Successful entrepreneurship means knowing how business decisions get made

My interaction with an engineer who came to me to raise capital to start his software company provides me an opportunity to recap some of the points I have made in years past (see sidebar, "A reminder for entrepreneurs"). I am describing it here, even though the business is unrelated to photonics—the generalizations we can draw from this experience are useful for any high-tech business. I will first present it as a case study, and then provide commentary to summarize how one can minimize startup risk if you ever decide to become an entrepreneur.