I sent all the founders an email asking what surprised them about starting a startup. it was remarkable how often several people had been surprised by exactly the same thing. These were the biggest.

If you consider the following attributes before you start thinking about creating or realigning your business, you might come to understand how to turn your start-up into a sure fire success.

Advice and insight from an interview with Y Combinator's Paul Graham: Get your product out there, what Y Combinators could go public and comments on starting up during a recession.

Q: What's the one thing in common among every business plan that has ever been pitched to an investor? A: The plan is wrong. The key is adapting. Mike provides some tips for doing so.

Great overview in a slideshare presentation of how to make your startup successful.

Great list of common mistakes when starting your business.

Understanding the process of competing against big and/or existing competitors is always a challenge.

A great examination on how to properly price your product; resist the temptation to unbundled your product to give someone a discount and decreasing your revenue.

Chris examines quite a few ways you can compete and beat the competition

Om talks about how the feemium model can work for startups using specific examples: Evernote, Remember the Milk, and Dropbox