Buzzgain

From the Economist. “For most people the term “entrepreneur” simply means anybody who starts a business, be it a corner shop or a high-tech start up.”

The Economist provides these 5 myths for entrepreneurship in general:

1. The first is that entrepreneurs are “orphans and outcasts”, to borrow the phrase of George Gilder, an American intellectual: lonely Atlases battling a hostile world or anti-social geeks inventing world-changing gizmos in their garrets.

2. The second myth is that most entrepreneurs are just out of short trousers.

3. The third myth is that entrepreneurship is driven mainly by venture capital.

4. The fourth myth is that to succeed, entrepreneurs must produce some world-changing new product.

5. The fifth myth is that entrepreneurship cannot flourish in big companies.

I wanted to be specific to software entrepreneurship, which I have observed over 3 successful startups so far and 2 unsuccessful ones:

Myth #1: The most important “first person” in your software start up is your technical “guru”, a developer, or the sales person. The first person you actually need is a product manager. Someone that owns the product and is able to manage conflicting priorities and still keep customers happy. This person can be technical or a sales person, but most importantly needs to be able to “look at the forest from the trees”. Most developers and sales folks cannot do that. Not all, most.

Myth #2: After your version 1 things get easier. Version 1 in fact is the easiest. Also the most buggy, feature “light” and holds lots of “promise”. Customers can do just about enough to get frustrated. Your only hope is they dont give up on it.

Myth #3: Lack of funding kills 90% of software startups. It is lack of a compelling enough problem to solve. Not funding. Most startups I have encountered are not solving a problem that’s critical enough or big enough in terms of market to make them successful.

Myth #4: Your product should be so intuitive, and useful to your customer that they spread the word and generate business so you dont need marketing or sales people. While I wont agree its 100% about marketing, but if marketing were making sure you identified the problem your customer had, then provided a solution to it, described it in simple terms and solved that problem, then its 100% marketing.

Myth #5: To prove that you are unique and different you have to “patent” your algorithm or process. While patents are useful, they are not going to be the reason you’ll get rich with your software startup. Second the return on time invested to get your patent to its value both short and medium term is questionable.

If you are in a software startup what other myths exist that you are aware of?