The traditional model of a company coming into existence was about it developing a new product or service.
If the product could scale to fund or support a company, a new company came into existence.
Sometimes companies are made to be acquired for a variety of reasons, acquihire, fix a product portfolio issue for an established player – eg farmout in oil exploration on new product development where a company develops a product and an established pharma with distribution, reach, branding and funding acquires the company. Alps in software but integration is a bigger issue. Often these acquisitions are part of an inorganic growth strategy.
Some business such as marketplace businesses like Uber, eBay etc are more complicated.
Not withstanding that, the lifecycle model is a useful way to understand the stages of a business. The real drive and energy of the entrepreneur is the key issue.