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Comment by birken | Hacker News Reader

A very good post, but angel investors can also give you terrible, terrible advice that you should completely ignore. If you are founding a company, take the good advice, sure, but ignore the bad advice. Don't just assume because somebody is an angel investor they have any idea what they are talking about in terms of your product/company.

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How do you know what’s terrible advice and what’s not?

The advise is probably good advise for the wrong situation and person

Well if you founded a company then you should probably go with your instincts on what is good advice and what isn't. A random angel investor knows far less about your company than you do, no matter how successful their company was.

I like the answer (not mine) that you should go with what resonates. Your intuition may not always be right but that way you’ll feel ok with it and adjust your instincts based on feedback.

Truly valuable advice doesn't resonate. Otherwise you would already know it yourself. Good advice is about things you think you get right but you don't. It's also one most difficult to take.

> Truly valuable advice doesn't resonate. Otherwise you would already know it yourself

I think often valuable advice is actually being told something you already felt but couldn't elucidate.

Lol, the guy is probably only 15 years old. He just 'knows' good advice from bad:)

Definitely. Get advice from a variety of people with different styles/backgrounds then process that to make your own decisions. Even the most amazing investor will give advice that is wrong for you at times. Great investors respect that.

My other additional advice for founders is get support from other entrepreneurs at a similar stage - that peer support is super helpful especially on bad days!

As a former angel investor (I am too busy these days) it is not that angel investors give bad advice, just advice that matched their experience. Good advice, wrong situation.

The advice I have given that seems to have been most useful is not around product or market fit, but how to resolve internal conflicts. Human nature seems to have not changed much.

Isn't the quality of advice categorically contextual? It doesn't make sense to call inappropriate advice good, any more than cutting your arm off is good advice because there are some situations where it is warranted.

I would tend to categorise bad advice as advice that is always bad, while good advice that just doesn’t fit the situation is on a different level. In some ways this sort of advice is more dangerous since it can make a lot of sense and seem logical, but it just is not the right for the exact situation.

Anyway my experience is very few people are looking for advice, they are looking for validation and cover to do what they wanted to do before speaking to you.

Some angel investors are in it for the short term - flippers so to speak. I have seen them give bad advice to new founders. And since they control the money the bad advice is followed in spite of good counsel otherwise.

Yes I can imagine this sort of advice is always bad, but most of the angel investors I have worked with have not fallen into this group - I don’t want to co-invest with them either.

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