I recently heard an “I told you so.” We all know how frustrating this can be from both sides. The person who had told them so knew from experience what was likely going to happen and saw this result coming. The person who received the feedback and didn’t act is mad they didn’t take the advice. Here are three common areas of “I told you so” I see with entrepreneurs and mentors/advisors.

Hiring a sales team won’t solve your problems if you have no revenue or sales process

There are technical entrepreneurs who are building a product that is amazing and can do all sorts of “cool” things. They often think they can just hire a Head of Sales and the great product will start selling. Founder-led sales are critical in the beginning so you hear the necessary feedback from customers to better understand the pain points and make the required pivots. Furthermore, founder led sales help you prove a sales process, and then can more effectively hire a sales team to execute what you know already works.

Building one more product feature will not unlock sales

There are entrepreneurs with companies where sales are non-existent or have stagnated. All they need is to build out one more product feature and sales will take off. Be careful, more features are usually not the answer. Instead, really understand the customer to craft a solution that effectively solves their problem, fits into their workflow, and delivers ROI.

Be careful raising money at too high a valuation early on

Some entrepreneurs raise early money at the highest valuation possible. Many entrepreneurs would do better to bootstrap in the early days to maintain optionality until they figure out what path they want to take. If you raise at too high a valuation early, even if the business grows and does well, you could still be setup for a flat/down round at a future raise. I am a big fan of making sure you have a path to profitability at all times so you are not reliant on market conditions for the valuation of your business.

Be careful who you take feedback from, but know there are folks who have a lot of experience and have seen the movie before for some common situations.