"A startup is like a bicycle." I think only a business person would come up with such an analogy. Remember, it implies there is somebody else sitting in the seat.

And the VC is riding you? Certainly not your customers, in the early stage, since you may not have any. And each of the founders we know is already a bicycle wheel, not the rider. Must be the VC, right? Remember, business people and large software companies see programmers as cogs or wheels, important only as part of a system. If you play along with their analogies, you are just asking for trouble.

How about a different analogy, which favors us, the software guys? A startup is like... Fill in your own reply.