The number one job of a CEO is to not run out of money. The number two job is to not run out of talent.
Most founders build their product in a vacuum and then are surprised that nobody wants it. Talk to your users before you build. Talk to them while you build. Then talk to them again.
The best founders I've seen are obsessed with a specific problem, not with being a founder. If you're excited about startups in the abstract, that's a yellow flag.
Speed is your biggest advantage as an early-stage startup. The goal is to learn faster than everyone else. That requires moving faster than feels comfortable.
Fundraising is not the goal. It's a tool. The goal is to build something people want. Founders who confuse the two end up with money and no product.
If you can't explain what you do in two sentences, that's not a communication problem — it's a clarity problem about what you're building.