The disingenuousness of the Silicon Valley culture is revealed in the collapse of virtual assistant service Zirtual this week. Read this from the founder and this from Paul Carr for the background.
Several common Silicon Valley myths caused this:
1)An inexperienced entrepreneur can make it big in an ecosystem like Silicon Valley without help
2)Users are more important than revenue
3)Capital is easy to get
4)Go big or go home.
Where were the board members? Where were the mentors? Where was the person teaching Maren Kate Donovan to read her financial projections? Over fifteen years of advising and mentoring have shown Phillip Blackerby and me that the most passionate and dedicated entrepreneurs do not show up on the nights when our Mesa Entrepreneurship MeetupGroup talks about financials, budgets, and planning. Their eyes glaze over, blinded by the vision of being big. And in the Bay Area, that easy initial capital lulls them into complacency. But I’m thinking of offering a new course called “How Not to Go Out of Business” and forcing people into financial literacy about their own businesses. Rant over.
