If you have a thought and you don’t write it down, there is a high likelihood that you will forget it, and it will be as if the thought never existed. The life expectancy of an unrecorded thought is low.

Putting a thought in writing is an act of creation. You are making it real.

A bed of mud. A nursery for the lotus.

The flower blooms whether one sees it or not.

Glittering fish shelter in shadows and shallow roots.

The great white heron hunts with wings unfurled and unseen.

These are lessons I’ve learned over a decade of supporting early-stage entrepreneurs at Stanford and in El Paso. No entrepreneurial journey is the same, but these principles are broadly applicable.

• Only entrepreneurs can build companies.

• Only entrepreneurs can build themselves into entrepreneurs.
• There are unknowable and uncontrollable factors that can dictate an entrepreneur’s success or failure. Even the best founders can fail if market conditions aren’t favorable.
• In most cases, you will not have the applicable skills or experience to help entrepreneurs with their particular problem.
• The best ways to reliably support entrepreneurs are to 1) help them maintain morale and 2) find people who can help.
• There is no right way to build a company, but there are countless wrong ways.
• Bad advice is worse than no advice.
• Your advice should be regarded as one data point.
• The winner is often whoever stays alive the longest.
• Every successful tech company must break a few important conventions, but it must not break all conventions. The challenge lies in picking the right conventions to break.
• Most companies should do most things conventionally so they can focus on breaking the right conventions.
• There are no shortcuts. Whatever impedes the entrepreneur’s path should become the path.
• A company needs people who can sell and people who can build.
• It is significantly easier to become a salesperson than it is to become a builder.
• A salesperson who cannot hire builders will not succeed.
• Everyone wants to connect the dots, but few people want to go through the trouble of collecting dots.
• 99.9% of great ideas come from experience or networks with experience. Students and young entrepreneurs typically have little of either.
• Expertise must be lived, and it goes stale fast.
• Real entrepreneurs don’t need permission to start.
• Money is an accelerant, not permission.
• If you think you know how to find the next great entrepreneur, quit your job and make billions as an investor.
• You cannot alter risk preferences of sophisticated investors. Entrepreneurs should only take investments from sophisticated investors.
• If you continuously tell people they are something, they will eventually start to believe you.