TinyMBA

Variable costs are things you use up as you go in your business: the more business you do, the more you must spend on them.Read More

Vertical integration is when one company controls everything needed to produce and deliver its product to consumers.Read More

Hedge Funds are investment firms that speculate in very specific areas, by trying to obtain more data (information) about those areas than anyone else.Read More

'Indexes' are measuring sticks for markets - lists of stocks designed to reflect how a broader group of stocks is doing.Read More

A write-down is when a business admits that something it owns is worth less than previously thought. Read More

Fixed costs are things you buy once for your business, and then use for a long time. Read More

Open source is a collaborative design method where volunteers write software together, then publish it for others to reuse and improve upon.Read More

"The Four P's" refers to the four crucial aspects of marketing: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place.Read More

Bonds are debt: IOUs issued by corporations and governments.Read More

Cost curves tell you whether (and how fast) a product is getting cheaper to make.Read More

Visibility is the ability to foresee (or not) what will happen in your business.Read More

Algorithms are rules computers use to make decisions: programmed by people, they can then make decisions that affect many other people.Read More

'Cash accounting' is the way many small businesses track their results: by measuring how much cash comes in and goes out.Read More

Disintermediation is when someone cuts out the middleman.Read More

Crowdfunding, a combination of online fundraising and marketing, is a powerful way to raise money from strangers for all sorts of projects.Read More

Price discrimination is when you charge different groups of people different prices for the same product, by creating slight product variations.Read More

Focus means not getting distracted from your main objectives. Execution means getting things done - the things you need to get done.Read More

Sovereign wealth funds are huge investment funds controlled by countries that got mega-rich selling oil, or in some other way.Read More

Your brand is your name, and your reputation.Read More

Cognitive dissonance is the stress of having two things in your mind that contradict one another.Read More

Optionality is a business term for 'keeping your options open,' or finessing a situation so you don't unnecessarily close off options.Read More

A supply chain is where a product comes from: including all the factories, farms, warehouses, ships, trucks and planes that create and deliver it.Read More

Scale is size, or the ability to grow to a huge size.Read More

A portfolio is a collection of investments designed to (hopefully) avoid the risk of relying on a single investment.Read More

A monopoly is a business that totally controls its market, because it has no competition and therefore customers have no other options.Read More

Interest rates are the cost of borrowing money. Read More

Differentiation is how you make your product stand out from the crowd.Read More

Inflation is when prices rise because demand exceeds supply.Read More

Pensions are retirement benefits that employers promise to pay their employees after they've retired.Read More

Boycotts are a way to protest and force change by collectively refusing to do business with a person, business or country.Read More

The Federal Reserve is the most important bank in the U.S., and the 'banker' for all the other banks in the U.S.Read More

Segmentation is about dividing your market into subgroups of people who want different things, then figuring out how to win their business.Read More

Agile businesses are those that try to develop a culture of moving fast and improving their products quickly.Read More

Subscriptions are a popular business model, because they enable companies to learn a lot about their customers, and increase their loyalty over time.Read More

Frozen assets are assets you can't spend or move, because they've been 'frozen' by the courts or the government.Read More

'Opting-In' is when you make a choice to be part of something. 'Opting-Out' is when someone volunteers you, and you must ask to get out of it.Read More

Authentication is how you confirm someone is who they say they are (and how apps confirm it, too).Read More

Metrics are the numbers that businesses (and people) choose to measure their performance and health.Read More

Social engineering is the use of psychological manipulation (taking advantage of human weakness) to gain access to something off-limits.Read More

Divestment is when investors sell their shares in a company or industry, to show their disapproval of that company or industry.Read More

Dilution is when you add something into something else, and in the process make it weaker or less concentrated.Read More

Debt is when one person or company owes money to another person or company. Read More

Private Equity investors borrow money to buy companies, find hidden stashes of cash in them, and then sell them at a big profit.Read More

Collusion is when business collaboration becomes unfair or anticompetitive.Read More

Blockchain is a new technology for enabling anonymous transactions (that aren't recorded in a central registry).Read More

Optimization is when you obsess over improving something, sweating every little detail and trying repeatedly to make it perfect.Read More

Assets are things you own or possess that have value.Read More

Opportunity cost is the 'cost' of having to give up something else you could be doing instead.Read More

Advertising, a very old business model, has become even more powerful in the digital era due to precise targeting (at the expense of your privacy).Read More

An arbitrage is when people make money by exploiting a market inconsistency.Read More

Gross margin is the profit you make when you subtract the direct costs of producing your product from the price you sell it for.Read More

Intellectual property is work which can be protected by patent, copyright, or trademark law. Read More

Bankruptcy is the legal process that happens if you run out of money and can't pay your bills.Read More

Capital investments are big, expensive projects that provide benefits over many years, and often generate income to help pay for themselves.Read More

User experience is what happens when you use a product, and how you feel using that product.Read More

Price elasticity is how much more (or less) of something people will buy if the price goes down (or up).Read More

Silos are different departments in an organization that don't communicate well with each other (and probably don't want to). Read More

Freemium is a business model where an app or web service has a both a free version and a 'premium' (paid) version with better features. Read More

Co-ops are groups that pool resources to help each other survive, thrive and maintain their independence.Read More

A carbon offset is something you can buy to (supposedly) negate the climate damage you've done by burning fossil fuels.Read More

Pivoting is making whatever changes you must, however dramatic, to reinvent your business if it stops working.Read More

Equity means ownership. It can also mean justice or fairness.Read More

'Winner take all' is the idea that markets are becoming less competitive, and more likely to be dominated by a single company.Read More

Stranded assets are large investments which have been rendered useless by an unexpected market change.Read More

Resilience is the ability to survive and bounce back from disruptions and shocks and attacks.Read More

Commoditization is when a product is so easy and cheap to make that the price keeps dropping until almost everyone can afford it.Read More

Engagement is a marketing word for how fully and actively customers use your products.Read More

Evangelists are people who use their charisma and personality to build innovative products and organizations.Read More

Greenwashing is when companies try to disguise how bad their products and practices are for the planet.Read More

Total cost of ownership is a way to calculate how much something will really cost over time (purchase price plus ongoing costs).Read More