I speak often to those I advise and my students about the misguided path of rocket ship entrepreneurship that pervades business “pop-culture” today. VC is broken in funding too many ideas that should just be nice small to mid-sized enterprises. The real problem is that young people aren’t being taught business fundamentals along with the new models that tech enables. This, coupled with a grounding in how you can structure and fund businesses outside of VC, is most important and most overlooked.

I received sage advice many years ago when thinking about a new venture: what is your goal with the business? Do you really believe this is a .0001% venture-backed rocket-ship or is this going to be a self-sustaining small to mid-sized business (as the vast majority of the 7,000,000 private companies in the US are).

“Lifestyle” businesses somehow became a derogatory term. Here’s to right scaled businesses that generate cash flow and return dividends to investors who have their goals aligned with the entrepreneur. Digital business models only make this even more feasible with lower fixed costs and assets.

Everywhere you look these days, there are people and programs urging people just out of school to forget working for the man; instead, just start a new business and become a folk hero. The legend of the twenty-something business wunderkind is everywhere in pop culture. Here’s the problem. The data are in. It turns out that the whole thing is a gigantic myth. 

https://www.aier.org/article/its-a-disservice-to-urge-young-people-to-become-entrepreneurs/