What's the worst startup advice you've ever heard?

Basically the AirBnB founding story (maxed credit cards, mounting personal debt, etc.) It obviously worked out for them and they did a heroic job of transitioning into an important business driven by killer UX, but the fact that some people win big at russian roulette doesn't make it a good strategy for anyone else.

This wasn't exactly advice, but it was implied advice. I was at a local tech event where a colleague had given the keynote. I was talking to someone and I mentioned that I work with the person who gave the keynote. He asked what my role at the company was and I said I was the CEO. He said, "I hate to break it to you, but you're not really the CEO, [the person who gave the talk] is the CEO because I see him at all these startup events. He's a local celebrity."

The implication was that the most important function of a startup founder/CEO is to spend time schmoozing with other local startup people. Fame within the startup community is the ultimate goal (in his eyes).

I found this to be pretty sad, especially because I don't think he's the only person who feels that way, and I think it probably hurts a lot of startups from getting off the ground. It didn't seem to occur to this guy that the real work of building a startup doesn't happen at networking events.

"Don't worry about being a non-technical founder, just pay us $30k and give us your requirements and we'll build your MVP for you."

I could write a book about how awful this advice/sales pitch is. Maybe I will.

Any variation of "burn your bridges", the idea being that you should put yourself in a make-it-or-break-it situation so that you're pushed to make it work (quite similar to @robfitz answer).

You only hear and read about the good stories, and more often than not, the people giving this advice have huge fallback options. Take reasonable risks, and have a clear line in the sand that says "stop". Writing about bankruptcy, burnouts, depressions and divorced entrepreneurs is not sexy but those things happen for sure.

That content marketing takes 6+ months to see any benefit.

A well-written blog post can rank #1 for a long tail keyword minutes after hitting publish.

Today's whole entrep lecture at school was about deliberately copying companies that already exist...

Was meant more about companies that innovate new business models in old industries, such as Uber, Casper mattresses, Airbnb, etc, so I couldn't argue with the prof's logic, but I couldn't in good conscious fully support the curriculum's wording, which dissuaded "innovation" and touted "copying." If only y'all could see the powerpoint slides...god the clip art and wonky graphics that straight-up said "copy others" were disturbing

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Work on a few things and one will pan out."
As a sidepreneur (working in the evenings and weekends), I have worked on my mobile app business on and off for 7 years now. Out of that time, I have wasted ~2 years on trying to build 2 other things in the meantime. Although my app business is still growing, I could have been 2 years further with my efforts if I had been focused.
My learning from that: if it grows, double down on that and don't look around.

You need big money to start

"It's easy to raise money at great valuations right now...raise as much as you possibly can."

A couple years ago, after my cofounder and I raised a modest angel round and had built a product and got our initial customer-base, we were speaking with people on our path forward. We were toying with the idea of raising money to make a few key hires sooner than customer revenue would have allowed. But we weren't really excited about the prospect of raising a big round. And our gut told us that what we were working on was something that would be better and more sustainable if we didn't raise money but grew through revenue & profit. This was the advice a couple people gave us (on separate occasions).

Glad we didn't take that advice, because we'd likely be out of business if that was the case. The pressure to spend money once you raise it and grow at all costs can be dangerous if there are not specific, well thought-out, and somewhat proven ways that the money will help.

"Raise your prices" - investors love to tell us that companies pay far more than we imagine--

Yes, but unlike the investor, we know the competitive landscape for our product. Not for all of the SaaS universe, but for our product.

We have a sense of the value of the solution, and generally, they've gone with big blue for payroll, loss prevention, legal, etc. - you know, big things that are big money for them? Right, so yes, the well-entrenched providers of those solutions can charge a lot.

What we need are more customers who make that all-important first step, and a big one in validation for us: they actually go get their credit card and they make a successful transaction.