“If the idea can be stolen so easily, then what makes you say that the idea is so good? If you have a venture that depends on the idea only, then it is very easy for competitors to do the same, and so you are likely to be copied at some point anyway. So with what you tell me now, your idea may be creating value, but isn’t necessarily going to enable you to capture the value.”

“I understand. I think I would do the same. The best ventures come from great ideas, and great ideas are rare. So I understand that you don’t want to share your idea.”

“I understand. I once thought the same. I spent a lot of time doing research behind my computer, writing a business plan about my idea and only when it was fully finished, I went over to a friend of my uncle, who is a VC, to get funding for my idea. When

I told him that my idea was superconfidential, he looked very disappointed. And two minutes later he had thanked me for my presentation and he explained that he wasn’t interested. He had not even seen my business plan! He asked me how many customers

I had spoken to about my idea, and I had said “none”. It was at that point that he decided that my idea was probably worthless. Now I know that an idea is just a starting point, and that it is only through action and field interaction that one gets

validation of the potential of that idea becoming a venture.”

“How can you know if it is a great idea if you cannot test it with people? Research shows that most successful entrepreneurs start with an initial idea, but then through testing with potential customers and stakeholders, most of the time the idea evolves

and becomes the actual venture… So you can do what you want, but all I know is that it is always better to talk about your idea in some way or another.”

You read the business plan. If the sales predictions are positive, then the likelihood of positive returns is higher. When the sales predictions are exponential, there is even a high likelihood of exceptional returns.

Only when the startup is a company that is operating in a domain of certainty and the team has the required domain knowledge.

This is largely a psychological debate. Entrepreneurs are always driven by money and they always want more of it. So as soon as they have earned some money, they set themselves new goals and dream even bigger. So as soon as they have money, they act as if they don’t have it. Therefore Money = no Money.

This is a practical statement about the expectations startup investors have in return for the money they offer to a startup. Although the money is always the same, the conditions for its use are “earmarked” by the funder, depending on their own interest and business model  in offering the money. Even though money is, by definition, fungible, these exchange conditions make that not all money is the same. It depends on who one receives it from.

This is largely an academic debate. There is little to say about how to best raise money from investors from an academic point of view, as researchers are still debating what money is.

This is a political statement about the role of taxes on entrepreneurial profits. While some people suggest that entrepreneurs should be taxed on their profits, others say that entrepreneurs should be subsidized so that there is more innovation. Politicians may disagree on their philosophies, but they agree that what the entrepreneur earns is not necessarily what she keeps.

Design thinking was in many ways a predecessor of the Lean Startup. The Lean Startup keeps the same perspective of learning cycles as Design thinking, but whereas Design thinking was developed mainly for new product development, the Lean Startup extended this process to startup processes in general.

The Lean Startup is just another term for Design thinking. As happens mostly in these fads, it is just old wine in new bottles.

Design thinking is the thinking process that you need to complete before you embark in the Lean Startup doing.

The Lean Startup was developed by Nobel Prize winners and reflects a rigorous series of concepts that have absolutely no practical relevance. Design thinking was developed by a bunch of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that is scientifically flawed, but somehow people like the term “Design”, which is the only reason it is considered useful in practice.

Entrepreneurial initiative and innovations by startups and large companies results in a shake-up of traditional companies that require all other companies to reinvent themselves as well. The speed of this process has been increasing in the past decades.

The urgency of environmental and societal challenges requires solutions that do not exist yet, and hence require the exploratory force of entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship is more important because there is an increasing number of courses on entrepreneurship!

The desire for entrepreneurship among young people is significantly higher compared to older generations. Younger generations are more used to the constant introduction of new technologies and new business models and experience exploration and self-determination as a much more natural way of doing things.

Whereas an idea or a CV cannot predict whether a company will succeed, following entrepreneurial methods significantly increases the likelihood of success.

All entrepreneurs are just risk takers, looking for a thrill and don’t care if they lose all their money.

If you want to be a smart entrepreneur, you better take the potential of failure into account so that you can manage it as part of the process.

While the startup may fail, the entrepreneur may still go on. Very often success is outliving failures and accumulating learnings.

Study market reports about consumer trends

“Getting out of the building” to collect field observations and develop potential customer or partner feedback

Looking for successful ventures in other regions or markets to imitate them before they launch in your region 

Waiting until you have a great idea. You should just be patient and wait until the right idea comes to you