I see the biggest problem with "startup advice" is the bias or an outright conflict of interest from most of these "advisors". They are usually trying to sell y

I see the biggest problem with "startup advice" is the bias or an outright conflict of interest from most of these "advisors". They are usually trying to sell you something and anything they say has to be heavily discounted on that basis alone. Incubators/accelerators are going to tell you that (surprise!) going through an incubator/accelerator is the best path to success (forget that most successes happen without incubators). Angels are going to tell you they are the best source of seed capital (even though many won't do much beside writing one check). VCs are going to tell you that you cannot scale without them (I am sure Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, etc really regret not being VC-funded). Retired executives will tell you to do exactly what made them successful without bothering to check if that applies to your situation. People who failed at something will try to convince you that you are going to fail at attacking the same field (never mind a totally different approach). Engineers heavily invested in that open source project or the other will say that you are stupid not to use it. Caveat Emptor! Beware geeks/investors bearing advice!