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In the past 10 years or so, startup culture has done a terrific job in educating aspiring founders on the skills, tactics and hacks we need to establish a new business model. Which, by the way is the best definition of a startup – a business for which no financial model and/or customer solution already exists.

But because what we do in startup land is so new, there are also many new business concepts we get exposed to along the way. Some are just old concepts with some new verbiage thrown around them: A pivot used to be called adaptation in the 1980s, while others are only present in the technology and/or startup scene. The problem with all of these foreign concepts is that it is easy to fool ourselves into believing we actually need to know about them. That if we don’t know what all these concepts, ideas and jargon are, we won’t be able to build a startup. And nothing could be further from the truth. Here are a few of things that every startup founder – contrary to popular belief – need not concern themselves with.

1. Venture Capital

We don’t need to be across the various forms of capital raising in the early stages of a startup. Angel rounds, Series A, who to talk to and how to structure deals … Who knows what all that means when we first venture into a startup? Nice to know, hardly essential.

2. Pitching

A vital skill at certain points in the startup journey. But here’s something you don’t hear very often: All investors and customers will forgive someone who is poor at pitching when they have something people really want and can deliver to promise. The world has plenty of pitch doctors who are very good at commanding the room and inspiring us with hot air and promises they’ll never keep. I’d rather get involved with a founder who can build a business rather than with a pitch champion who can’t do the former.

3. Idea Generation

Ideas are cheap, free, omnipresent and have little value in the real market. Like I’ve written before, the idea you already have is good enough. In fact, it’s often the boring and uninspiring concepts that actually solve real problems for real people.

4. Being a Hacker or a Hustler

These are two really popular things to be these days … Sounds cool, but I can name a zillion business luminaries who are neither. It’s probably more valuable to be a boring old business person. While it doesn’t sound nearly as impressive on tech blogs, I can assure you people who organize the factors of production create more value than those who are the factors of production.

And the reason that all of these things are not essential is that they can be learned, hired in or acquired at the time we need them. And the list of things we could know, but don’t have to know, is much longer than these few examples: Need to know how to set up a Delaware North B Corporation just in case you go global? No. Again, trendy on Hacker News, but your customer won’t give a hoot about any of that. They’d rather give you their money because you made something they need.

The thing we must know how to do

What we do need, every time and without compromise, is to be able to build something that people want. We need to be able to convince an audience that what we have is better than the current substitute. And there is always a substitute for what we make, even if it is ‘do nothing.’ We need to stop the target audience from using an alternative and to come to us. We need to be so good that we can motivate the ‘do nothing’ crowd into taking action – right now. And we need to have a vision as to how this solution to a problem can become an actual business. If we can do this, and if we can build an on going relationship with users, then all of the other things we need to do will have people lining up to help us.

This post was originally published on Pollenizer‘s blog.