* Everybody else on your team is an engineer or developer. Obviously, this doesn't mean you can't be successful (I know, I know - look at Google), but you should consider the possibility that you're probably missing vital skills needed to compliment your startup's technical prowess. From UX to business development, you have to get a lot right to turn a great product into a great business, and that can be difficult when you have three other chefs in the kitchen who all cook the same cuisine.

* Starting a business with three close friends seems nice on paper, but don't assume that good friends necessarily make for good business partners.

* Talk about arbitrary dollar amounts calls into question not just your sense of reality, but your motivations. Can your startup raise $1 million? Perhaps. Will you have $10 million in cold hard cash in two years? Perhaps. But you could buy a lottery ticket and win the same amount within the next two years too. If you wouldn't plan your life around a potential financial windfall from a lottery ticket, why would you plan your life around a potential financial windfall from a startup? The number of self-made 24 year-olds with $10 million-plus net worths is quite small, but you probably already know that.