Every time you scroll Twitter, LinkedIn or Reddit you’ll find the same endless buffet of startup wisdom.
Build fast.
Validate early.
Talk to customers.
Ship daily.
Raise VC.
Never raise VC.
Bootstrap.
Hire a cofounder.
Go solo.
It never stops. And honestly? Most of it sucks.
Not because the advice is completely wrong. But because it’s useless when it’s ripped out of context.
The Problem With Startup Advice
Advice is basically autobiography.
When someone says:
“You should raise money early” → it worked for them.
“You should never raise money” → they bootstrapped and want to justify that.
“Ship fast and break things” → maybe fine in consumer tech, but try that in fintech and see how fast you get shut down.
Everyone is projecting their own story as if it’s universal truth.
Your situation is different. Your skills, money, timing, energy, and market are not theirs. That’s why following advice blindly will mess you up.
My Mistake: Drowning in Advice
When I started building SaaS projects, I inhaled everything.
I followed the “must reads.” I copied playbooks. I listened to every podcast like I was downloading a cheat code.
Guess what happened?
👉 I froze.
Too much advice turned into no action. Conflicting strategies made me second guess every move.
It’s like trying to follow ten GPS directions at once. You don’t move. You just sit at the intersection overthinking.
CoLaunchly and the “Do It All” Trap
When I was building CoLaunchly, I ran into the same problem.
One camp said you need a crystal clear ICP. Another said just launch messy and figure it out later. One said don’t touch marketing until you hit $1k MRR. Another said your first 100 users should come from marketing.
Which one do you listen to?
I tried to do all of them. Tight positioning. Messy features. Marketing experiments. Talking to 100 people. The result? Burnout. And slower progress than if I’d just picked one path and committed.
That’s when I realized advice is a trap if you don’t filter it.
The Internet Makes It Worse
Social platforms are built for virality, not nuance.
“Here’s a 7 step playbook to $10k MRR.”
“Just DM 100 people, that’s how I got my first 50 users.”
“Cold email is dead. Long live cold email.”
It’s all designed to look simple and actionable. But startups aren’t simple. Context is messy.
What really spreads is:
Obvious things packaged like a revelation (“talk to your customers”).
Survivorship bias (“we focused on community and it exploded”).
Platitudes you can’t use today (“play the long game” while your rent is due this month).
What Actually Works
So what’s the alternative?
I’ve boiled it down to three things.
1. Run Tiny Experiments
Instead of chasing 10 step plans, I just test small moves.
Example: for Cross Write’s waitlist, I didn’t overthink a “proper launch strategy.” I slapped together a landing page, shared it, and watched who signed up.
That gave me real data. Much better than scrolling 100 growth threads.
2. Filter Advice Through Your Context
Now I run all advice through a filter.
Does this apply to my stage?
Does this align with my strengths?
Does this fit my market?
If yes, maybe I test it. If not, ignore and keep moving.
3. Learn By Doing, Not Consuming
The most useful lessons came from screwing up, not reading.
Shipping features nobody wanted.
Burning weeks on the wrong marketing channel.
Getting zero signups on a launch I thought would hit.
Those mistakes hurt but they stick. They actually shaped how I build the next thing.
The Irony
Yeah I get it. Me telling you “don’t listen to advice” is advice too.
But here’s the difference. I don’t want you to follow this blindly. I want you to test it in your own world.
The real skill isn’t finding the perfect advice. It’s learning how to:
Spot what might fit.
Ignore noise.
Run experiments fast.
Keep going even when everything contradicts itself.
That’s the muscle you need to build.
The Takeaway
Most startup advice sucks because it has no context.
The only playbook that matters is the one you write by doing.
So stop collecting advice like trading cards. Start collecting experiments.
Test. Learn. Repeat.
That’s the game.
And honestly, it’s the only one worth playing.