Any founder knows: Building a business is a matter of navigating increasingly complex inflection points. When’s the time to staff up? What’s the best way to get investor attention? When is it time to exit? Rarely is there time to pause and seek counsel.

But, at the inaugural StartMN Think Tank event at Glass House on Wednesday, TCB afforded four reader-selected startups a chance to do just that. In front of a live audience, a panel of four experts took on a range of questions from the startups’ founders. The panel consisted of Chad Hetherington, Accenture managing director; Beth Kieffer Leonard, partner in charge of accounting firm Eisner Amper’s Minnesota office; Houston White, the serial entrepreneur behind the Get Down Coffee Co., a Target clothing collection, and more; and Ping Yeh, a serial medtech entrepreneur, adviser and business leader.

Though the founders were all at different stages of development and faced different challenges, the panelists’ advice could be applicable to pretty much anyone trying to build a business. Here are a few of the biggest takeaways from the night.

Be cautious when picking bigger partners. It might be tempting to jump on board with any large corporation willing to partner, but panelists said it’s wise to be judicious. “They do have to go both ways,” said Accenture managing director Chad Hetherington of partnerships. “That’s the most fundamental thing of any partnership.

“You’re going to have a lot of people coming to you wanting to sell their services to your customer base,” Hetherington told Mary Kay Ziniewicz, founder of Bus Stop Mamas. “You have to vet them out carefully. … Make sure you’re picking the right partners when they do come in. Do some research on them and make sure they’re legit. Make sure they’re going to be beneficial to the audience on your side.”

Decide whether you’re building a product company or a brand. That was Hetherington’s advice to Ryan Davenport, co-founder and CEO of Davenport SAF-T Systems. The company has developed vests designed to protect older adults in the case of falls. Whether the startup proceeds as a product company or a brand will mean embarking on “two very different pathways,” Hetherington told Davenport.

“If you’re a product company with a great innovation, one way to go to market could be to license your patent to another apparel manufacturer who already has the scale for distribution,” Hetherington said. “If you want to take on the brand side, it’s very cheap these days to build a direct-to-consumer website off Shopify and start selling the product.”

Don’t be afraid to tap into existing resources for help. Leonard noted that “there are tremendous amounts of programs for women business owners. … You should be accessing every single one of them.” That was Leonard’s suggestion to the two founders of Route to India Yoga Pops, a healthy snack food company that sells products in Target and in grocery stores around the country. The pair were seeking advice on continuing to scale.

Story matters. How you talk about your business has a big impact on potential customers, employees, and investors, panelists said. “Make sure your message is super transferable, retellable,” said Yeh.

As White put it: “You always want to create a little FOMO [fear of missing out]. … You have a powerful story, and that is a bit of your currency.”

More is not necessarily better… Simplifying your product offerings, such as flavors for food products, can be a key factor to successfully scale, said White. “I make these decisions all the time. I’m trying to be an impactful entrepreneur, but I’m also trying to make money. That’s just something you have to grapple with when you think through the business model as you wrestle with these key decisions.”

… and sometimes simpler is better. Jeff Bennett, founder of men’s sexual health technology startup Morari Medical, asked panelists about getting his product into the retail space. Morari has developed a skin patch designed to improve sexual performance for men through neurostimulation. Hetherington, who’s well aware of the category from his time working with Target, pointed to the rise of other new sexual health products such as Hims, Roman, and Hello Cake. “They’re all in pretty simple, minimalistic, and elegant packaging,” Hetherington noted. “It’s a touch playful, but leaning heavily into education. You’ve got something there.”

Leonard, who said she was “not sure Target is going to put your product on the endcap,” recommended investing in social media advertising to get things started. “Once you get that momentum with social media, Target will follow, or CVS, Walgreens, Duane Reade, name the drugstore.”

Finessing your pitch. A common mistake entrepreneurs make is trying to fit their entire story in the elevator pitch, said Yeh. The pitch should be short but resonate with the room that you’re in. “As engineers and technology people, sometimes we sell the ingredients when we should remember to sell the chocolate cake at the start.”