A big part of the problem (with startup today) is all the energy put into academic wantrapreneurship classes and the wantrapreneurship seminars sponsored by the various off shoots of the Small Business Administration. Amar Bhide in 1994 wrote The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses, a summary of personal interviews with founders of successful businesses, he found they, with rare exceptions, they just don’t start with market research and formal planning. Saras Sarasvarthy research has more recently found the same thing.
What would help? First, adoption of the book published last spring by Harvard Business Review Press,