How Poor Leadership Choices Turn Into Startup Schemes

Bad decisions can turn a startup into a scheme, which is one step away from a scam

Joe Procopio
4 min readMar 24, 2022
image by jcomp on freepik

When is a startup not really a startup? It’s a surprisingly necessary question.

If you’ve ever been burned getting too close to a startup that isn’t really a startup, that’s a mistake that you probably won’t make twice.

Unless you’re Softbank.

But if you’ve never been up close and personal with a startup scam, scheme, or simply a cascade of poor leadership choices made by a CEO who really shouldn’t be a CEO, the temptation to hop on board what seems like a deep-pocketed, world-changing gravy train can be overwhelming.

That’s how scams work.

There’s a lot of money to be made in entrepreneurship. I don’t want you to fall into the same money trap I see both new and veteran entrepreneurs get caught in over and over again.

The Temptation To Believe Perceived Value

Let’s put it in more understandable terms — or maybe less understandable. The question “Is a startup really a startup?” comes from the same place as the question, “Does an NFT really have any value?”

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Joe Procopio

I'm a multi-exit, multi-failure entrepreneur. NLG pioneer. Building TeachingStartup.com & GROWERS. Write at Inc.com and BuiltIn.com. More at joeprocopio.com