Every founder loves to hunt for the “one big idea” that changes everything. Read the right book, find the secret framework, unlock instant success.
That fantasy came up hard against reality in a long thread where entrepreneurs shared the best business advice they have ever received. The wisdom was not fancy. It was not theoretical. It was surprisingly practical and a little blunt.
Here are the themes that showed up again and again.
1. Stop Searching for the Secret Sauce and Start
A lot of people in the thread admitted they spent years reading instead of doing. One person tore through hundreds of business books, launched a company, then realized most of the real learning came from building the thing, breaking it, and fixing it.
At some point you have enough information. After that, every new book becomes a way to delay taking a risk.
You learn more by:
- Shipping something small
- Watching it fail in specific ways
- Fixing those failures in public
Action creates feedback. Feedback creates judgment. Judgment is what you actually need.
If you catch yourself thinking “I will start after I read X,” you already have your next task. Start first. Read to solve real problems that show up after.
2. Done Beats Perfect, Every Time
Perfection showed up as a silent killer in a lot of stories. People waiting for the perfect idea, perfect product, perfect timing. They never launched.
One of the most repeated lines was simple: “Done is better than perfect.”
An average plan you ship this quarter beats the brilliant idea you sit on for a year. An imperfect prototype talking to real customers beats another week tweaking slide decks.
A few practical ways to live that out:
- Build a minimum viable version, not the full vision
- Launch to a small slice of your market first
- Use feedback to guide the next upgrade instead of guessing
Good enough and live in front of customers is worth more than great and stuck in your notebook.
3. Say Yes Before You Feel Ready (With a Brain)
Another strong theme was saying yes to opportunities before you felt qualified.
Several people told the same story in different clothes. Someone asked if they could design a website. They had never done it. They said yes, then learned fast and delivered. Someone else took on e learning modules without prior experience, then turned that into a six figure contract.
The pattern looks like this:
- Say yes to the opportunity.
- Commit publicly so you cannot back out easily.
- Learn on the fly and get help where you need it.
There is an important caveat. Saying yes does not mean gambling your entire financial life on something you do not understand. One real estate investor in the thread put it clearly. Do the math. If the numbers work and you are not lying to yourself, take the shot.
Courage is not the same as recklessness. Take opportunities that stretch your skills, not ones that wipe out your safety net.
4. Talk to Real Customers, Not Your Reflection
A simple piece of advice stood out because it is so easy to ignore:
Do not sit alone in a room trying to guess if your idea will sell. Go ask people.
Founders in the thread talked about getting out of their heads and in front of “suspects” and then real customers. They kept asking and iterating until someone actually paid.
A few related lessons kept coming up:
- If your target customer is “everyone,” you really have no target
- Just because there is no competition does not mean there is demand
- People pay to solve pain, not to admire your cleverness
One commenter shared a very tactical way to filter ideas when you have too many:
- Trim the list until you have a top five
- For each one, ask if it solves a real problem for a specific group
- Build the smallest possible version
- Try to get three people who are not friends or family to pay before it even exists
If you cannot sell the idea in a simple version, a polished version probably will not save it.
5. Focus Beats Shiny Objects
Shiny object syndrome showed up often. Lots of people had dozens or hundreds of ideas on paper. Every new idea felt like “the one” for a week, then faded.
The fix is not more discipline in the abstract. It is structure.
From the advice in the thread, a simple filter looks like this:
- Remove anything too expensive or complex to do with your current resources
- Ask if you love business itself or need to love the specific idea
- Decide what you actually want from the business
- Side income or job replacement
- Solo work or team
- Digital product, service, physical product
Then match ideas against that reality. Ruthlessly narrow to a short list. Pick one and commit.
The key is this: every time you switch ideas, you reset your progress back to zero. Focus is a competitive advantage because most people cannot stick with anything long enough.
6. Fire Bad Customers
A surprising amount of “best advice” had nothing to do with marketing or growth. It was about boundaries.
One owner described a familiar customer type. They take huge amounts of time, try everything, demand special treatment, stack discounts, return things constantly, and argue every policy. At the end, they contribute almost no profit.
The advice that came out of those stories:
- It is okay to “fire” a customer who constantly drains your time and energy
- You can stay polite and professional while tightening policies and enforcing them
- Serving better customers well is more profitable than pleasing everyone
A small business cannot afford to burn out its team on people who actively work against its success.
7. Price for Value, Not for Approval
On the money side, a few simple patterns kept turning up:
- Avoid competing only on price for as long as possible
- Charging by the hour can trap you if you sell expertise
- Getting paid on a percentage of profit is dangerous unless the setup is very tight
A better lens is value. How much is the outcome worth to the client. How painful is the problem you are solving. How much do they need you.
Time matters, but it is not the main story. You want to move from “I sell hours” to “I solve this specific problem for this type of client.”
8. Hire Slow, Fire Fast, Watch Your Overhead
People decisions came up again and again. A few lines repeat across very different industries:
- “Overhead walks on two legs.”
- Hire carefully. Fire quickly when you see toxic behavior or consistent incompetence.
- Friends and family do not automatically make good business partners.
Several folks had stories where a single poorly aligned hire or partner almost wrecked the whole thing. Revenue can hide these problems for a while. Culture cannot. It rots from the inside.
Cheap office space and modest costs matter, but your real overhead is usually people. Choose carefully.
9. Ask for Advice Before You Ask for Money
There was also a clever pattern around investors and partners.
One founder described it like this. If you lead by asking for money, you usually get advice. If you lead by asking for honest advice and keep people in the loop, you often end up with money later.
The playbook looks like:
- Find people you respect who might invest someday.
- Ask for their perspective, not their checkbook.
- Keep them updated as you make progress using some of that input.
- When you hit a clear milestone or opportunity, invite them in.
By that time, they understand your business, have seen your execution, and feel some ownership of the idea. They are much more likely to invest or open doors.
10. Know When to Walk Away
Finally, one of the most quietly powerful pieces of advice in the whole thread:
Knowing when to get out is just as important as knowing when to start.
It is easy to cling to an idea long after the market has given its verdict. The advice here was not “give up fast.” It was more thoughtful.
Look hard at:
- How long you have been pushing with no traction
- How much more capital you can realistically risk
- Whether data supports the story you are telling yourself
If you like the odds and can afford the downside, keep swinging. If not, step away and apply everything you learned to the next thing.
Where You Can Take This Next
If you zoom out, most of this “best advice” comes back to a few simple habits:
- Start before you feel ready
- Talk to real customers, not just yourself
- Focus on one thing long enough to get good
- Protect your energy by choosing customers and partners wisely
- Treat information as fuel for action, not a substitute for it
For our team, this is a good gut check. Are we shipping or stalling. Are we talking to real users or designing in a vacuum. Are we chasing shiny projects or pushing the right ones across the finish line.
Pick one of these ten ideas and apply it to something you are working on this week. Not next quarter. This week. That is where the real value in advice lives.
This article draws on ideas shared by founders in Reddit’s r/Entrepreneur community.