The intense media coverage of the startup ecosystem has led to the dissemination of misconceptions about entrepreneurship. This article shows that first-time entrepreneurs believe in these misrepresentations. The results of this research therefore give a new prerogative to the actors of the entrepreneurial support world: to deconstruct all the clichés and false representations about startups that are popularized by the press.The article is based on survey data from 90,278 people who revealed their interest in starting a business between 2007 and 2018. We isolate the answers given by digital entrepreneurs (n=1,425) and compare them to those of other respondents (n=88,853). Examining the beliefs of this large panel of respondents shows that digital first-time entrepreneurs believe they can access high revenues, predict success with a high probability, go into entrepreneurship relatively unprepared, and anticipate improved employability if their business fails.