Yes, I agree you can only actually learn by doing. No amount of book-reading will equal your first startup in terms of practical knowledge and how to apply it.

Yes, I agree you can only actually learn by doing. No amount of book-reading will equal your first startup in terms of practical knowledge and how to apply it. That said, one's own startup is necessarily narrow in scope and there is a ton that the active practitioner can learn from anecdotes from other startups, especially across different markets and industries, and with different talent and network constraints.