Entrepreneurship is not just the process of having an idea and then building a business. A true entrepreneur has to predict the future. The idea that a businessperson is great because he had “built a company from the ground up” is missing a major component– the entrepreneur’s original hypothesis. Without a well-defined theory and end goal, it’s difficult to test a market and therefore difficult to start an enormously successful business. I think the original idea, the hypothesis is sometimes given too little credit. Especially in the era of Web 2.0. [...]
So two things.
- I think to build a great company you need to have a well defined hypothesis based on a theory for a market’s evolved future.
- And I think the most effective way to enter that market is to build a company like a scientist testing the theory. As an experiment.
This strikes me as callow and unhelpful. Details of execution, social skills, perseverance (and luck) actually deserve the emphasis they are usually given. Many people have good, vague ideas.
Yes, but the author wants to transcend that, and investigate the basis idea of the startup —what he calls the “hypothesis”.