Well, not all of it. That title was blatant click-bait. You’re here and I’ve won. Nyah!

I’ve long been passionate about reading and digesting every tidbit of information about what it takes to build a successful startup. I’m an avid reader of people like Seth Godin, Paul Graham, Guy Kawasaki, the fellas at VentureHacks, Fred Wilson, Josh Kopelman, Andrew Chen, and more. As a participant in the YCombinator program, I have weekly dinners with entrepreneurs who have “hit it big” (Mark Andreessen, Ev Williams, Paul Buccheit, Chris Sacca, & Joe Kraus, to name a few).

All of the things I’ve learned are incredibly useful and all of it (paradoxically) can be incredibly wrong.

Let me explain my thinking here. Human beings love formulas. Human beings who succeed naturally think that they’ve stumbled onto a magical step-by-step guide on how other people can succeed, too. They blog about it, speak about it, and generally spread their wisdom far and wide.

The funny thing is that when you read/hear enough of this stuff, you start hearing brilliant and successful peopl