Overview
Each blog post is dedicated to one common startup founder question or issue. I provide some color from my own experience and then a link to the exact point in a piece of media (typically a podcast or video) where another experienced founder is commenting on that same question or issue.

For blog post #100 I explained more about how I choose topics. You can find it here.

Why?

1. Timing
Maybe it's 10,000 hours, but I now feel like I have a well-rounded education in startups. I’ve had the early failures that are necessary in the beginning. I've been an early employee of a VC-backed rocket ship that crashed & burned during the Internet boom of the late 90s. I’ve founded a venture-backed company and grown it at a rapid pace to millions of consumers generating millions in profitable revenue. I’ve paired-down teams and weathered the rough times. And over the last five years I've probably had 1,000 coffee conversations with founders seeking advice (on top of the half-dozen startups that I personally advise). I would never recommend anyone solely listen to my advice, but I’ve now “been around” (my bio).

2. Pay it forward
For years I’ve learned through blogs like David Cummings on Startups, AVC & Both Sides of the Table and experienced how much these helped accelerate my startup education. Starting new ventures is mentally daunting. Things like blogs and podcasts have helped keep me informed, sane & motivated. I hope that sharing my point-of-view will help the startup community in return for all of the help the startup community has provided to me over the years.

3. Founders have common issues
Startup founders typically have very similar questions and concerns. As a result, I started keeping a folder of “founder lessons” a few years ago in Evernote. Every time a founder would ask a common question, I’d dig into this folder and shoot over a few links to help them think through the issue. In mid-2015 I started tweeting these links and it got me thinking that there was probably a better way to get these lessons out to a larger audience.

If any of these lessons resonate with you, please share them with other founders who you think could benefit from them.

I’d love to hear your thoughts publicly at @davempayne or privately at dave.payne@techstars.com.

Finally please subscribe on the homepage to receive each new lesson via email when I post them.

Thanks for helping us all learn faster!