title: Entrepreneur Myths: The Startup Reality: How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Starting and Growing Your Business
author:  Damir Perge 
description: Damir Perge, author of <i>Entrepreneur Myths: The Startup Realty. How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Starting and Growing Your Business</i>, is the co-founder of entrepreneurdex, a startup studio using complexity science to fund, launch, accelerate and scale startups and growing businesses.<div><br /><div></div><div><ul><li>An entrepreneur and investor, Perge&apos;s first venture was formed while he was a member of the Entrepreneur Club at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, Texas).</li><li>With more than 25 years experience, he&apos;s worked with ventures in the technology, internet, media and publishing, entertainment, energy, and manufacturing sectors raising more than $300 million in capital for various companies and investing more than $50 million into startup and emerging ventures. He&apos;s sat on the boards of 11 companies, served as editor-in-chief of Futuredex, a private equity magazine.</li><li>Born in Yugoslavia, Perge immigrated to the U.S. in elementary school. He became a U.S. citizen at age 16 and represented the U.S. on the National Soccer Team. He was a McDonald&apos;s Soccer All-American and received a full scholarship to play at Southern Methodist University.</li><li>Perge&apos;s hobbies and interests include complexity science, lean and JIT manufacturing, business strategy and business modeling, social technologies, film production, venture capital, mathematics, art and soccer.</li></ul></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Upcoming book by Damir Perge:<i>Soccerpreneur: Everything You Need to Know about Business, You Can Learn on the Soccer Pitch</i>.</div></div><div></div><div></div></div>
zlib_text: “This text is well structured, following the life cycle of small business start-up, growth and matu-
  rity. It is highly engaging and has a comprehensive coverage of key topics in start-up entrepre-
  neurship. Its practical approach provides useful guidance to students, and the cases and videos are 
  valuable resources for lecturers.”
  —Catherine Wang, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
  “Yet another masterpiece by Paul Burns. The book touches on contemporary issues in the field 
  of entrepreneurship and it does so by bringing in the contexts of both advanced and develop-
  ing economies. It covers key concepts from business idea, start-up to growth and maturity in a 
  unique fashion. The cases it uses to illustrate this will make it easier for students to assimilate 
  entrepreneurship-related concepts while stimulating debate.” 
  —Amon Simba, Nottingham Trent University, UK
  “After nearly 25 years in business and almost 16 years teaching the subject, this must rank as one 
  of the most compr