There are a lot of myths about being an entrepreneur; most spawned by the media. While some these are true, others are patently false. The following are the top five myths:
A lot of people think entrepreneurs are in it solely for the money. This is true to an extent —fear of poverty, or simply financial insecurity, might well goad anyone to greater heights, and there are some who do it for the cash, but for most people, money is not the be-all and end-all.
A lot of entrepreneurs have ego and/or emotion as their primary motives, many don’t maintain the lavish lifestyles expected of them, and most consider money as a way of keeping score.
People often refer to success in business at the cost of someone else. What they mean, obviously, is that if an entrepreneur is winning, someone somewhere has paid the price. This makes it seem like there has to be a winning and a losing side in every business deal. This is sometimes called the ‘zero-sum game’.
In actual fact, entrepreneurs are creative thinkers. Rather than play for a ‘zero-sum’ result, and contrary to popular supposition, they often try to work out a compromise that means everybody leaves the table satisfied.
A lot of young entrepreneurs, having heard this, accept it as gospel truth.
A relationship between risk and reward is complicated and in no way reducible to a simple statement.
Risks in business don’t equalize jumping off a cliff in the dark: knowledge, experience, wisdom hard work and perseverance modify both the ‘risk’ and the ‘reward’.
The rise of ‘dotcom millionaires’ definitely makes it seem like entrepreneurs make a quick buck, but you should remember nothing is as easy as it seems.
You may think that entrepreneurs get extremely rich extremely fast, but a lot of hard work goes into developing the ideas/products that make them rich.
This has more truth than most of the other myths, as you’re unlikely to be given loans without a solid business plan. However, a loan does not in any way equal good money. Business plans are guidelines, yes, but to succeed, you need a lot more.