cover image The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live by

The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live by

Scott A. Shane. Yale University Press, $26 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-300-11331-0

The word ""entrepreneur"" can invoke a glittering rags-to-riches fable, but the reality, as Shane informs us, is much more mundane: someone who dislikes working for others, forms a company and, likely as not, fails (only 33% of new businesses survive to their seventh year). Shane (From Ice Cream to the Internet: Using Franchising to Drive the Growth and Profits of Your Company) draws on a host of credible data to counter other commonly held myths and the results are sometimes surprising. America is not a particularly entrepreneurial country-ranking in the bottom third, internationally. Young people are less likely to be entrepreneurs. Venture capitalists provide money to less than one-tenth of one percent of all startups. The typical entrepreneur works more hours and earns less money than his employed counterpart. Shane's portrait of the most common entrepreneurial type is similarly stereotype busting: a married white man in his 40s who attended but did not complete college, still living in his home town and beginning a business within an industry in which he has worked for years. Start-up financing is typically $25,000 of his own savings. This makes an excellent reality-check for anyone considering beginning his or her own business.