by Michelle McIntyre

Late last year, my Silicon Valley entrepreneur meet-up group gathered for a breakfast networking session. During the event, participants shared answers to two questions posed by Host Sean Murphy.

He asked, “What have you learned in 2013 that will make you more effective as an entrepreneur in 2014?” He added, “What will you stop doing to make time for it?”

There was a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge in the room and I found the 15 tips quite valuable. Here they are.

1. Be more patient.
2. Fail faster.
3. Focus early on value proposition, less on technical implementation.
4. Drop less important details.
5. Hire more carefully. Fire faster.
6. Stop coding so much. Spend more time on sales. (Several attendees were software developers.)
7. Delegate more and more effectively.
8. Always build a simpler product than you first dreamed of.
9. Network more. Listen more.
10. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
11. Plan more. It’s really hard to recover wasted hours.
12. Take more time to listen.
13. More focus on time management and effective action.
14. Concentrate on one line of business. Focus for effect.
15. Build on strengths.

Thank you, Sean Murphy, for sharing your meeting notes with me for this article.

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Michelle McIntyre, a high tech press relations consultant in Saratoga, Calif., is on the executive team of TEDxSanJoseCA and the director of marketing communications for the Silicon Valley International Association of Business Communicators.