ReadWriteStart

Approaching investors for the first time is a daunting exercise for any startup. Regardless of whether you’re raising venture capital, approaching angels or still trying to figure out where to get started, it’s critical to stay level-headed about what you’re really pitching - and what it’s actually worth.

The best way to do that is to leverage the hard-won experience of real-world startup. So we asked a panel of eight successful young entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) about their startup funding successes (and failures) and the lessons they learned.

Back when we first started using PCs, we all wished that they would become as easy to use as a telephone. Well, we got our wish, not because computers got easier to use but because phones are now so darn complicated. If we examine the process and story by which phones became so complex, we can uncover a variety of lessons that startups can learn - and hopefully avoid.

It happens to every moderately successful entrepreneur or startup. At some point in your growth trajectory you realize you can't go it alone anymore. To get to the next step, you need help. But the transition from a one-person-show to actually hiring your first "real" employee runs you smack into an overwhelming number of rules, regulations and taxes - and lots of other ways to mess things up.

No worries. There are ways to get help - without actually having to commit to hiring "real" employees.

I am sure you have seen numerous books about how one Silicon Valley mogul or another has started his or her venture, but there are few books reporting from the scene across the pond. A new book, edited by Pedro Santos, attempts to remedy that situation with European Founders At Work. It has interviews with 20 different entrepreneurs, and as Santos says in his introduction, of course "there are many successful start-ups spread throughout Europe and there is no single large pocket of innovation."

Failure. All startups fear it. Many, at one point or another, encounter it. There's no denying that failure is a big part of startup culture. Some of the best and brightest preach the "fail fast" methodology, wherein quickly launching and fixing small failures can help avoid "the big one."

Whether you subscribe to this practice or not, the reality is that startups fail all the time, and luckily many entrepreneurs share their experiences "post-mortem" with the community. We've covered a handful of these posts from startups, but now ChubbyBrain has put together a hefty collection of these essays for your education.

A majority of the advice aimed at helping startups manage relationships with venture capitalists is tailored for when that startup is raising or has raised funding. Certainly a lot of the interaction between startups and investors takes place during and after financing rounds, but there is a lot entrepreneurs can be doing before they seek funding to set themselves up for success with VCs. In a response to a question on the Q&A site Quora, VC Mark Suster offered his advice to entrepreneurs on how to manage relationships with VCs before fundraising begins.

Any frequent reader of ReadWriteWeb should know that mobility is one of the most significant trends we've been tracking. One thing we haven't discussed much in the realm of mobile, however, is how startups and entrepreneurs can take advantage and prepare themselves for a venture into mobile. Today I spoke with Steve Eisenberg, a business development consultant for MRN Digital Media, and he was kind enough to share some insights that startups may find valuable before diving into the mobile market head-first.

Ever wondered what goes on inside the brain of a venture capitalist? What kinds of companies do they look for? What most impresses them about entrepreneurs? Where do they see the industry heading? Certainly these are all things that any early stage startup or first time entrepreneur would find value in knowing from a VC - especially one with several years of experience in a particular industry. Today I had the opportunity to pick the brain of Matt Fates, a partner at Boston's Ascent Venture Partners, a firm focusing on early stage investments. Here's what he had to say about these questions.

There comes a time in the evolution of successful startups where they make the move from garages, apartments and coffee shops into actual office space. Some even take this opportunity to change cities, but finding decent office space isn't as easy as finding an apartment or a bedroom to rent on Craigslist.

Rofo, a site offering commercial real estate listings, tries to solve this problem by simplifying connections between smaller landlords and real estate brokers. With a new LinkedIn application launching today from Rofo, young companies can track local deals and find the best brokers for their needs.

While we have chronicled some of the best cities around the globe for startups to set-up shop, the San Francisco area is still the promised land for Internet entrepreneurship. Others come close, but no other city can match the vibrant atmosphere that flourishes in the Bay Area, but what are the best neighborhoods for tapping into the startup ecosystem? Posterous co-founder Garry Tan has sought to solve this problem for San Francisco newcomers by creating an interactive Google map detailing the area's top 10 startup camps.