Most startups do not make it. But your company does not have to repeat the fundamental and sometimes fatal mistakes that many entrepreneurs make.

I’ve made my share of mistakes, but I’m glad to say I’ve learned from them. I’ve grown as an entrepreneur and business leader as my businesses have grown. I started my first Internet company as an eager and hardworking 16-year-old and sold it two years later for $40 million. My second company sold to Yahoo for $300 million.

Focus on managed growth over a hiring frenzy

In 2013, Clinkle was a mobile-payment startup that wanted to topple Square. Founded by a 21-year-old Stanford University student, it drew attention for raising a reported $25 million before launch.

Even before launching its app, the company seems to have gone on a hiring spree. With all that money at its disposal, Clinkle spared no expense building out a high-profile executive team, including Barry McCarthy, the former CFO of Netflix. But within months, according to news reports, it issued pink slips to 25 percent of its workforce, with disgruntled employees going online to openly vent their anger amid allegations of mismanagement.

There’s a cautionary lesson here: Always manage growth over aggressive hiring. When I started my first company, there was only one employee for the longest time, and that was me. I was cautious in the speed at which I recruited new people, but I did learn as I expanded that it pays to hire the best, and to reward them accordingly.

Innovate or die

In the fall of 2012, analysts were writing obituary reports for Netflix. The company had experienced an 88 percent plunge in third-quarter profits. It seemed to be drifting. But then it took a bold step and created its own content, the series “House of Cards.” The company’s turnaround strategy: Turn itself into a “premium television network” like HBO.

It worked famously. Netflix’s own drama series quickly skyrocketed to become the most-streamed content in the U.S. and 40 other countries. Netflix made history, becoming the first non-TV network to win Emmy awards. Its documentary movie, “The Square,” was nominated for an Oscar in 2014. Netflix took a chance, disrupted the traditional television industry forever, and added $18 billion to its market cap in just 16 months.

Of course, Netflix had a wealth of audience data at its fingertips and was confident that launching its own content would succeed. And therein lies the lesson: Take calculated risks as you adapt and innovate. In my own case, I have always “built a better mousetrap” based on solid experience.

Shout it from the rooftops

It’s always tempting to want to operate in stealth mode. You don’t want someone else to steal your brainchild, after all. But you can take secrecy too far, as reportedly happened to Preetam Mukherjee, who started online video-hosting site, Marcellus.tv. By the time he had launched, there were many other video platforms that had beaten him to the punch — with better features. He recovered and built a loyal customer base.

In comparison, Alex Turnbull, founder of Groove, repeatedly blogged in 2013 about his company’s journey to $100,000 in revenue for its customer-support software. His posts were packed with insider detail. It looked like he was giving too much away. But his readers — fellow entrepreneurs, marketers and engineers — jumped in with useful free advice.

If you’re open to being open, you may well find that customer feedback prevents you from making mistakes, or gives you ideas for features you had not considered. Once you’re visible, you may well hear about potential competitors you never knew existed. You also need to know that being first to market isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be, as your competitors will learn from your pioneering screwups. And there are other good reasons for openly revealing your plans: You may well unearth angel investors, and being out there, revealing who you are to the world, lets your honesty shine through.

Personally, I engage as many social media platforms as I can, and as often as I can, because I want to get my message out there and help as many budding entrepreneurs as I can.

Communicate with your customers

Some companies assume that they — and not the customer — know best. But successful companies have to learn how to listen. With social media, an unhappy customer (or anyone else, for that matter) can broadcast their discontent to the world in a matter of seconds. Whether it’s true or not (and often it’s not) the damage is done, unless you can rapidly respond with real facts.

In 2014, Southwest Airlines had an active social-media program, with about 30 regular employee-bloggers and many other occasional contributors. Its reputation as a fun, people-oriented company came through in posts about working there. The communication felt personalized and authentic. At the time, the company employed a social-media staff of six but mostly let the bloggers speak in their own voices.

Where Southwest’s social-media communication really came into its own is when there are challenges to address (flight delays, for instance), or controversies (for example, when they kicked an overweight passenger off a plane). They monitored and responded to comments — and got the company’s message out fast. Congratulations to them.

Startups can learn from these experiences. You might not yet have millions of customers to handle, but you should act and respond like you’re a big company. Hopefully, you don’t have too many employees, you believe in openness and frequent communication and, in particular, you can adapt as needed. To paraphrase a line often attributed to Charles Darwin: It is not the strongest or the most intelligent that survives. It is the one most adaptable to change.