CHAPTER THREEFounder Readiness

How to Prepare for theEntrepreneurial Journey

It’s not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win, that makes the difference.”

—Paul “Bear” Bryant, legendary college football coach

As Scott Shane notes in his book, The Illusions of Entrepreneurship, most new businesses fail. “Pretty much all studies agree on that,” he writes. “The only question is how long it takes for a majority of them to go out of business (and why).” Startup failure rates are consistent across different types of companies, across different parts of the world, and across decades. Even investor-backed startups, presumably led by talented founders with better-than-average ideas, fall short at remarkably high rates. “In short, no matter how ...

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