What's one piece of generally accepted advice that didn't work out for you?

Not advice per se. But, the whole downplaying the role of 'luck' in one's success. At the end of the day, Everything is luck. You were lucky(unlucky) enough to be you, to have your surrounding, your opportunities/misfortunes, to have/not have your work ethic. Luck is everything in life.

The whole BS about "You can sleep when you're dead" and other stuff that glorifies burnout culture is self-defeating and perpetuated by people who are overcompensating for their lack of talent and creativity.

I think " working our asses off " is the advice that never worked well for me. chasing a goal, someone else has set for you,leaves you mentally and physically drained. Over the time I have realised that taking breaks and taking time for yourself is fine, setting your own boundaries is so important if you wish to work in a same field for a long time.

Working weekends or more than 8h per day.

Back before the Presidential Election in 2020, I suggested to someone that I considered a mentor of developing a tool that companies could use to track vaccination status. I told him that Trump was saying the vaccines were almost finished. But he is a pretty hard line liberal and hated Trump. He told me that the idea was pointless because the vaccines were never going to make it to market... Well, I took his advice despite his bias, and started working on Log Harvestor. Well, roughly 10 months later, I really wish I had followed my gut. I would have a super relevant, mature product, that most people are still trying to build. I guess the lessons I learned was: 1. Sometimes you have to go with your gut 2. Even the smartest people can still be lead astray by emotions or politics Also, I am kind of glad that I didn't jump into the vaccine idea. It just seems to politically heated. So I guess it worked out either way! lol

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The one piece of advice that didnt work out for me is to focus on only studying and keeping all things secondary even if you are naturally inclined to something.

"Look he is a generally accepted Angel Investor, you should talk to him/her" usually does not work for us :)

Listen to what other people say. I'd say this piece of advice might work better after a slight update - Listen, analyze and then consider to apply what other people say. Going blindly just by listening to what other recommend, say, suggest can be extremely risks for a huge bulk of reasons. Think, always think and do everything to form a solid opinion of your own.

Stick to what you know and stay in the veterinary field. Here I am 2 years later and I'm in tech, working at Appcues and it's changed my life.

CEOs are often told to raise as much capital as possible since they do not know what the future funding markets will look like. I've done this. It was terrible advice. I've built bootstrapped companies that were very successful vs. a company I built with $60 million of VC funding that, when sold, only generated a return for the late-stage VCs. I recommend the "lean startup" approach, where you maximize cash efficiency and product development instead of spending money on expensive marketing and sales programs and unnecessary headcount. No one has a crystal ball and until you are sure you have a product fit spend as little money as possible. Want to learn more about this idea read "The Purple Cow" by Seth Godin. You want to find a purple cow and that does not require millions of dollars.