What are the most unhelpful startup myths that new entrepreneurs believe?

What do you think some of the most unhelpful startup myths are? Things that new entrepreneurs should be warned about before they start working on their startup. What advice would you give a new entrepreneur to disabuse her or him of her/his illusions.

I'm asking because I teach beginning entrepreneurs at a university. One of the most common myths they believe is that the idea is the most important part of the startup. I would like to collate a list so I make sure I can pass on the wisdom here.

I also think it would be helpful to new entrepreneurs who are using this forum.

To add to the list, which I am sure will be developed by many far wiser than I:

The "Ownership" Myth: There is a prevailing belief that 100% is worth more than 49%. This gets in the way a lot. If by distributing 51% you are able to secure the elements needed to have a valuable business than 49% of "something big" is a lot more than 100% of "nothing happening"

The "Feature Rich" Myth: If your critical differentiation is "we will do it all integrated together" -- then it is a bad idea. Everyone -- even your "no clue competition" have plans to do it all. It is how to get there and what you roll out when that make the difference.

The "I am alone" Myth: If I read another business plan/proposal claiming there is no competition I am going to barf. On the plan. There is always competition. Think about it from the perspective of the customer's buying decision.

The "Technology First" Myth: The path to greatness is rarely having the best technology. It is far more often having the better relationship with the customer. It is a marketing game -- not a technology game.

The "Technology Only Myth": This myth is often perpetrated on this site -- the irrational and unsubstantiated myth that the world of business revolves around Silicon Valley and web-based startups. The vast majority of new startups are not in San Fran, or CA, or technology. Every day there are new restaurants, new medical device companies, new yoga studios, new energy alternatives.

The "VCRG8" Myth: Building a company through the growth of customers is like building your body through a steady workout. Growing your company with an infusion of VC money is like taking steroids. There are always consequences and choices. Success is not getting VC funding -- success is building a sustainable company that impacts people's lives.

The "Static Market" Myth: The characteristics of your market now will be the characteristics of your market when you launch and in 3, 5, 10 years. There will be other competitors. The existing competitor will respond to you. There will be changes you can't foresee. Your plans should take that all into consideration.

The "I am the One" Myth: I know, it is helpful to think you are the next Steven Jobs, William McKnight, Mark Zuckerburg, Sergey Brin or David Packard, . You might be -- but you're not yet -- so stop acting like it.

The "Make Money First" Myth: In the end when you are on your death bed -- will the amount of money you made matter? Or will it be how you impacted people's lives? The time to impact is not after -- it is now and always.

The myth of this graph: and it's various permutations that are included in most business plans.

There, have I missed offending anyone -- or did I pretty much include them all?

It should be noted that I have been a personal perpetrator of all of these myths at one time or another in my life. To all those that it negatively impacted -- I am sorry.

As an engineer who has waffled between working at startups and major corporations, I'd like to share a few myths from an engineering perspective:

• If you just hire smart engineers and let them direct themselves, amazing things will happen

While some amazing things will in fact happen, they will also be a complete mess with no organization and will be constantly undergoing refactors and feature creep and check-in conflicts and so on. As soon as you have ANY amount of engineering, you also need project and product management.

Relatedly, there absolutely MUST be some regular communication from on high about direction and roadmap and so on. At the last startup I was at, there was never a single roadmap-type meeting the entire time I was there. I kept on suggesting that having weekly or biweekly sync-ups might be good; the answer I got was, "Well, we had one just before you started here." That's nice for everyone else. I never had any feeling that anyone cared at all about my contributions, or that I fit into the big picture at all.

• Startups are nimble; corporations are not. Therefore, anything corporate is bad.

The corporations I've worked at have used some level of the Agile process, which has kept them quite nimble. The startups, on the other hand, have typically been stuck in analysis paralysis, infighting, and a constant crunch-burnout cycle. I get more done working a typical 40-hour week at my "soul-sucking corporate" job than I did in the entire two months at the last startup I was at.

• Do what your successful idols did.

The startups I've been at all had some specific person (usually a member of their board of directors) up on a pedestal because they had been involved in another startup that did really well. The person being idolized generally was aware of the fact that they simply got lucky because they had the right product at the right time with the right contributing factors leading to the right successes.

Just because someone worked on the original PowerMac or the iPod doesn't mean they have any clue how to break into ebook readers or social networking applications. (Two actual examples from my experience.)

• If you hire someone who is an expert in their field, they will be able to shine in other fields.

Sort of related to the previous point, but sort of not. Also, hiring someone specifically to do one thing and then ending up having them do another while the original thing is put on hold? Not a way to engender happiness, trust, or respect. (And both of the times this happened to me they did one worse by still dangling the carrot in front of me for a while, but never making good on it, or "shifting directions" and leaving me stuck in something that was supposed to just be temporary.)

Myth 1: I have a brilliant startup idea that will make me rich.

Reality- ideas have little if any value. Only an implementation or substantiation of that idea has value. (A patent, a business, something actual as opposed an intellectual concept defined only in your head.) In addition, the goal of "getting rich" is counterproductive. A successful startup needs someone who is passionate about providing a solution to their customer's problems, not someone who just wants to get rich.

• Myth: Failure is the best teacher.

Confucius said:

By three methods may we learn wisdom:

• First by reflection, which is noblest.
• Second is by imitation, which is easiest.
• Third is by experience, which is the bitterest.

In my experience learning from failure is the hardest subset of experience to learn from, even if you do apply the appropriate reflection after the fact.

Knowing that you have failed doesn't necessarily tell you anything about how not to fail in the future and until you know what best practice is, it is often difficult to tell why you failed at something. I've worked on my fair share of failed projects, and it doesn't matter how many Project Post-Mortems you do, if no-one puts into practice things you decide should be improved, nothing will change - You will just keep making similar mistakes over and over.

Research shows that you learn the most from success, and one way to reinforce successful behavior is deliberate practice, which is part imitation and part reflection. Through deliberate practice you maximize the reinforcement of successful behavior while you distance yourself from, and thus minimized, the reinforcement of failing behavior.

A friend of mine used to say "Practice doesn't make perfect, only perfect practice makes perfect!". I didn't understand what she meant at the time, but now I do. It means that if you practice the wrong way, you will only reinforce that incorrect behavior - only by practicing and getting it right, will you end up improving.

Two of the top links on a google search for deliberate practice provide good summaries of why deliberate practice is important in becoming an expert, and also bring up another relevant myth.

How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? 8 Keys to Deliberate Practice references the famous Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell, which popularized the Ericsson et. al's research that 10,000 hours of practice is required to become an expert.

Note, the current top Google link for deliberate practice is to psycnet which is selling The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance, the Ericsson, Anders et. al. paper, which introduces the 10,000 hour concept.

• Myth: Natural talent counts for more than experience

Deliberate Practice – Where Self-reflection, Work Ethic and Ambition Meet references Why Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin, which insists that the "conventional wisdom about natural talent is a myth.", so this may also be worth discussing with budding entrepreneurs.

Myth #1

One can learn what one needs to know to be successful about entrepreneurship though an undergraduate course.

Myth #2

Advice, failures, successes, tips that work for one company have relevance for a different company.

Myth: Failure is bad.

Actually, failure is a great teacher.

Internet is plenty of articles about this Myth. If I'm not wrong, Jack Welch wrote a book about it.

My most important things would be:

1. Just get started - getting over the hump and spending too much time trying to intellectualize everything is no substitute for cracking on. The whole thing is a journey with ups and downs and the more you hit, especially the downs, the faster the ups start coming
2. Put yourself in an uncomfortable position - don't set out with lots of protective barriers and limitations/expectations. The sooner you find yourself where it's just you and your plan (however scant that may be) the sooner you realize that it's only you that is going to make stuff happen - you have no one else to blame or lean on so all those cold calls, difficult meetings, etc. pale into insignificance as they just have to be done - it's massively liberating and you'll never work for anyone else once you've experienced it
3. Passion, passion and more passion - your clients, especially your founding clients are buying you and your infectious energy and self belief. Make sure it's really passion and not just misguided enthusiasm. Real passion means you remain open to ideas, you listen, you constantly improve. Misguided enthusiasm means you are really just pushing an idea you once had that you think everyone else will love - they probably won't, but if they believe in your passion they'll give you everything you need to know to turn it into a reality.
4. Enjoy it - in some ways forget about the money - or in other words, don't forget to calculate the true value of being your own boss, following your dream and having the freedom to do what you love - that is worth 10x any of the salaries you will get elsewhere

Hope that helps.

Worst myth ever: "If you build it, they will come."

Damn you Kevin Costner! Just kidding, I love that movie.

But seriously, you need to understand the customer's needs and involve them in the process from the beginning, otherwise you risk building something nobody wants. For details, learn about Steve Blank's Customer Development process.

Myth: Any smart Idea sells.

Had if the case Google Wave and many more of such kind would have rocked the world. I feel not only a smart idea, a proper vision and education around the product is also required.

Not sure if this counts as a myth, but I've heard it too often:

"Our plan is to get bought out by Google / Microsoft / Oracle / Cisco / ..."

• Your product will go viral
• You don't need marketing, a good product is enough
• Your product should be perfect before launching it
• Any others from this article

Out of failure one can often find new opportunities, so is it really a failure? Failure only occurs when we don't act on our past mistakes and embrace the new opportunities that have arisen from those past experiences.