A good business mentor/advisor can be extremely helpful at the start, although finding one can be difficult if you don't know what you're looking for, which was

A good business mentor/advisor can be extremely helpful at the start, although finding one can be difficult if you don't know what you're looking for, which was my experience. My first business mentor, while excellent at running his business, didn't know anything about running a startup or web business. While much of his advice on running the business on a day to day basis was invaluable, he was pointing my business partner and I off in the wrong direction long term. We ended up wasting a lot of time focusing on the wrong areas. We had similar problems with other advisors. We even had one attempt to defraud us into giving him control of the business. Basically, our advisors were no wiser than us on how to do a startup (rather than a lifestyle business) but we were too naive to see this and far too often blindly followed their advice. Over time we became quite jaded about having advisors due to repeated bad experiences. We decided to implement the policy 'never take advice from someone who's not a millionaire'. We also learned to trust our own judgement and gut instinct a lot more and it often proved correct (not always though :-). Eventually we found a successful entrepreneur in a comparable field who was able to give us excellent advice. Because of that advice our startup is now growing in leaps and bounds. I know I probably sound quite negative about advisors but I believe the right advisor at the right time to can mean the difference between success and failure. I experienced what happens when it goes wrong and the business was lucky to survive it. If you can't get the right advisor (someone who's both successful and in a similar field) you're probably better off with none at all. I don't want to sound like I'm blaming them though, most were well intentioned, excellent at their chosen professions, and I'm still grateful to the time they gave to me. However, I was 19 years old when I began my startup and still very naive and in a catch 22 situation. I knew I needed advice but didn't have the experience or someone to advise me as to who to get advice from. In hindsight, had Paul Grahams essays been available back then it would have saved me a lot of pain as that's exactly what I needed to know. I expect that since everyone here has access to them they'll be better equipped to avoid making my early advisor mistakes. Oh, and just a small observation I've noticed with advisors. The better suited they are for your business the less they need to say. They can just cut through the crap and tell you what you need to know. The more they talk the more it's likely that they're well meaning but don't really know what to tell you so they tell you everything.