

Would this company be more of a startup if their website was powered with a custom made app written in Erlang on the backend and Haxe on the frontend? ...

Would this company be more of a startup if they could lure some VCs to invest in them? ...

Please come back to earth and provide constructive comments, or better arguments, like pan69 did [1].

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4592559

This is pointless. Why are you arguing about such a moot point? We should be giving constructive feedback, not arguing about politics.

Awesome stuff - I write for Wired.com and would love to do a post on this - I sent you an email, let me know if you're interested.

Sure! I received your email and will answer very soon!

At least they have a business model. How many "start-ups" on HN are just a fancy landing page with an email sign-up box?

Customer acquisition to juicy exit is still a business model. Might not be as easy to grasp as pay me X for Y, but It's still a business model.

It really depends on how you define "start-up".

eric ries, in his book The Lean Startup, defines it as follows:

"A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty."

so lets see. Is this website a human institution? Probably. If its not, it certainly passed the Turing test.

Is it designed to create a new product or service? not really. Its selling stickers that the user has the ability to customize. This isn't all that new or original of a concept.

Is it doing so under extreme uncertainty? I would say not. This is selling a product that there is already known demand for. It is not extremely uncertain if there is a market for their product.

So my 2 cents is that this is not a "start up" but rather merely a new web business. Still, good for them! May the Force be with them, and may they find beautiful solutions to their problems.

Hehe nice analysis! Basically i just used the word "startup" because for me it just means having great ambitions and try to do them with a few people (in a web world).