The Odoo start command is a shortcut to start a server instance using the current directory. The directory name is automatically used as the database name (for the -d option), and the current directory is automatically added to the add-ons path (the --addons-path option), as long as it contains an Odoo add-on module. In the preceding recipe, you won't see the current directory in the add-ons path because it doesn't contain any modules yet.
With the start command, if you are on the virtual environment, it will take the virtual environment name as the database instead of the directory that you are in. However, if you aren't in the virtual environment, this should work fine.