{"id":41388,"date":"2013-07-07T00:06:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-06T22:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=41388"},"modified":"2013-07-07T00:08:42","modified_gmt":"2013-07-06T22:08:42","slug":"10-lies-entrepreneurs-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/41388\/10-lies-entrepreneurs-tell\/","title":{"rendered":"10 lies entrepreneurs tell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Guy Kawasaki,\u00a0adviser\u00a0to Google-owned Motorola Mobility, author, and co-founder of Alltop has compiled a list of the top lies entrepreneurs tell.<\/p>\n<p>According to\u00a0Kawasaki, for tech startups to be successful, &#8220;being in the right place at the right time is at least 50%&#8221;, adding that &#8220;a\u00a0detachment from reality is the most dangerous factor,&#8221; when launching a tech startup.<\/p>\n<p>He said from his experience in listening to pitches,\u00a0he has\u00a0seen two sets of top 10 lies: one of entrepreneurs and one of investors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Top 10 lies of entrepreneurs:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cOur projections are conservative.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cJupiter says our market will be $50 billion in 10 years.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cSeveral Fortune 500 companies are set to do business with us.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cNo one else can do what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cHurry up because other investors are about to do our deal.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cOur product will go viral.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe large companies in our market are too big, dumb, and slow to compete with us.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cOur management team is proven.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe filed patents so our intellectual property is protected.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cAll we have to do is get 1 percent of the market.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Top 10 lies of investors<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cI liked your company, but my partners didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe are patient investors who want to help you build a great company.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIf you get a lead, we\u2019ll invest too.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThere are no companies in our portfolio that conflict with what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cShow us some traction, and we\u2019ll invest.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe love to co-invest with other firms.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe\u2019re investing in your team.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe have lots of bandwith to dedicate to your company.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThis is a plain, vanilla termsheet.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe will get other companies in our portfolio to work with you.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Do you know what the difference is between the lies of entrepreneurs and the lies of investors?\u00a0The investors have money,&#8221; Kawasaki said.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on tech startups<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Square to take on eBay, Amazon\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/40825\/square-payments-system-to-take-on-ebay-amazon\/\">\u00a0Square to take on eBay, Amazon<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"$2 million VC boost for 6 local startups\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/41294\/2-million-vc-boost-for-6-local-startups\/\"><strong>$2 million VC boost for 6 local startups<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IDC commits R150 million to SA startups\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/41304\/idc-commits-r150-million-to-sa-startups\/\"><strong>IDC commits R150 million to SA startups<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tech guru and author Guy Kawasaki provides a top 10 list of the lies that entrepreneurs tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[6242,53,6243,26,1126],"class_list":["post-41388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-alltop","tag-google","tag-guy-kawasaki","tag-headline","tag-motorola-mobility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41388"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41417,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41388\/revisions\/41417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}