I can't emphasize how awesome it is to have advisers. Here are a couple of tips I've learned in the last two months:
1) Have a bunch of advisers. With ten or more advisers, if they only email you a couple of times a month you can get a huge amount of feedback. Whereas if you only have one or two advisers the bandwidth just doesn't work out.
2) Good advisers are not just boosters. I'm really lucky to have some HN'ers helping out and they have been terrific about giving me negative feedback when it's warranted. Lots of folks can cheer you up or pat you on the back. Good advisers give you a good reality check.
3) Never use an email distribution list. I did this the first time I sent an email to my adviser list and it was a big mistake. People are taking the time to personally help you, the least they deserve is a personal email and conversation. Yes, it's easy to send things to lots of people at once, but it's really counterproductive. You're not trying to spam people, you're trying to engage them.
4) People will usually over-promise and under-deliver. This is just human nature. It's easy to say you'd like to actively help out with something but lots of times lots of other things have higher priority. This is another reason for having a larger list of advisors.
As this latest startup nears beta status, getting and using advisers was the best decision I've made so far.