Pragmatic Advice for First-Time Founders: 13 Essential Pieces of Advice

Launching a startup is a thrilling but challenging experience, and first-time founders often face unexpected obstacles. In the last several years, I have seen many founders walk themselves into traps, distractions, and eventually trouble based on bad advice. I have codified my experiences into a few points that may help some folks. I am guilty of making some of these mistakes and got some hard lessons from them – hence sharing them as lessons.

1. Solve an "Adequately Important" Problem

To build a successful startup, you must solve an "adequately important" problem—one that is urgent enough for your customers to action quickly. Founders often choose problems that are interesting or potentially profitable, but not pressing enough to make customers drop everything and address them. The consequences lead to lots of great meetings, but no closures, illusions of high interest in your product, smaller contract value, low product usage, and funding challenges.

If your product doesn’t solve any burning problem, it’s unlikely you’ll reach a true product-market fit (PMF). Real traction comes from problems which compel customers to use immediately.

2. Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) First

As a first-time founder, your initial goal should be to launch a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This version of your product should include only core features to solve your customers' problems. Launching an MVP lets you gather valuable feedback from early users, refine your product, and make improvements without wasting time or resources on unnecessary features.

Keeping your MVP lean and focused, to iterate quickly and adapt based on real-world data, will make sure you’re heading in the right direction before committing to larger-scale development and sinking money into it. Software products go through maturity and getting a fully bullet-proof product takes months/years.

3. Don’t Squander Equity for Advice

It’s common for first-time founders to seek advice from experienced professionals but be wary of giving away large chunks of equity in exchange for it. Equity is one of your most valuable assets and should be reserved only for people who will invest time, money, or effort into your company.

Industry veterans who believe in your vision can contribute in other ways, such as investing financially or rolling up their sleeves to work alongside you. The best advice often comes from people who want to see you succeed expecting nothing in return. Always guard your equity carefully, it should be shared only with people who truly add value and share in the risk.

4. Focus on Customer Feedback Over Outdated or Theoretical Advice

While it’s tempting to lean on advice from investors or seasoned entrepreneurs, customer feedback is by far the most important input you will receive. Customers are the ones using your product and determining its value. Their insights are grounded in real-world experiences, not theory or outdated perspectives.

Be cautious when taking advice from a VC who has never built or ran a company. Often, their insights are drawn from theoretical and opinion based mental models rather than their experience. They may be influenced by market trends, but they lack the operational experience that comes from building something from the ground up. Take their advice with a grain of salt.

Beware of pre-2015 founders who dish out advice based on their experiences from a different time. Back then, building products was significantly harder, but go-to-market (GTM) channels were less saturated. Today, we face the opposite challenge—building products is easier thanks to modern tools and technologies, but GTM channels are flooded with competition. Trust your customers' feedback and adjust your strategies based on what works in the current environment.

You cannot run a startup by reading blogs, opinions, and narratives. Content is written with a purpose, motive, and intent. It may or may not be applicable to you. While it is important to learn from others, put things in context.

5. Avoid Partnerships with Startups Early On

Many first-time founders are tempted to partner with other startups in hopes of mutual growth, but these partnerships often fail unless both parties are already successful. If one company is much larger or more established, the smaller partner usually gains little from the relationship.

Instead of wasting time on early partnerships, focus on growing your own product and customer base. Once your startup has traction, partnerships will come naturally and be more beneficial. Early-stage partnerships can be distractions that pull your attention away from what truly matters—your product and customers.

6. Pivot for the Right Reason

Pivots are a part of many successful startups, but they should be done only for the right reasons. A pivot should be based on strong data and clear feedback from customers or market shifts. Many first-time founders pivot too early or too often, which can lead to confusion and wasted resources.

Pivots are expensive, both in terms of time and money. Misfired early pivots can kill your momentum and, sometimes, your company. Before pivoting, make sure your decision is backed by evidence and that it aligns with your long-term goals. Not every challenge requires a pivot—sometimes, persistence and iteration are the better solutions.

7. Skip Paid Ads Until You Have Meaningful Organic Growth

Paid ads can be tempting as a quick way to drive traffic, but ads only amplify what’s already working. If your product hasn’t achieved organic traction, paid ads are unlikely to generate meaningful results. Investing in ads without organic growth often leads to poor returns, as zero traction multiplied by paid ads still equals zero results. Paid ads can also scale losses to a point of no return.

Focus on building organic growth channels—such as content marketing, SEO, and customer referrals—before diving into paid advertising. Once you’ve validated your product with real users and demonstrated organic growth, paid ads can help accelerate that growth further.

8. All Traction and Revenue are not the Same

While you will hear that investors want to see traction and revenue. While every dollar is green, any traction or revenue is not of the same value. Many startups focus on achieving traction at any cost, believing that sheer numbers will attract venture capital and increase their valuation or investor attractiveness. However, venture capitalists looking for quality traction—it must be scalable, repeatable, align with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), require minimal customization, and have pricing that reflects the true value of the product.

9. Outsource Marketing After Finding Product-Market Fit

Outsourcing your marketing before finding product-market fit is a common mistake. At the early stages of your startup, no one knows your product better than you do. As the founder, you’re in the best position to experiment, iterate, and define your go-to-market strategy.

Once you’ve reached PMF and clearly understand your market and customer base, you can begin outsourcing marketing efforts to help scale. But outsourcing too early often leads to misaligned messaging, wasted budgets, and ineffective campaigns.

10. Say No to Distractions and Temptations

In the early stages, founders face countless distractions and temptations. Whether it’s newsletter ads, hiring a sales/marketing team too early, or launching side projects like a podcast, these activities can waste valuable time and resources without delivering real results.

For example, many founders spend significant money on newsletter ads or platforms like Product Hunt and Indie Hackers, only to receive minimal returns as little to no paying users. Similarly, hiring a sales team before achieving at least $100k in revenue is premature—only you truly understand your product at this stage, and teaching juniors without a clear GTM strategy can drain your resources.

Hosting a podcast is another common temptation. While podcasts are great for the scale phase, they require a heavy investment of time and energy that can distract you from focusing on finding PMF. Unless you already have a large audience, a frugal way to produce podcasts, or are committed to building a large audience, it’s better to say no to distractions like these in the early days.

Stay focused on activities that drive measurable results and avoid the temptation to chase shiny objects. Saying no to distractions will let you channel your energy into what matters, building your product and growing your customer base.

11. The Conference Trap

Conferences are often seen as an opportunity to gain customers, but the reality is that buyers don’t buy at conferences. Most people at conferences are there to promote their own products or services, not to make purchasing decisions.

While conferences can be useful for networking and brand awareness, they rarely lead to direct revenue or signups. If you’re expecting to generate significant business from a conference, you’re likely to be disappointed. Use conferences as a way to connect with peers and learn from others in your industry, but don’t rely on them as a sales channel.

12. Never Assume Your Co-Founders’ Skills Stay the Same

As your startup grows, so do the skills of your co-founders. It’s easy to assume that the people you started the journey are the same people, but this is rarely the case. Over time, the demands of your startup will evolve, and so will their skills.

Always make sure you see your co-founder’s views even outside their Day 1 skills. Everyone is growing with the company and adapting to new challenges. If they’re not, it’s important to address the gaps early on. Keep an open mind about their vantage point and make sure every team member is upskilled as your startup scales.

13. Big Company Executives Aren’t Good Startup Advisors

Many first-time founders mistakenly think that big company executives make ideal advisors or co-founders for startups. However, operating in a large, well-known company is distinct from building something from the ground up. In big companies, executives build on fully baked platforms and established processes, but in startups, there is no infrastructure, process, or abundant human capital to fall back on – everything must be built ground up!

Executives can be valuable if they’ve successfully made the transition to startup life and understand the challenges of building from scratch. Without that direct experience, they may offer advice that doesn’t apply to the scrappy, fast-paced nature of startups. Before taking their guidance, ensure they’ve had startup success themselves—otherwise, their insights might not relate to your specific needs.