Getting good advice is always welcome. Knowing it is good is another matter. Business Week Online interviews some of the Net's most successful names to find out their secrets for success. Here are some highlights:

Hoovers Online (a division of Dun & Bradstreet)
Launched in 1994
Dwayne Stradlin, president

Advice: Avoid anything that doesn't focus on the unique thing that your company does well. Protect it, invest in it. The other thing is to focus on scaling -- small companies sometimes run into a wall. They can't scale.

Bluefly
Founded in 1998
Melissa Payner, chief executive officer

Advice: Don't do something that's already well covered or already exploited in the marketplace. If you're the small guy, you're not going to come in and get noticed unless you have something different. We made sure that we identified our focus from a brand perspective. It wasn't like any designer could be on Bluefly. There was trust established that it would the "in" designers and [the] "right" designers and would [follow the latest] trend. We were arrogant about who would be on Bluefly. Once you decide, you have to be true to it.

Craigslist
Founded in 1995
Jim Buckmaster, chief executive officer

Advice: Don't do what users don't ask you to do. If you want to control your own future, don't accept outside money, like from VCs. Don't do marketing or advertising. As a startup company, those are some of the costliest things you can do. Those can chew up an enormous amount of money.

The story has more words of wisdom, some more wise than others. As an entrepreneur your job is to determine which words will make a difference to your company.