Guy Kawasaki on The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs. Get Real: Stowe Boyd's Soapbox

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January 09, 2006

Guy Kawasaki on The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs

Posted by Stowe Boyd

Guy Kawasaki continues his streak of killer posts with The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs. At the heart of Guy's list is the strange dynamic that goes on in the entrepreneur/VC dance. VCs are in business to make investments, which is risky. But they must take risks to get the kind of returns they are looking for, which are BIG returns. At the same time they know that not all their investments can be big winners: that's why they have a portfolio and distribute their risk over a bunch of companies. But they have to judge companies relative to the idealized model of a winning company.

Guy's Ten Lies cuts to the heart of this by trying to straighten out the preconceptions of entrepreneurs, which, to cut to the chase, means that you shouldn't tell lies:

Don't lie about yourself and your team. If you dropped out of college because this fleabag company is your dream, just say so. If you were a billionaire, you wouldn't be asking for money.
Don't lie about competition. Don't say it doesn't exist, that no one else can do what you do, that no one else could ever dream this stuff up, or that you have an unshakeable lead on other, larger competitors.
Don't lie about growth rates. Sure, by all means you have to predict growth rates in your market, and uptake of your product. And you have to base those projections on the assumption that your product or service will find willing customers. But don't fall back on "if we only get 1% of ..." or a strategy based on getting every breathing mammal on the planet to buy.

tags: guy+kawasaki

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January 09, 2006

Guy Kawasaki on The Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs

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