6 Business Leaders Reveal the Worst Entrepreneurial Advice They Hear All the Time We asked six CEO and founders to tell us the "conventional wisdom" they most disagree with. Here is a collection of what we've heard.

We interviewed six founders and CEOs to discuss the worst entrepreneurial advice they ever heard. You've probably heard most of these sayings, or at least a version of them. Pay attention as these business leaders reveal how some of the most "classic" pieces of entrepreneurial advice could steer you in the wrong direction.

WRONG: "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life."

"That's highly misleading. I have always done what I love, and that's enabled me to build competitive brands and businesses. But it's hard work. Managing a team or a process or a business does not come easy. I think the nuanced version of this would be, 'Do what you love and you will be able to take on all the hard work that's required to build a career or business.' There is no way around the hard work, even if you love what you do." — Michael Bosstick, founder and CEO, Dear Media

WRONG: "Hire a head of X sooner than later."

"Advisors and investors will often tell you to hire a [head of] marketing, engineers, sales, etc. I believe most companies either do this too soon or hire from too large of organizations, where the executive cannot 'scale down' to be effective at earlier stages. You'll often see these executives hired, immediately followed by their 'lieutenants.' I prefer to just hire the lieutenants, and find access to those later-stage leaders as advisors and coaches." — Sean Knapp, founder and CEO, Ascend.io

Related: 10 Myths About Workplace Culture I Really Wish I Had Known Before I Started

WRONG: "Have a great 30-second pitch."

"It doesn't make sense to oversimplify complex business objectives. If it were simple, everyone would do it! Companies like ours have a multipronged approach that provides multiple avenues to success, but it takes longer to understand when presenting. So we concentrate on business circles that already care about environmental issues and impact. When you identify the right audience, they have the interest, patience, and receptivity needed for a more layered story." — Vicki von Holzhausen, founder and CEO, von Holzhausen

WRONG: "Build an MVP."

"In categories where quality and consumer and expert trust really matter, consider carefully whether it's actually more risky to launch with an MVP. For example, when it comes to fixing a hugely broken product category—in our case, prenatal vitamins — an MVP wouldn't cut it. We had to completely redesign the prenatal vitamin from the ground up. But that work paid off, because our prenatal is renowned for meeting women's needs optimally." — Ryan Woodbury, cofounder and co-CEO, Needed

Related: 7 Big Myths About Success You Need to Ignore

WRONG: "Fake it 'til you make it."

"I've always found 'faking it' to be much more stressful and less enjoyable than embracing and being open about what I don't know. My journey as a leader, and stepping into my current role, definitely didn't come without self-doubt. But at the end of the day, I'd rather ask questions and stay curious than pretend I know all the answers." — Kara Brothers, president and general manager, Starface

WRONG: "Scale revenue, and everything else will fall into place."

"That's what I was told for a while, but now everything has changed. Many brands spent tens or hundreds of millions in venture capital building themselves into household names, and yet they still can't find profitability, because their business model just doesn't work. So I focus every day on the opposite of scale. We have incredible tailwinds in our category, but we have to ensure that as we capture demand, we understand our levers and unit economics." — Nick Bodkins, cofounder and CEO, Boisson

Related: 9 Lessons to Learn From Being in the Entrepreneurial Trenches