[cdicelico]

I have been walking the line between technology (working software engineer my whole career) and business (small business owner, technical cofounder, startup employee several times over) my whole life and if I had one thing that I wish I had known earlier it's this: trust yourself! Just go, learn, and repeat - action is king.

Let me elaborate on that a bit. Seeking more and more knowledge and wisdom in an effort to learn some kind of system or trodden path to success is understandable but can quickly consume all of your time & energy and likely won't provide much real value over the long term. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, beats jumping in, doing stuff, being objective and introspective enough to identify what works and what doesn't, and iterating. What people are doing now will change. What people are using to do those things will change. What won't change, though, is the value of being able to take action and move through that world with confidence and resilience.

Reading, research, and listening to people is good but you should trust the laboratory of action above all else, especially over other people's opinions. Why, if you're a normal, intelligent, rational human being, would you ever put the opinion of some arbitrary person above what you can observe yourself? Because it's on the web or in a book? That's silly. Be extremely selective in who you allow to be your advisors - you wouldn't indiscriminately sleep with just anyone at the drop of a hat, would you? Don't just take advice from everyone, either.

Don't let people pigeonhole you, don't let people project their ideas onto your passion, and learn to identify where you should spend your precious time & attention - most of the time, you should spend those on action, not navel gazing and not "preparation" for action.

There are maybe a handful of books and blog posts that are really worthwhile. Once you have read those, everything else is simply other people regurgitating what they have read and is therefore not very useful. Also, on points that are very crucial, like legal and financial matters, I would hope you have an attorney and accountant to help you make those decisions - don't try to learn everything yourself and carefully establish and nurture your inner circle so that you can focus on - you guessed it - action.

[germinalphrase]

"There are maybe a handful of books and blog posts that are really worthwhile."

Can you recommend one or two favorites?

[cdicelico]

Sure. I like Hello, Startup by Brikman and Zero to One by Thiel and follow Y Combinator's content on YouTube. I also love Disciplined Entrepreneurship - the book used in MIT's Entrepreneurship 101, 102 & 103 courses. There's a corresponding workbook, too. A lot of this stuff is subjective, though. That's the stuff that has proven useful to me, personally, but as always, ymmv! Anything on basic business & economics is probably enough for a smart person with a good head on her shoulders to get going & pick up the rest on the move.

Overall, the number one most valuable skill in my opinion, and the one that I keep coming back to over the years is critical thinking. For that, I love Understanding Arguments, the Philosopher's Toolkit & Ethics Toolkit by Baggini & Fosl, and anything "legal", which sharpens your critical thinking, like Farnsworth's Legal Analyst or even Intro to American Law on Coursera. But those three books on basic reasoning will serve you well for the rest of your life as a business and technical leader.