yes sadly this could be one bullet point. "Avoid acting in a meaningful way on advice in any startup advice post" Case in point here: 1) In general, avoid the

yes sadly this could be one bullet point. "Avoid acting in a meaningful way on advice in any startup advice post" Case in point here: 1) In general, avoid the kind of stuff that might be in a movie about running a startup—meeting with lawyers and accountants, going to lots of conferences, grabbing coffee with people, sitting in lots of meetings, etc. then 2) "Don’t underestimate the importance of personal connections" so make sure you're working and nurturing personal connections but don't do that by grabbing coffee with people or going to conferences. Wait what?! I'm picking on Sam and that's not really fair because every list of startup advice has these seemingly contradictory bullet points throughout. My advice would be understand whether you're an extrovert or introvert and technically gifted or market understanding gifted. Go work for someone who has that same profile and watch what they do. Then go cofound with someone who is the opposite of your profile (an extroverted market understanding individual if you're an introverted developer) where you know you'll mutually respect each others differences and won't murder each other after 6 months. With the two of you (or 3 possibly) covering those 4 bases you'll build the right product for the market and will build a culture where a broad range of employees feel comfortable and will always have someone to work with investors and customers and someone else making sure you're not taking your eyes off the critical internal stuff. Work out if you're the Edge or you're Bono and then find your other half. The rest is all gut and while you'll screw some things up you have the building blocks to succeed.