I do a lot of things to do with startups – we have a bunch of mobile startup clients at TBC Digital and I mentor on Oxygen accelerator plus others for a couple of touch points. This means I talk to a lot of startup founders and I say the a lot of the same things to pretty much all of them. I say other stuff as well but here are my top five:
1) Read the Lean Startup by Erik Ries and remember lean means scientific not stingy
2) Follow Dave McClure on Twitter and learn about startup metrics for pirates (aarrr!!)
3) Go to a Launch48 to do a startup in a weekend and see how everything in startup land fits together
4) Run through the Business Model Canvas to make sure you have looked at your startup from all perspectives
5) Product matters but execution matters more!