Start-Up Secrets: Tips from America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs

"It's great to have a business plan. But we grew very fast in the beginning without a lot of systems in place. It's really important to set up a base operating model for day-to-day operations as early on as possible."
-- Bo Menkiti, The Menkiti Group

"You have to be able to have a conversation with your partners at least once a week and not always dread that conversation. You have to understand each other, and you have to be able to work together."
-- Geoff Cook, myYearbook.com

"I sometimes wish I had gone into retail first, because when you work in an actual store, you get a much better understanding of what it is shoppers are looking for."
-- Alexis Demko, Lil Bogies

"One thing I've learned is that you have to learn to celebrate the little successes when they happen, and not just worry about the failures all the time."
-- Ben Goldhirsh, GOOD

"A lot of people will tell you to get a job or go to school before starting a business. But if you believe in your product and think there is a void for your niche, then just keep on truckin'."
-- Dan Gershon, Icedoutgear.com

"I don't think you need so much business knowledge to start your own business. You just have to be willing to learn as you go and learn from your mistakes."
-- Eric Liberman, Icedoutgear.com

"Starting your own business is a commitment -- it becomes your life. You have to embrace it and understand that if you're going to do something and want it to be successful, you're going to be making a lot of sacrifices. But that's incredibly rewarding."
-- Katie Kerrigan, Kathryn Kerrigan

"We have gone with our gut instinct quite a bit and it seems to pay off. You don't always have to listen to what others say."
-- Jason Osborn, Feed Granola Co.

"Retail is definitely a tough business. I have a lot of girls come in and say they want to open a store someday. A lot of people think it's more glamorous than it is. But there's a lot of worrying, scheduling, and a lot of people problems. You either love it or you hate it. I have seen a lot of stores go out of business because they realize they hate retail."
-- Alison Barnard, in-jean-ius

"Start a business while you're young. You're able to sacrifice a lot more and put in the time necessary. It's much harder and more time consuming that you ever would have thought."
-- Rob Crespi, Just Salad

"Identify your own weaknesses and find people that you can work with who will make up for that."
-- Nick Kenner, Just Salad

"Be very careful with your finances and be honest with yourself about how much things are going to cost. Be as realistic as you can."
-- Seth Berkowitz, Insomnia Cookies

"You have to have a vision of what you're actually going to provide for someone. Why is someone going to use my service? What is it going to do for them? If you can actually solve somebody's problem, the money will always follow."
-- Raj Lahoti, Online Guru

"Sell yourself first, then sell your idea. Ninety percent of investors will invest in a person. If you create an 'A' team with a 'B' product, then you'll have an 'A' company. If you create a 'B' team with an 'A' product, then you'll have a 'B' company."
- Miles Munz, InterviewStream

"It's amazing how much you can learn by just attacking the problems. What we've found is that there are very few problems that a team of people working well together can't overcome."
-- Brenton Taylor, Inogen

"You might not need as much money as you think you need. A lot of people have simple concepts that are looking for tons of money, and you can misstep. It's better to start small and make sure you're onto something than try to get too big too fast. Once you're selling and once you're bringing in revenue, then that allows you to grow."
-- Brian Taylor, Kernel Season's

"Don't feel let down if your first idea doesn't work. We tried plenty of things that we thought would be a good idea and failed. Don't get de-motivated."
-- Sean Belnick, BizChair.com

"Don't be scared. That was the biggest thing we faced, especially in the early days. We were a very little company trying to do business with these behemoths and it's really intimidating. Something is always going wrong and someone is always putting out press releases about how they are going to kill you in the competitive marketplace. As long as you keep doing the right thing and have the best product, you can beat the bigger company."
-- Sam Altman, Loopt

"The most important thing is just to go out and start something. I think a lot of people feel as if they are not qualified yet or they just need to get X-amount of money in the bank before they go out and do it. A lot of times, at least in the experiences I had, there's always a reason not to start a company. If you look down that road, it may never happen. Just go out and start something. And it doesn't really matter what it is, you'll get phenomenal experience starting anything. And eventually you'll get a successful business under your belt."
-- Hayden Hamilton, GreenPrint

"Do your homework before jumping into the business. In most industries, I think people that are young and coming out of college can still jump into them. The publishing industry is a bear of an industry, yet somehow we were able to pull it off -- obviously, with some luck. In doing our homework we learned a few things. These allowed us to weather the early storms, and gave us time to grow through organic growth. And that kept us alive for the first couple of years."
-- Will Pearson, Mental Floss

"Because of our youth, our thoughts are less affected by perceived realities of the business world -- and that allows us to be the forward-thinking creatives that we are. Our first thoughts are our purest, and we need to do everything we can to follow those instincts and do what we believe in. It's no longer about the money. It's about doing what you feel is the right thing to do and hoping the money will follow."
-- Ben Kaufman, Mophie

You have to really believe in your idea. We started at a time which was the worst time for magazines in terms of advertising since World War II. During the year we started, Talk magazine folded, Mademoiselle magazine folded, George magazine folded. And it was really all the money that burst from the Internet bubble. I think if we didn't really believe in our idea, there was no way it would've started.
- Mangesh Hattikudur, Mental Floss