Starting a venture is difficult enough: From understanding market and competitive dynamics to finding financing for the venture, there’s more than enough to stress any entrepreneur. So, why make it any more difficult than it already is?

Amazingly, entrepreneurs frequently do just that. Especially, first-time entrepreneurs often misunderstand the logic of success and failure. After consulting with dozens of successful and less-than-successful new ventures, I began to see a pattern among the less-experienced entrepreneurs. They saw getting it right and getting it wrong as opposite ends of a single continuum. For them, if you avoid getting it wrong, you will get it right. The more experienced entrepreneurs use a different logic. They understand one must avoid getting it wrong while also getting it right. Getting it wrong is one scale; getting it right is another. You succeed by getting it right and by not getting it wrong. They realize that not shooting yourself in the foot is different from hitting the bull’s-eye.

Most information for entrepreneurs addresses ways to succeed. You rarely hear much about the ventures that fail, and plenty do fail. Depending on which expert you believe, anywhere from 80 to 92 percent of new businesses will fail within two years. With so much already written on getting it right, and so many new ventures dying an early death, let’s take a few moments to emphasize not getting it wrong.

How do so many entrepreneurs manage to head down the wrong track? Let me offer two different perspectives, one with a legal viewpoint and the other with a business slant. Brent Bullock, partner at Perkins Coie LLP in Portland, urges entrepreneurs to secure competent advisers to help avoid potholes on the road ahead.

According to Bullock, there is no substitute for getting good advice early on, especially regarding corporate structure, dealing with a founder leaving the firm, and securing intellectual-property rights. An effective corporate structure clarifies founders’ rights and responsibilities so, for example, if a founder leaves the company, the provisions for buying back equity are specified. Do you want a significant block of stock left under a departing founder’s control, especially if the departure is less than amiable? Similarly, do you want a departing founder to take the company’s trade secrets, best employees, and customer lists along with her when she leaves?

Problems such as these can be forestalled by drawing up appropriate corporate structuring, nondisclosure, nonsolicitation, and noncompete agreements when the company is established. Bullock also advises clarifying intellectual property rights in favor of the company rather than the individual founders when setting up the company.

Finally, Bullock cautions that the wrong time to try to fix problems is when an entrepreneur is raising capital or selling the business. Waiting until those times can unnecessarily give the departing individual even greater leverage and power. If you are going to fix the problem anyway, do it at the beginning of the process when everyone is gung-ho and getting it wrong seems like a far-off possibility.

From a business perspective, learn to like your product (or service) and love your market. Too many entrepreneurs love their product and approach the market with the enthusiasm of someone facing a root canal. Markets can be tough. But markets also are where you’ll find the good guys, your customers. Remember, superior marketing of an all-right product usually trumps all-right marketing of a superior product. Don’t believe me? Ask WordPerfect, Sony Betamax, the Macintosh computer, and all the other superior products that were out-marketed by all-right competitors. It’s not the better mouse trap; it’s the better-marketed mouse trap.

A second business area where entrepreneurs often snare themselves is capitalization. Figure out what you think the venture will really cost and multiply by two (it will also take twice as long as you think, but that’s another story). This new 2X is your capitalization target. The target amount and the timing are critical. How quickly can you raise the needed funds and how fast will they be consumed? Once the funds are nearly consumed, what will you have to show for it? In other words, what will you create of value from the funds you raise that can be leveraged into the next round of funds? Little is more painful than seeing the funds being drawn down and not quite having the pieces in place to drive the next funding round.

Michael Forney, a product-development and import-business entrepreneur, suggests a third business dynamic, planning for failure. Rather than assume that you will get it right, Forney encourages entrepreneurs to invest the time and mental energy to look further and answer a basic question: What will you do if it does not go the way you imagine it will?

Once you think about the centrality of effective corporate structure and clear founder rights and responsibilities, the role of markets relative to products, the importance of capitalization, and the gains to be realized from thinking through a full scenario in the beginning, you can appreciate why investors first ask for a business plan. They want to see how you are planning to get it right and maneuvering to minimize getting it wrong. Help them out. Tell them where your foot is, where the bulls-eye is, and why you will be hitting the one and not the other.

Christopher Klemm, Ph.D., is a faculty member and director of the Austin Entrepreneurship Program at the Oregon State University College of Business.
Each edition of Mid-Valley InBusiness features a column from OSU business faculty.