I love talking with entrepreneurs about their businesses. Often they end up asking me for advice. I always tell them that I can only offer opinionx — as whatever I can dole out as advice is highly contextual: It might have worked for me in the particular circumstances I was in. Which doesn’t mean it will work for you. Actually there is a good chance that it will not work for you.
Now the challenge is: You will get lots and lots of advice. Especially if you ask for it (and you should). Filtering out the signal from the noise is hard and requires discipline, the strength to ignore strong opinions from “proven entrepreneurs” and the gut to trust your instincts.
Here’s what I suggest you do: When you receive advice — get it out of your head first. Make sure you don’t muddle up someone else’s opinion with your own stuff. Then take some time to look at the advice from all different angles; see what makes sense to you and don’t be shy to reject the pieces which don’t fit. And keep your notes — sometimes it takes time for something to sink in or you need to hear and process a piece of advice multiple times from different people to really get to the bottom of it.
There are no maps. And if someone presents you one — it’s never yours.