The Idea Is the Easy Part: Myths and Realities of the Startup World

"Innovation & Creativity" winner in the 2023 Porchlight Business Book Awards

Lifelong entrepreneur Brian Dovey offers readers a personal, humorous, story-driven compendium of practical advice for navigating the risky entrepreneurial journey.

The Idea Is the Easy Part counters widespread myths of failure and success with lessons learned from Dovey’s decades of hands-on experience.

Today’s entrepreneurs can earn celebrity and billionaire status. Our books, movies, and TV shows seem to say that with a big idea and a jazzy elevator pitch, anyone can quickly earn funding for their own startups and achieve massive financial success. In these stories, a brilliant initial idea—and the funding you’ll easily acquire—are all you need.

The reality, however, is vastly different. Getting funding is incredibly hard, and success depends on many factors, strategies, and decisions.
The idea, as it turns out, is the easy part.

Between serving as the president of the company that developed the groundbreaking EpiPen, bringing entrepreneurship to a Fortune 500 company as president, working in venture capitalism for several decades, and being involved in the development of nearly 300 startups, Brian Dovey was well acquainted with entrepreneurship—its reality as well as its mythology.