Renowned Silicon Valley investor, start-up adviser and blogger Guy Kawasaki could never be accused of over-complicating the business of starting a software company.
"It doesn't really matter whether you are drinking Coors Light or Guinness - at the end of the day it's about geeks in a garage writing code," said Kawasaki.
He visits Dublin next week to impart his tips on start-ups at the Irish Software Association's annual conference. In addition to being the author of valley bible The Art of the Start, Kawasaki has wide-ranging experience - from being responsible for marketing the Apple Mac in the 1980s to recently co-founding news aggregation site Alltop.com.
"I'm not that familiar with the Irish start-up scene but, in our new flat world, a tech start-up is a tech start-up," he says.
As a result, he's not one of those Californian residents who believes the tech industry revolves around Palo Alto.
"The proposition that the only way to build a global company is to come to Silicon Valley is flawed," he says. "If, however, you want to be funded by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, you will have to come here as they won't fly to Dublin every month for a board meeting."
With such a pedigree in the technology business, Kawasaki is sanguine about the current obsession with internet companies that have a "social" aspect to their business model.
"It's all cyclical. By the time the world has realised a sector is hot, it's too late. The key for start-ups is to create a hot sector, not follow it."
The most common mistake he sees entrepreneurs make is over-estimating their sales forecasts and putting in expensive infrastructure to support them - and end up running out of cash.
"They've all download the same template which shows sales of $50 million in year five," he says. "They think if they put too small a number, the VCs will not be interested; if it's too big they think they will look delusional."
Guy Kawasaki speaks at the ISA Annual Conference 2008 in UCD on February 28th with Anthony Williams, author of international best-seller, Wikinomics.
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