I was walking past a sign the other day. It said ‘Stressed is desserts backwards.’

Have there ever been truer words, in more than one sense?

It got me thinking about other types of palindrome-type anagrams. A start-up is the reverse of upstart, if you’ll allow me the license of a rogue hyphen. Yet, strangely enough, this is exactly what a start-up needs to be in order to taste lasting success.

A start-up has to do things differently, approach the market in a different way, and offer a new way of doing things. It has to disrupt the status quo, the accepted, established way of doing things, and become the new accepted, established way of doing things. it’s the new kid on the block. In short, it has to be the upstart.

I guess this is why you sometimes hear start-ups referred to as upstarts.