Originally published in Entrepreneur

By Mitch Zuklie

I love first-time founders. They’re true believers focused on creating a better future powered by better ideas. They’re ready to start a business, possessed with the passion and the grit to enter the arena and do battle with the specters of failure and loss.

When they succeed, they often really do change the world—and the bank balances of a lot of people around them. And it’s because I love them that I say, with all due respect: They make a lot of mistakes. And a lot of times, they make the same ones a thousand other first-time founders have made before them.

As a lawyer who’s worked with clients to complete hundreds of venture financings and related company making—and breaking—transactions, watching first-time founders launch their dream can feel like I’m watching them amble into a busy street. They can be unaware of the nearby dangers, don’t have good insight into what to avoid to stay safe, and make the same life-threatening mistakes as a lot of other founders who’ve wandered into the same busy road. Which of course can get companies killed.

Read the full article at Entrepreneur.com