Many technical people dream of starting a company and having it grow to an IPO. The history of computing is littered with the successes and failures of companies that attempted this. As a young man in high school, I saw the explosive growth and success of Apple, dreaming of working for them or duplicating their success. In the late 90s and 2000s, I tried a few startups before I founded SQL Server Central with my partners. I had success with that company, though no IPO :(.

I've seen many friends start companies, often consulting ones, though a few have built products. Building and running any enterprise is hard, and startups are no exception. There was a post on Hacker News looking for advice and business lessons from others, and I enjoyed reading the responses. I wouldn't read much deeper than the first level of responses, as many of the subsequent comments are less interesting.

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