Some good advice: The worst things startups do (by @scobleizer)

1. Have plush offices in the most expensive part of town
2. You can’t tell me what you do in a single Tweet
3. If I look around and don’t see programmers
4. You hire a PR firm + you don’t have a blog and a Twitter account
5. They spend money on the wrong things
6. (This should be #1) They don’t fire fast enough
7. You picked the wrong infrastructure
8. You let VCs control your management team and strategy too early
9. You have a too cool name and logo
10. You say yes too often, particularly in engineering decisions
11. Startups pick old technology because it’s familiar
12. You don’t change direction fast enough

the whole post you find at scobleizer