Advice From the Pros: Stick to the Basics

(The Scientist, Vol:5, #3, pg. 6, February 4, 1991) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.)

-------- While some external parameters-the economy, sources of seed financing, geographic foci of technology-based companies-may be shifting and somewhat unknown, analysis, financiers, and experienced businesspeople voice a clear and unanimous message to aspiring entrepreneurs hoping to start a company in the 1990s: Stick to the basics. A company with a promising product, a solid management team, and a sound business plan may not always hit the Fortune 500, but without these fundamental building blocks. it will never get off the ground, they say.

Professional entrepreneur Michael Wall, who has made a career of building high-tech startups-over the last 36 years he has founded or helped to direct 19 new ventures-says that the most common mistake he sees is an entrepreneur trying to build a company...