Startup buzzwords 2025: Bullshit bingo in marketing German Introduction: Bullshit bingo in marketing German

The startup scene of 2025 is teeming with trendy startup jargon – a feast for every bullshit bingo. Whether on careers pages, in pitch decks, company visions or social media posts, the same empty phrases and buzzwords appear everywhere. Everyone wants to be “disruptive”, everything should sound “scalable” and “innovative”, teams are either seen as “family-like” or as “ninja teams” with an “agile mindset”. Such marketing jargon blithely mixes English buzzwords with German-language phrases – ideal for a satirical bullshit bingo board. Back in 2017, an insider from the Berlin start-up scene warned: “The promises made by start-ups are often just hot air.” Today, little has changed. In the following, we collect typical start-up buzzwords for 2025, expose their empty content with current examples and ask: Which phrases belong on the bullshit bingo board of this scene?

Innovation jargon: “disruptive”, “game changer” & co.

Start-ups love to use big words to present themselves as the next revolution. Terms from innovation jargon are particularly popular:

• Disruptive & revolutionary: Hardly any pitch deck is complete without the word “disruptive” – every new toaster is supposed to “revolutionize” an entire industry. But real disruption is rare. In 2025, start-up consultant Jeroen Coelen annoyingly appeals to founders to stop selling every product as a world revolution: “Your bike saddle… doesn’t need a revolution.” In other words: Not every bike saddle or pizza delivery service is a real revolution. Such exaggerations have long caused eye-rolling. A minimally improved process does not “make the world a better place”, even if it is written on slide 1 of the pitch deck.
• Game changers & paradigm shifts: Similarly inflationary announcements are made that the latest service is a “game changer” or a “paradigm shift”. In every second product presentation, we “break with old paradigms” – at least according to the wording. Whether there is more behind this than a run-of-the-mill idea with buzzword trimmings often remains unclear. Of course, everyone wants to be innovative – so much so that the word itself no longer has anything innovative about it. In job advertisements, applicants are often promised that they will “help design the most innovative solutions”, even if the job is routine. Experts therefore advise: it is better to provide concrete examples instead of promising the “most innovative innovation”.
• “Changing the world” as a mission: many start-up visions sound like promises of salvation. “We’re making the world a better place” is emblazoned on company websites – even if it’s just an app for ordering food. Purpose-driven mission statements are in vogue: every company gives itself a higher purpose. But without real change, purpose is just “bullshit”, as marketing guru Mark Ritson sharply criticizes. The big “why” (purpose) degenerates into a compulsory point in every presentation – regardless of the reality. The bullshit bingo field “Changing the world” is suitable here: tick once as soon as a founder announces that their startup is “changing the world”. In most cases, it remains a good-sounding claim.

New work and cultural phrases: Flat hierarchies, family culture & agile mindset

Not only products, but also the internal culture in start-ups is adorned with buzzwords. Career pages and “About us” texts are full of promises about how great it is to work there:

• Flat hierarchies: “We have flat hierarchies” – every employer extols this ideal. In fact, almost every job advertisement reads the same: “All companies claim to have flat hierarchies… And they are all looking for team players who are capable of learning”. One recruiter sums it up: In terms of content, there are hardly any differences, everyone promises the same thing. In practice, the flat hierarchy often turns out to be a facade: you may be on first-name terms with the boss and perhaps play table football together, but “the promise that we would work together on a project as equals didn’t work out”. Decisions are still made by the founder or a small management team – “the boss still decides alone, but pretends there are flat structures”, as one sarcastic comment sums up. A must for bullshit bingo: tick the “flat hierarchies” box as soon as it appears in a job advertisement – which is guaranteed to happen.
• Agile mindset: Agility has long since mutated from a concrete project management approach to a vague buzzword. Companies demand an “agile mindset” from applicants, i.e. adaptability and speed. What sounded like a precise technical term from software development is now a “cloudy phrase”. Everyone should be flexible, always positive and of course “proactive”. The job advertisement says “agile working in a dynamic team”, but in everyday life this often means chaotic processes without clear responsibilities. Here, you can tick off “agile mindset” on the bullshit bingo card – a term that even makes agile coaches frown in its overuse.
• “Family culture” – we are a family: a classic piece of start-up jargon is the claim that the team is “like a family”. What is meant is that everyone is on first-name terms, we do a lot together, the office provides fruit baskets, table football and after-work beers. What sounds like a feel-good culture can quickly backfire. Because, conversely, family often means boundless devotion. “We are one big family,” said the CEO – at the same time, everyone had insecure contracts and had to rate each other in performance rankings. It’s hard to criticize a company when your employer treats you to free sushi and cake for your birthday. But what use are free snacks and a table football table if we are being exploited? – as one dropout put it in a nutshell. At the latest when mass redundancies are imminent, there is nothing left of the much-vaunted “family feeling”. The “we are family” phrase is therefore a must in bullshit bingo – ironically often a warning signal for applicants, as Business Insider warns.
• Ninja teams, rock stars & heroes: While applicants used to be expected to be “team players (m/f/d)”, job advertisements today are looking for “coding ninjas”, “marketing rock stars” or “customer support heroes”. What was once supposed to be creative has now degenerated into a cliché. In 2016, some sectors were already dominated by a flood of such titles: “Evangelist”, “Hero” and “Rockstar” were among the new favorite words in job advertisements, according to Joblift analysis. Initially original, “after the thirtieth repetition… they only show that the advertising companies are copying their competitors’ job advertisements”. Nowadays, many applicants react with annoyance or ridicule when a company is seriously looking for a “UX wizard” or “data ninja”. As a specialist article points out, such terms come across as embarrassing rather than authentic and put good candidates off. For our bingo, this means ticking “rock star” or “ninja” on the card as soon as HR starts looking for superheroes again – eye roll included.
• “Hands-on mentality” & co.: In addition to the fancy titles, every second job description contains well-known phrases: “hands-on mentality” (meaning: you will take on operational tasks and think strategically – i.e. do everything at the same time), “dynamic environment” (chaos and frequent changes to plans), “performance-related pay” (a fixed salary at the lower end, bonuses only for utopian targets) and “flexibility” (overtime included). These HR German code words are perfect for bullshit bingo – once heard, tick them off immediately.

Marketing German in everyday life: using synergies, low hanging fruit & denglish

The language used in day-to-day business is like a mix of foreign languages, which is ideal for buzzword bingo. Typical scenes in a meeting: “Let’s come back to this and use synergies of our core competencies to generate new ideas with Blue Sky Thinking and take the low hanging fruit with us so that we have everything in dry cloths.” Got that? If not, don’t worry: many people do. This one (deliberately exaggerated) request contains half a dozen phrase buzzwords. Leverage synergies, contribute core competencies, think creatively “out of the box”(blue sky thinking) and, of course, pick the low-hanging fruit first (i.e. take easy wins). In the end, everything is wrapped up – i.e. successfully completed. Such marketing jargon sounds important, but often says little in concrete terms.

It’s no wonder that many young professionals are annoyed by this jargon. According to a survey, over half of millennials have secretly googled a buzzword during a meeting in order to understand what is being said. 83% admit to having used a buzzword themselves without really understanding it, just to look professional. So buzzword bingo has long been a reality in offices: People talk with Anglicisms such as “circle back” (we’ll come back to that), “keep me in the loop” (keep me in the loop, or “keep me in the loop”) or “low performer” (worst employee) – and everyone nods in agreement, often without asking.

Some of these terms have become harmless abbreviations(FYI, ASAP, OKR, KPI etc.), others are simply annoying due to overuse. For example, “utilizing synergies” almost ironically stands for any commonplace concept of collaboration. “Breaking new ground” sounds great, but usually means that there is no plan yet. “Coming back to something” is said when you want to postpone an uncomfortable topic. And “ we keep in touch” is often used to say goodbye when no concrete next steps have actually been determined. In short: the denglish word cloud easily fills a bingo sheet – from “think big” to “quick wins”, it’s all there.

Vision and values bingo: purpose-driven, customer obsession & co.

No corporate image can do without the big buzzwords when it comes to vision, values and purpose. This is where a lot of bullshit bingo potential arises, because companies want to distinguish themselves with particularly meaningful terms:

• Purpose-driven everything: There is hardly a start-up in 2025 that does not emphasize that it is “purpose-driven” – i.e. driven by purpose, with a higher purpose beyond profit. In itself, this is a great trend that suggests more sustainability and added social value. But all too often it remains lip service. Marketing professors such as Mark Ritson and Byron Sharp castigate the purpose hype in advertising as “bullshit” and “nonsense talk” if the promised improvement of the world does not fit in with the core business. Many purpose statements read interchangeably: Everyone “empowers people”, “transforms industries” or “stands for sustainability” – even companies whose business model hardly fits the bill. The following applies to bullshit bingo: If a pathetic “why” sentence with a purpose appears in the mission statement, it’s a hit. Extra points if terms such as “authentic”, “sustainable” and “impact” are included in the same sentence.
• Visionary buzzwords: The situation is similar with big visions. Every startup has “a vision” – often something like “to revolutionize X” or “to become the market leader for Y”. Interestingly, these visions are very similar. They are meant to sound grandiose, but remain vague. “Mission” and “values” are also decorated with buzzwords: From “excellence” to “integrity” to “innovation” (the trinity of many mission statements). Unfortunately, this wears out when everyone claims the same thing. So if there are five abstract terms on the company website under Our Values that could just as easily be used by the competition, it’s okay to call bullshit bingo.
• “Customer obsession” & customer centricity: Ever since Amazon coined the term “customer obsession”, many companies have been claiming to “put the customer at the center”. There is nothing wrong with this in principle – customer focus is important. But as a buzzword, customer obsession now appears everywhere, even where actual customer focus is rather moderate. So when someone again claims to be “100% customer-centric”, it is worth taking a look behind the scenes: Decisions are still often made against the will of the customer, it’s just that “customer first” sounds good in PR. You can tick “customer obsession” off the bingo card as soon as it is invoked in a press release or product presentation. The same applies to “data-driven culture” – another buzzword of our time. Every company claims to be “data-driven”, i.e. to make decisions solely on the basis of analytics and AI. In reality, gut feeling and political decisions often still play a major role. But “data-driven” looks great in the company profile, so it is mentioned like a mantra. For our game: check the “data-driven” box as soon as this claim is mentioned (plus point if “AI” or “machine learning” is also mentioned somewhere, regardless of whether it fits the product).
• Buzzword bingo in social media: Finally, let’s take a look at LinkedIn and the like, where startup founders and marketing departments like to celebrate themselves. Here we come across posts full of superlatives: “We’re thrilled to announce…”, “our groundbreaking product XY is setting new standards”, “incredible growth thanks to our passionate team”. The language on LinkedIn is its own art form of self-congratulation and gestures of humility (keyword: “I’m humbled to…”, although you are actually praising yourself). If you read posts like this every day, you can also play bingo: Check off “excited/thrilled”, “proud/humbled”, “honored to work with amazing people” every time. It usually doesn’t take long until the first bingo line is full.

Conclusion: Between hype and content – discussion welcome

The bullshit bingo of startup buzzwords 2025 is entertaining, but has a serious core. The phrases collected here – from “flat hierarchies” and “agile mindset” to “purpose-driven” idealism – show how marketing German often degenerates into a hollow phrase. Of course, many of these terms have a true core or an important function (agility can bring real added value, flat hierarchies can increase the scope for decision-making, purpose can motivate). It becomes problematic when they are only used as buzzwords without any real action behind them. The result is a language that promises a lot and delivers little – precisely what we humorously expose with bullshit bingo.

The scene is well aware of this buzzword inflation: insiders are already calling for less bullshit talk and more substance in 2025. Our satirically biting collection is intended to make you think: Which of these phrases do we hear every day without questioning them? Which corporate values are only propagated but not practiced? Perhaps readers will recognize themselves in one or two of the examples – be it smiling on a bingo card or critically in their own vocabulary. So it’s high time to see through the bullshit buzzwords and start speaking plainly again. With this in mind: Bingo! – and let the discussion begin.

Author: Marian Härtel

Marian Härtel ist Rechtsanwalt und Fachanwalt für IT-Recht mit einer über 25-jährigen Erfahrung als Unternehmer und Berater in den Bereichen Games, E-Sport, Blockchain, SaaS und Künstliche Intelligenz. Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte umfassen neben dem IT-Recht insbesondere das Urheberrecht, Medienrecht sowie Wettbewerbsrecht. Er betreut schwerpunktmäßig Start-ups, Agenturen und Influencer, die er in strategischen Fragen, komplexen Vertragsangelegenheiten sowie bei Investitionsprojekten begleitet. Dabei zeichnet sich seine Beratung durch einen interdisziplinären Ansatz aus, der juristische Expertise und langjährige unternehmerische Erfahrung miteinander verbindet. Ziel seiner Tätigkeit ist stets, Mandanten praxisorientierte Lösungen anzubieten und rechtlich fundierte Unterstützung bei der Umsetzung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle zu gewährleisten.