Every generation of entrepreneurs believes it’s the one that can skip steps. Start earlier. Move faster. Figure it out on the fly. That story is compelling. It’s also incomplete. In a recent Fortune article, Jeff Bezos offered advice to Gen Z that cuts directly against the dominant startup mythology: get real work experience before launching a company. Bezos didn’t say this as a critic of entrepreneurship. He said it as someone who built Amazon—starting at age 30, after nearly a decade of professional experience. This wasn’t a casual comment. It was a strategic observation.

When people hear the word “unicorn” in entrepreneurship, they usually think of sky-high valuations, venture capital blitzes, and startup hype. But the real lesson from studying billion-dollar founders isn’t about valuation at all — it’s about control, strategy, and disciplined leadership. In Unicorn Entrepreneurship: 5 Steps That Separate Leaders From Followers, Forbes contributor Dileep Rao synthesizes his research on 125 founders of billion-dollar companies and reveals a surprisingly repeatable pattern that separates category-defining leaders from the rest.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned — and one that many founders overlook — is this:Before you spend a dollar on inventory or packaging or web design, you need to know if you can get people to care. And the simplest way to do that is by building an audience. — ehandbook.comToo many startup founders rush straight to logistics: products, packaging, fulfillment, and e-commerce stores. Yet without audience interest, all that infrastructure is like building a ship without knowing whether anyone wants to sail.