President's Dream Colloquium on Entrepreneurship

Mike Wright: The 10 Myths of Entrepreneurship
Video annotation by Michelle Martin

1.     12:05… Myth 1 – It’s all about the high-growth/high tech startups; in fact, there’s many different ways to be entrepreneurial.

2.     19:40… Myth 2 – Entrepreneurial context is about the legal environment; in fact, there are many dimensions of context (institutional; spatial; temporal; social; organization, ownership & governance, market context) that influence how entrepreneurial development takes place.

3.     26:20 Myth 3 – Academic entrepreneurship is hard IP for faculty; recently, students are generating many of the success stories and there’s a broadening of the definition of entrepreneurship around universities.

4.     31:00 Myth 4 – Entrepreneurs are heroic individuals; in fact, most startups involve a team with complementary skills and that team evolves with the venture.

5.     34:40 Myth 5 – Boards are there to monitor managers; in fact, directors need skills and contacts to help firms grow and survive.

6.     38:50 Myth 6 – Entrepreneurs are one shot wonders; in fact, about half of business startups are by entrepreneurs who are serial or portfolio entrepreneurs.

7.     42:30 Myth 7 – Entrepreneurs’ networks are always a good thing; in fact, being embedded in a network can inhibit expansion and new ideas, which is aggravated in a university context outside of industry networks.

8.     45:00 Myth 8 – Opportunities lie waiting to be discovered and the route to market is clear; in fact, opportunities and markets are often created, and this poses information challenges and uncertain environments.

9.     52:30 Myth 9 – Opportunities only have value in the product market; in fact, technology can be licensed and patents, such as in science, can be sold for commercialization elsewhere.

10. 1:00 Myth 10 – The finance gap is at the start; in fact, there are many funding rounds before viability, especially if they are generated from a university and are far from the market.