Every engineer who has invented some new technology, or is adept at creating solutions believes that is the hard part, and that it should be a short step to take that solution to the market as a technical entrepreneur. In reality, that short business step embodies far more risk, and a poor technology solution is not near the top of most lists on common reasons for business failures (http://www.moyak.com/papers/small-business-failure.html).

In fact, a Duke and Harvard survey (http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2011/03/22/engineering-vs-liberal-arts-who%E2%80%99s-right-%E2%80%94-bill-or-steve/) of over 500 technology companies showed that only 37 percent of their leaders even have Engineering or Computer Science backgrounds. Clearly, engineers should think twice before assuming they have an advantage over the rest of us towards being an entrepreneur.

A good Engineering or Computer Science background does not necessarily...