Terms that collide
Words that mean two things in other tools, the one meaning each keeps here, and the word to use for the other.
Every term in these docs has one meaning. Where another tool, Stripe or the E-Myth uses a word differently, the tables below name the meaning it keeps and the word to use instead.
Five words, one meaning each
Each of these words means two things in other tools. Here it means one, and the other meaning has its own word.
| Word | Means here | For the other meaning, say |
|---|---|---|
| Founding Team | The Founder and the seats that decide what the Startup pursues | "your team" for everyone who works in the Startup, agents and humans |
| Policy | A ruling on how numbers are computed, such as revenue recognition | Conduct for the rules every Worker acts under, enforced by Guards |
| Run | Nothing. One execution of a Workflow is an Action, with a status and its Events | Action |
| Role | A seat that owns work, filled by an Agent or a Human | Access Level for a preset of Permissions, such as owner or viewer |
| Scorecard | Nothing. The weekly check of every seat is the Role review Process, which records one Role Review per filled Role | Role review |
A founder who says "give her admin" means an Access Level. A founder who says "hire a bookkeeper" means a Role, and the Finance Lead seat answers to that name.
One word each
| These look alike | The difference |
|---|---|
| Startup, Company | A Startup is one business with its own P&L. A Company is the legal entity that holds one or more Startups. |
| Product, Offer, Price | A Product is what the Customer gets. An Offer sells a Product at a Price on terms. A Price lives inside its Offer. |
| Contact, Lead, Customer, Persona | A Contact is someone the Startup can reach. A Lead raised a hand. A Customer accepted an Offer. A Persona is a type of person, never a record of one. |
| Process, Workflow, Play | A Process is repeatable business work a Team owns. A Workflow is the code that runs one Action of it. A Play is a strategy run as a Process. |
| System, Integration, Capability | A System is the software for one job, such as billing. An Integration connects an outside account to a System. A Capability is a metered set of Verbs every Startup calls. |
| Account, Tenant | An Account is a line in the chart of accounts. A Customer's own space in the product, with its people and data, is a Tenant. |
| Event, Gathering | An Event is the record that something happened. A webinar or a meetup is a Gathering. |
Stripe's names
Stripe holds the money side of every Startup, and some of its words name different things here. Stripe's Product is an Offer, because Stripe sells what an Offer sells. A charge, a payout and a refund are each a Transaction with that kind.
| Noun | Stripe object | When | Source of truth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account | Treasury FinancialAccount (treasury.financial_account) | heldAt is treasury | Stripe |
| Card | Issuing Card (issuing.card) | Always | db.sb |
| Customer | Customer (customer) | Always | db.sb |
| Dispute | Dispute (dispute) | kind is chargeback | Stripe |
| Invoice | Invoice (invoice) | Always | db.sb |
| Offer | Product (product) | Always | db.sb |
| Price | Price (price) | Always | db.sb |
| Subscription | Subscription (subscription) | Always | db.sb |
| Transaction | PaymentIntent (payment_intent) | kind is charge | Stripe |
| Transaction | Payout (payout) | kind is payout | Stripe |
| Transaction | Refund (refund) | kind is refund | Stripe |
Stripe's field names keep Stripe's casing and appear only in these mappings. Every call here takes camelCase.
The E-Myth's names
Michael Gerber's E-Myth runs a business through seats, each with a contract, and through routines that make the work repeatable. Teams and Roles here follow that shape, and two words change.
| E-Myth | Here |
|---|---|
| org chart | Teams and the Roles in each |
| position contract | The Role contract on every Role page |
| a system for doing the work | A Process, run by Workflows |
| the owner who works on the business | The Founder, who holds the Approvals, not the seats |
A System here is software. The E-Myth's "system" is a Process.