If you have to make binary tradeoffs on who to take your advice from, I’d recommend that you take it from someone who’s in the trenches, like Glenn Kelman, Andy Liu, or Ev Williams (and here) as their feedback may be a little moister, with recent blood, sweat, and tears (that is, if they have time to talk with you — my hunch is that you’ll be more likely to get a 4 sentence e-mail, as they won’t have the time to prepare for and attend a multi-day conference).
love this advice Dave.
I’d add that startups thinking of formalizing the advice gathering process by bringing on advisors should skip this and simply take those from the trenches out for a cup of coffee every so often.
BTW, I hear you’ll settle for a short SBUX drip.
How uncharacteristically sour of you! 🙂
The guy worked in a startup recently enough and had some good success. He’s entitled to offer advice, IMO. And his advice is largely really good.
That being said, I’m not a big fan of the “formula for startup success” (“do the 5 whys with 6 sigma for 7 minute abs!”) efforts. Markets are wildly different and timing can be everything. There are some great guidelines out there– and lord knows I’ve tried to offer a nugget or two when I feel like I’ve stumbled onto one. But I wonder how much of startup advice is us trying to create patterns and rules where there really aren’t many.
tom – agree entirely – i love my advisors, but i take advantage of their experience far too often in official capacities; much better to underformalize and make it happen where you can
tony – yes, that’s my sourness at its maximum output — really, it wasn’t a comment on @ericries directly – moreso on punditry/fandome that seems to flood through the echo-chamber every few weeks
ok… back to the salt mines…