The similarities between start-ups and film projects are even greater in the US, where venture investors are likely to install their own people into a business for a short period of time to help get it moving. Many VCs have loose teams of CEOs, marketers and sales people that they move from business to business, then exit when they can be replaced with more suitable skills.

Many good entrepreneurs realise this limitation themselves – that while they might be good in a start-up, they have a limited lifespan in a stable business. Hence many will move from one idea to another over short periods – very much like filmmakers.

Apteker’s current project is Footskating, a comedy that was shot with a five person crew on a budget of barely $200,000, and is expected to premier in South Africa in December. Shooting a feature on such a low budget is daring, but Apteker says it merely echoes the sort of innovative thinking that was required to get Internet Solutions off the ground in the first place.

Perhaps you have more in common with Jerry Bruckheimer than you thought.

Brad Howarth is a journalist and the author of ‘Innovation and the Emerging Markets: Where the Next Bulls Will Run’, a study on the challenges facing small Australian technology companies.

You can read his blog at lagrangepoint.typepad.com