from Paul Graham | by Paul Graham

One of the things a good investor can do for a startup is tell them which kind of messes are dangerous. Startups are often a mess in some respect early on. Sometimes these situations foretell disaster and other times they're harmless. Good investors can tell you which is which.

Bad investors, though, panic at any sign of mess. So you need to have some good investors if only to tell you when to ignore the bad ones.