Top ten geek business myths

This post captures many of the typical mistakes of rookie entrepreneurs (and I don't think it has much to do with the "geekness" of an entrepreneur because I made some of those mistakes without being a geek, so...).

It's an interesting list of what entrepreneurs should NOT be doing... Now I am quite keen for a VC out there to actually produce a meaningful list of what entrepreneurs SHOULD be doing. Not the standard BS that we get on web sites stating what the "evaluation process" is, but the real stuff of informal networking, long term contacts with investors, quality of team & personal networks...

One of the things this post shows very well is the state of mind of venture investors, which is to eliminate applications instead of spotting what is positive about an entrepreneur. I think this is because these guys are absolutely overwhelmed with the volume of business plans and contacts they are getting, which is also why it's probably a good idea for them to be working with independent consultants and business professionals who will pre-assess cases and only then submit them. To a certain extent that is what is going on and it looks a bit like the insurance business in which companies do not deal with retail customers direct... And perhaps there is an opportunity here to enable direct dealings between investors and entrepreneurs pretty much like Dell made it possible to buy direct. I don't know, it's just an idea...

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Comments

[David]

Excellent story - thx for link (sorry it is me again... ;-)

[David Dossot]

Yep, very good link. I wish I could have read this in 1999 before investing so much in two failed startups ;-)

PS. Congrats for your new site design!

[alex]

Thanks to both of you. I guess I also wish I had read that before investing humongous amounts of energy in a couple of start-ups that did not make me a millionaire in money... However, is there anything worth more than direct experience?