Advice: Raise more money than you think you'll need early in your company's life, Stoppelman says. It will get you through unforeseen rough patches in the early research and development phase. Says Simmons: Be extremely careful with every hire and remember that the personalities will filter into every aspect of the company.
Advice: "It's really a patience game, and you need investors who share a vision. Everything else comes from there. If you have investors looking for a quick turnaround, 99% of your problems are going to come from that."
Advice: "Surround yourself with really, really smart people and don't be afraid to give them equity, because it's all about the team," says Sternberg.
Advice: "It's not about how much you can make," Khan says. "You have to be focused on building something greater than yourself."
Advice: "Just jump into the deep end of the pool," says Trenchard. "Smart, motivated people will pick things up quickly and you'll get further faster than taking the safe route through Corporate America."
Advice: "Speak to as many successful people as you can," Spencer says. "You'll get lots of advice, much of it contradictory, but your job as the entrepreneur is to figure out how it all applies to you and your business."
Advice: Choose something you love and "be O.K. with uncertainty," Tseng says. Adds Schleier-Smith: Find good mentors. When you're starting out, "you have a lot more to learn from other people than they have to learn from you."
Advice: Build and get to market as fast as possible, says Schachter. He adds that successful products speak louder than business plans and happy customers are better at marketing than you are.
Advice: "Don't look at what the industry is doing," Erchak says. "Look at what they're not doing and focus on that. That's where the real disruptive technology comes from."
Advice: "If you are going after a new market, know nothing or everything there is to know about that market," Davis says. "If you know only something, you might be afraid" to get started, he says.
