10 Startup Founders Tell Us the Best

Advice They've Ever Received

#1 Get Comfortable With the Unknown

You will never know enough. You will always be forced to decide
without fully understanding what is coming. As a founder, that is
just something you have to get comfortable with.

—Aaron O’Hearn, Co-founder and CEO of Startup Institute

Source: Startup Institute

 #2 It’s Not Just About You

The best advice is to not give yourself too much credit when times
are good and too much blame when times are bad. Once you
realize that luck plays a necessary role in success, it makes you
both more humble and more self-confident at the same time.

—Ethan Austin, Co-founder, and President of Give Forward

 #3 Show, Don’t Tell

So many upstarts talk about being the Facebook Killer, or the X

for Y, loftily and prematurely positioning them among mega
successes. Talking instead about what your company does and has
achieved sets the stage for your vision in a way that is authentic,
believable, and much less highfalutin.

—Shaun Johnson, Co-founder, and COO of Startup Institute

 #4 Know When to Let Go

No one is looking at your work as closely as you are. So,

remember that when you're on hour four debating which shade of
navy blue works best for your logo. Yes, details matter. But at a
certain point, you have to let go and move on to the next thing.

—Pavia Rosati, Founder of Fathom

 #5 Know the Startup Hierarchy

When you first enter the community, whether as a founder or an

employee, you're a freshman. By all means, develop relationships
with mentors and more senior, experienced people, but also foster
relationships with people just one or two steps ahead of you.

—Christina Wallace, Director of Startup Institute NY and

Former Co-founder of Quincy
 #6 Find the Balance

Understand that maybe the world doesn't need your idea, so know
when to move on. Luck and resilience are as important as ideas
and talent. Don't believe your own press, good or bad. Don't take
yourself too seriously, even if you're trying to change the world.
Never lose sight of the important stuff: love, friends, family.

—Jamyn Edis, Founder and CEO of Dash Lab

 #7 Do Anything and Everything

The best advice I ever received was from Stacy Blackman, who
runs a successful MBA admissions consulting company:
'Definitely do anything and everything. When I started, no coffee
or meeting, no speaking engagement, was too small. A lot of
people have asked what's brought in the most leads.

I have had hundreds of partnerships and marketing initiatives, but

our success has been an aggregate of everything. I have had
partnerships that I thought might be the one big thing, the slam
dunk. But I don’t know if the slam dunk exists.'

—Jenn Yee, Director of Startup Institute Chicago and

Founder of MBASocial
 #8 Don’t Worry About the Noise

Ignore the hype you see about other startups in the press. It's
usually a pack of lies, and half of them will be dead in a year.
Focus on building your business so you can be the one left
standing.

—Jules Pieri, Co-founder and CEO of The Grommet

 #9 It's Your Company—You Decide

Mentors provide a point of view based on their professional

experiences and limited perspective into our market and customer
base. Katie Rae helped my fellow TechStars founders and me
understand that while mentor feedback is extremely valuable, we
ultimately need to make key decisions ourselves.

—Brent Grinna, Founder of EverTrue

 #10 Don’t Seek Risk

The best entrepreneurs don’t seek risk. They seek to mitigate risk.

—Rick Desai, Co-founder of Dashfire