You may think you know this story. Two inventors in a garage build something special, move to Silicon Valley, get a bajillion dollars of seed capital, hire a ton of people, turn it into a multimillion-dollar business overnight, and change the world as we know it. You think of Zuck or Musk (or Gates or Jobs, if you prefer) and believe this is the way entrepreneurship “happens.”
Except it doesn’t usually happen like that. In fact, it rarely happens like that. Startup mythology is extremely compelling; many aspiring and current founders think that if you simply follow the pop-culture approach to business you’ll be more successful. After all, those companies achieved the coveted “unicorn” status.
