Carlos, a rising star inside a mid-sized manufacturing company, was having coffee with me outside a small university. He took small teams and grew them into successful product lines. After a decade working for other people, Carlos wanted to start his own business. He said he knew how to start. The path to building and funding a company seemed to be: 1) come up with an idea, 2) form a team, 3) start testing minimal viable products, 4) raise seed funding, and 5) get venture capital.