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4 Top Entrepreneurs Share Their Best Advice For Startup Success

 

I’ve had the privilege to interview some pretty awesome entrepreneurs with some great stories to tell. They’ve also had some great startup advice to pass along to our KillerStartups audience. So, I did a little digging and collected four great tips on how to achieve startup success. Here ya go, my friends.

 

 

1. Nick Hungerford, co-founder of Nutmeg

“Unless you feel that you can tell your co-founders and investors anything and share with them whatever is on your mind, don’t shake hands on that relationship.”

 

 

 

 

2. Amado Martin, founder of fr9.com

“The best business advice I ever received is that there is no greater failure than not having tried. Develop success from failures and 90% of success is simply to insist.”

 

 

 

3. Jon Blake, co-founder of IMAGN

Unless you absolutely have no choice, try to do as many things as you can yourself, and/or with the team you already have. You’ll need a lot of your money for things like IP and other costs of running a business, which is something I think we’re all guilty of glossing over when we’re romanticizing the startup space.”

 

 

 

 

“Use the tools you’re skilled with, not the tools that are currently in fashion – unless you’re making a product specifically for the startup “scene,” it’s the end product that your users care about, not what it was coded or designed in.”

 

4. Leo Resig of TheChive

“Don’t quit your day job. I know that phrase is exhausted and used more tongue-in-cheek, but there’s a lot of truth to it. Out of college, I was working as a server at a wine bar in Chicago and writing screenplays while most of my friends were starting their entry level, crappy corporate jobs. I was doing well enough to live on my own in Chicago waiting tables and I convinced my ego that it’s ok to be a server with a college degree because I was pursuing my dream of filmmaking. Turns out, I hated waiting tables and I wanted freedom to do what I want when I wanted.”

 

 

 

 

“Being overly ambitious, I thought I could start my own wedding DVD business full time so I quit my job and set off on my own with no overlap of running the new business and waiting tables, which actually paid the bills. It didn’t have legs and I opened multiple credit cards to fund the business (thanks Robert Rodriguez) and it all went to hell. In about 6 months. I didn’t hedge my bets in the beginning and maintain an income stream while trying to launch a new business with no funding and it bit me in the ass.”

 

“When I started theCHIVE in 2008 with my brother John, I was working for an online ad rep firm, full time with salary. I worked on theCHIVE at night for a whole year before quitting my career. I didn’t quit until the profits from theCHIVE were enough to sustain my lifestyle.”

 

I know that last tidbit was long, but Leo is a riot, and I didn’t want to cut any of his answer out. So, take it from these killer treps: trust your business partners, take the startup risk, do what you can yourself and don’t quit your day job. Who knows? Maybe you’ll make our next list of the best startup advice!

 

Photo Credits

Courtesy of:  Nick Hungerford | Amado Martin | Jonathan Blake | Leo Resig

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