The best business advice I’ve ever gotten is actually two pieces of advice from two different people. Collectively these two pieces of advice are the most valuable I’ve ever been given. First, when planning to work with someone, in any capacity, look for two things over all else. Does the person know how the world they are in works, and do they know at least generally how they fit into that world? If they understand how the world works and how they fit into it; most other issues can be navigated. If not you’ll spend a lot of time dealing with problems arising from fundamental misperceptions. An example of this I’ve used before was a friend who called to thank me for being one of the most reliable people they knew. In that same call, they mentioned working with an investor they could never introduce me to. Because??? This person believed that if they introduced me to the investor, and that investor funded a project I worked on, and that project fell apart, that the investor would blame him. The context implied he was talking about a professional, institutional investor. If my friend’s take sounds insane, it’s because you know investors want deal flow and have a due diligence process. Or, you don’t believe a passing introduction by a founder who received a small angel investment would be taken as anything more than a passing introduction. To my friend’s view of the world and where he fit into it, a…The Best Business Advice I’ve Ever Gotten – Mason Pelt