I built my first pc at age 13. That year, I launched my first online startup: a bulletin board system. It failed. So then I launched my second online startup: a bulletin board porn system. It worked, but fell foul of overbearing telecom regulation - by my mother. Since then, I’ve continued to build technology and businesses. I do it because I love it - I can’t draw, paint or sculpt—but making technology mindstuff come to life is more rewarding than any money I might make from the effort. 

It’s a good thing I enjoy it, since - as you’ll read here - most of the time I set out to build a business from my technology I’ve failed. But I’ve learned enough from those failures, worked hard enough, and tried often enough, that I’ve had successes. Those successes have given me the means to live more than comfortably. More importantly, they’ve made me happy: I have seen my tech children grow up and go out into the world. Angel investing has given me a further window on technology and business, one through which I have discovered a different thrill: that of taking on someone else’s creation and shepherding it out into the world.

I don’t have a one-line mantra that will guide you to success. I’ve no pithy phrase to motivate or inspire you. Instead, I have a series of lessons hard-wrung from my failures and road-tested on my successes. I’ve condensed the key ones into a series of fallacies. Most startups will succumb to most of them. Even many good startups will succumb to one. Being forewarned may help you avoid them. Technology is a messy business - and so is business. Books that promise you a clean and clear path to success in either are lying. There is no secret. Perhaps that is the greatest startup fallacy.