While some finance gurus think that a startup bubble is just getting ready to burst, entrepreneurs and professors from Cornell University think otherwise, The Cornell Daily Sun reported.

The report said a real market bubble is one marked by a quick increase in equity markets as a result of investments made in a rising trend that is not completely supported by a product that has actual value. The boom of Internet-based firms in the late 1990s or the dot-com bubble is one example of this phenomenon.

However, Pedro Perez, a professor of applied economics and management, told The Cornel Daily Sun that there is an important difference in the said bubble of today and that is the investors' increased cautiousness. He said, "The engine of growth in the late 90s was the Internet itself, the engine of growth right now is more the apps space, the mobile space and some of the social networking space. The appetite for risk of the investors is not clear. The appetite for risk in the late 1990s was immense."

PopShop co-founder Ali Hamed feels the same way. He felt it was erroneous to compare today's economic situation regarding startups with that of the dot- com bubble. He said that the dot-com bubble was real, with people investing in things that were not true businesses.

Now, however, things are different. Hamed, whose company gives space for entrepreneurs to collaborate and work on startups, told the news site, "It takes a lot more to raise money now - you actually have to have a real business. Before, they would fund an idea. Now you need to have a product, you need to have proof that people like your product and are willing to pay for it [before you can get funding]."

Management professor Zach Shulman added that the recent flourishing of young companies have given new obstacles to firms who want to get financing from venture capital firms. He told the news website, "You have to prove your value, you have to prove the value of your product, you have to prove that there's a market that wants your product. These are all difficult things."