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And don't forget that founders are bombarded with what is proclaimed to be "good advice", including "Don't try, get a stable job instead" and a ton of directly

And don't forget that founders are bombarded with what is proclaimed to be "good advice", including "Don't try, get a stable job instead" and a ton of directly conflicting advice. It quickly becomes incredibly hard to discern what is actually good advice for your situation to what is bad advice with good intentions, especially without the lived experience.

adventured 6y ago
One of the most important lessons I learned early on as an entrepreneur is the concept of well-qualified advice. When you're green, it's natural to seek advice from people you trust, people you think are smart, people with a lot of life and or business experience, family members, and so on. In most cases their advice is either going to be too general to be useful or they're going to have no knowledge and experience at what you're specifically working on, your domain, so their advice is far more likely to be dangerous. Those people will want to help, people like to be asked for advice, it feels nice; I think most people like to hear themselves talk, it's a normal thing. Their intentions will be good. I also think it's common for people to not have a good grasp of where their expertise ends and where their weakly-supported opinions begin (something everyone is guilty of at times). If you ask for an opinion, input, advice, you're likely to get it, even if the person isn't very qualified to offer it. So it's important to be very selective about who you seek advice from, making sure that they're in a position to offer valuable insight to what exactly you are dealing with.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  This, so much. I love being asked for advice, and love handing it out. It's so much easier to see the problems in someone else's business than it is in my own. Whether that's good advice or not is debatable. And as an aside, about the "right people" to get advice from: I love that concept of finding a mentor who is only just ahead of you, and therefore is solving the mistakes that you're just about to make.
  - lambdatronics 6y ago
    > finding a mentor who is only just ahead of you, and therefore is solving the mistakes that you're just about to make. This is gold! I used to buy into the idea that small colleges were a better learning environment for students due to the increased interaction with professors (class sizes ~30 vs 300). However, with younger TA's leading discussion sections, I changed my mind. I've seen professors who totally didn't understand the conceptual problem a student was having because the professor had crossed that bridge 30 years ago and forgot about it.
laybak 6y ago
Very much agreed! I feel this dwarfs the reasons listed in the original post (maybe with the exception of #1). For every piece of advice available, I can find you an equally credible person saying the opposite.
- lambdatronics 6y ago
  “The opposite of a fact is a falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.” – Niels Bohr
  - laybak 6y ago
    Nice, great quote! :D

adventured 6y ago

One of the most important lessons I learned early on as an entrepreneur is the concept of well-qualified advice. When you're green, it's natural to seek advice from people you trust, people you think are smart, people with a lot of life and or business experience, family members, and so on. In most cases their advice is either going to be too general to be useful or they're going to have no knowledge and experience at what you're specifically working on, your domain, so their advice is far more likely to be dangerous. Those people will want to help, people like to be asked for advice, it feels nice; I think most people like to hear themselves talk, it's a normal thing. Their intentions will be good. I also think it's common for people to not have a good grasp of where their expertise ends and where their weakly-supported opinions begin (something everyone is guilty of at times). If you ask for an opinion, input, advice, you're likely to get it, even if the person isn't very qualified to offer it. So it's important to be very selective about who you seek advice from, making sure that they're in a position to offer valuable insight to what exactly you are dealing with.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
This, so much. I love being asked for advice, and love handing it out. It's so much easier to see the problems in someone else's business than it is in my own. Whether that's good advice or not is debatable. And as an aside, about the "right people" to get advice from: I love that concept of finding a mentor who is only just ahead of you, and therefore is solving the mistakes that you're just about to make.
- lambdatronics 6y ago
  > finding a mentor who is only just ahead of you, and therefore is solving the mistakes that you're just about to make. This is gold! I used to buy into the idea that small colleges were a better learning environment for students due to the increased interaction with professors (class sizes ~30 vs 300). However, with younger TA's leading discussion sections, I changed my mind. I've seen professors who totally didn't understand the conceptual problem a student was having because the professor had crossed that bridge 30 years ago and forgot about it.

laybak 6y ago

Very much agreed! I feel this dwarfs the reasons listed in the original post (maybe with the exception of #1). For every piece of advice available, I can find you an equally credible person saying the opposite.

lambdatronics 6y ago
“The opposite of a fact is a falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.” – Niels Bohr
- laybak 6y ago
  Nice, great quote! :D