Wow, that could be countless posts, but briefly:

iterate quickly (as fast as possible). keep the burn rate low. hire the best possible. get advice from people who've been there. users want features, listen to them & deliver when you can, but always value their opinions. Second that, always be nice to users. customer service = marketing.

just to name a few.

Which of those valuable nuggets of wisdom did you not possess right out of the gate?

point taken; albeit seemingly obvious, sometimes there are gaps between Reading_Understanding_Acting

and of course there were many more lessons, those were the cliffsnotes, or tl;dr version