Venture capitalists spend a lot of time analyzing what attitudes and event sequences contribute to business failure. What could have salvaged the enterprise? What could have helped get a company on more stable footing after a promising initial product launch? What was the management team missing?

One answer is found by listening to how business builders talk about the ugly details of serious business mistakes. The stories usually end up with "I just wish I had known better.... I never would have done it that way." What the business builder is really saying is "It's not really my fault. If I had had better information (sometimes any information), I obviously would have taken a different course." The missing component was finding the right information before making an important decision.

Business builders, of any size company, are mostly charismatic people who enjoy talking about their business to anyone who will listen. But there is an old saying that is worth mention here: "You can't learn anything if you are talking."

Youthful entrepreneurship, defined not solely by age, is often too inexperienced to sustain a fast growing enterprise. You find there is an over emphasis on innovation for the sake of innovation, risk taking and individual achievement. Innovative energy, in itself, needs to be channeled. Without seasoned perspective, too much innovative energy creates more havoc than order. It also explains why a company can be wonderfully energetic and robust, but never get any traction in the marketplace.

In contrast, wisdom gained from experience, is what holds a company together and helps employees cope with challenge in a disciplined, time-saving way. And even though their temples are gray and shoulders slouch from bearing so much responsibility, the minds of experienced employees and advisors remain sharp. They know how to work through business problems and generate sustainable momentum with the least amount of effort.

It is important to note that the reverse is also true. Just as a youthful and energy-charged company has to seek out the tactical contribution of experience; an experience-loaded company has to respect and seek out the vitality of youthful vigor and innovation. Older business builders -- a growing demographic among post millennium start ups --- also need to surround themselves with optimism and high energy. Left to themselves, their wisdom can become too tentative to push viable ideas into competitive action. That is why a new business idea can be rich in concept but totally unconnected to the market pulse.

Business builders who take command of problems are never too proud to ask for help. They know good questions don't lessen their authority. Rather, the process of seeking solutions and assistance expands the scope of their command. If they get a "no" from a potential investor, commercial lender or customer they don't retreat. They don't get angry. They don't blame their sex or race. They don't go into a depressive "why me" funk. They follow up and ask "Why not?" These business builders know the more they question and listen to knowledgeable professionals and advisors, the more they can learn what to adjust prior to the next presentation.

Each time you set out to drive your company to a new level, your first job is to find a smart group of people (not just one smart person) who has already operated at that level. Ask them for advice, ask them where mistakes are often made, ask them about their regrets, ask them how to save money, and ask them who else can help. You should talk to sources of experience at least once a week. Your second, ongoing job is to gather and assess all the information you have been given and then tailor it to your company's needs.

One of the sincerest forms of flattery is to ask someone for advice. Within every city, within every office building or perhaps just an email away is someone who can introduce you to new customers, marketing gurus, potential joint venture partners, board members, wired-in investment bankers and intermediaries. They are pleased to help serious-minded business builders. Consider it, as they often do, as their form of community service. One day soon, you will be asked to do the same by a new generation of business builders.