“Here’s something surprising about venture capitalists: their primary job is often helping very worthwhile nonprofits build larger and larger endowments to be able to continually make the world a better place. The largest investors in many top-tier venture capital firms are nonprofits — particularly universities and large philanthropic foundations.

Why you should feel sorry for VCs: life in the VC trenches seems to consist of trying to jumpstart or otherwise fix fatally flawed startups.

“I’d recommend being more focused on picking the right partner than picking the right venture capital firm.

“To create a usable piece of software, you have to fight for every fix, every feature, every little accommodation that will get one more person up the curve. There are no shortcuts. Luck is involved, but you don’t win by being lucky, it happens because you fought for every inch.

“It’s good to talk about how you plan to make money, but mainly because it shows you care about that and have thought about it. Don’t go into detail about your business model, because any business model you have at this point is probably wrong anyway.

“If you raise $2 million from VCs, you have to pretend you know all this stuff. ..whether it’s $12,000 or $2 million, you really don’t know. The only difference is what you think you can admit.

“If you’re serious about getting a site up and going, you should be glancing at its analytics every day..

“You’ve learned something if you can answer a question that you could not have answered previously.

“Zapak mail has unlimited mailbox capacity and has an attachment limit of 32 Mb..

“Before we dump on email too much, let’s thank heavens it’s not like IM, a maze of proprietary protocols balkanizing people and filling system trays with redundant icons. That it isn’t is sheer historical accident.

“Even today this spoiled brat [instant messenger] doesn’t interoperate properly leaving its users on their little Bubble 1.0 branded islands.