Unlikely Entrepreneurs comes out in February. If readers could take away one lesson from the book, it’s this:
There has never been a better time to become an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurship is the lifeblood of the economy, but there is a perception that it’s reserved for a special class of people — those with high-tech skills or degrees from MIT or Harvard Business School.
There is no such thing as an “entrepreneurial gene.” Entrepreneurship is a skill anyone can learn, regardless of your schooling, background, or experience.
We are living through a technology revolution. History says that during times like this, successful entrepreneurs sprout up from unlikely places. Technology changes the rules and some incumbents don’t adapt fast enough to the changes.
Three things to think about if you’re considering a leap into entrepreneurship:
1. You Don’t Need an Engineering Degree — You Need a Real Problem
One of the biggest myths about entrepreneurship is that you need some rare combination of elite education, cutting-edge technical skill, or an “entrepreneurial gene.” The stories in Unlikely Entrepreneurs prove the opposite: the most successful founders start with lived experience of a real problem — not shiny technology.
Jason Lieblich didn’t dream up his company in a lab or a business plan competition. He built Reflectent Software after getting pelted with staplers and phones on the Credit Suisse trading floor when software failed during multimillion-dollar trades. He lived the pain — literally — and used that experience to create EdgeSight, a system that alerted IT teams to problems before they reached users. Citrix acquired Reflectent because EdgeSight solved a real problem.
2. AI Has Lowered the Bar to Entry — and Raised the Ceiling on What’s Possible
You’ve probably seen versions of the same complaint online:
“This is the worst time ever to build a startup. AI killed all the moats.”
In fact, I saw this exact comment on Reddit a few weeks ago. The commenter said that AI tools and “vibe coding” have eliminated all strategic moats. They continued:
“Before you even manage to build an MVP and get early traction, ten other ventures are already doing the same thing - burning money and making any roadmap to profitability useless.”
Here’s where their argument fails:
Code was NEVER a moat. Acquiring customers is.
Competition has ALWAYS been fierce.
AI is just a tool, NOT a silver bullet.
AI doesn’t eliminate entrepreneurial opportunity — it multiplies it.
Twenty years ago, building an MVP required a team of engineers, months of development, and a pile of capital. Today? A founder with domain expertise can create a prototype over a weekend. You can test ideas faster. Pivot faster. Learn faster.
That’s incredibly good news for unlikely entrepreneurs (those without traditional tech backgrounds):
Matthew Riley grew Daisy Group from a desk in his garage into a multibillion-dollar telecom company — and he did it with grit, sales instincts, and deep customer knowledge, not technical credentials.
Scott Ginsburg, founder of Titan Casket, built the #1 online casket retailer in the U.S. Not by leveraging some proprietary technology, but by seeing a broken industry and fixing it.
Liz Elting, co-founder of TransPerfect, built the world’s largest provider of language and translation services — now a billion-dollar global enterprise — from a shared dorm room at NYU. She didn’t rely on advanced technology or a massive network. She relied on relentless outbound hustle: 300 cold calls and 300 pitch letters every single day until she landed her first customer.
Important note: These success stories started well before the Gen AI revolution. Entrepreneurs today have even greater resources to build and grow their companies.
AI flattens the playing field for exactly these types of founders — the ones who understand their customers’ pain deeply and can now build faster than ever.
3. Real People — Not Elite Technologists — Are Winning Right Now
Look at the founders in the book, and you see a pattern: the best entrepreneurial ideas don’t come from Stanford CS labs. They come from garages, kitchens, trading floors, brewweries, and chaotic real-world moments.
This is why now is such an opportune time for entrepreneurs. When technology becomes easier, the source of advantage shifts.
The book is full of examples:
A typewriter repairman who built a multi-billion-dollar telecom empire.
A self-described “ship without a rudder” who built the largest DTC casket company in America.
A teenager who broke his back and ended up revolutionizing film editing for the next 40 years.
None of these people waited for permission or credentials. They didn’t wait for a “good economy” or the perfect moment.
They paid attention to the problems around them — and they built.
That’s why this moment is so special: the tools have never been more accessible, the barriers have never been lower, and the need for new ideas has never been higher.
Today, the advantage belongs to the unlikely entrepreneur.
Ready to write your own entrepreneurial success story?
