Entrepreneurship, Second Edition

Chapter 6. BUILDING THE FOUNDING TEAM

Team Canada celebrate winning the gold medal following their 2-0 victory during the ice hockey women's gold medal game between Canada and USA on day 14 of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at Canada Hockey Place on February 25, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. (Source: Alex Livesey/Getty Images, Inc.)

Despite the glowing tributes to superstar entrepreneurs that we all read about in the popular press, entrepreneurship is a team sport. Even Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world, did not start Microsoft by himself. Instead, he and Paul Allen led a hardy team of bright young engineers to the semi-desert of Albuquerque in 1975 to develop the original microcomputer software, BASIC. The group included four programmers, a project manager, a production manager, a lead mathematician, a technical writer, and a bookkeeper. Despite their incredible intelligence and drive, Gates and Allen recognized that the company would never reach its potential with just the two of them.

Today, from its humble beginnings, Microsoft has become the leading software company in the world, with sales of almost $60 billion and 93,000 employees worldwide as of 2008. Indeed, we could look at all the top companies in the world today and identify the team behind the lead entrepreneur, but the point is the same: Successfully launching a business requires support. Even if ...