In 2013, WedPics founder Justin Miller was staring a big problem right in the face: the company was running out of money.

“I had 13 people on payroll at the time,” said Miller in an interview. “Literally had less than 7 days worth in the bank.”

Staring an incredibly tough situation in the face, he devised a solution: identifying another organization in the Triangle that could absorb the entire team, at their current salaries, until Miller was able to secure capital to continue developing the business.

“I learned about dual focus here,” said Miller. “Always ensuring each of your plans has a fall back.” It’s never a situation that you think you’ll be in, said Miller, yet it’s the decision that had to be made, and the path the company had to take in order to survive.

On stage at the Internet Summit yesterday, Miller and two DC-based entrepreneurs, Allen Gannett, founder of TrackMaven, and Zvi Band, founder of Contactually, shared stories from their experience as entrepreneurs.

“One of the issues that constantly plagued us was identity,” said Band, describing early challenges the company faced. “People will perceive you differently, solely on how you call yourselves.”

The company decided to define itself how its primary users defined the company, as a CRM, said Band, “Freeing ourselves of decision paralysis was a huge win for the team.”

Each entrepreneur highlighted the importance of their team, and the individual people that comprise the startup.

New entrepreneurs ought to focus primarily on people, said Gannett, starting on day one.

“All of the success or failure of the business will come from the people you hire,” said Gannett, “There is nothing more valuable to spend your time on.” It’s the ability to recruit and retain great people that is the most difficult to manage as an entrepreneur, said Gannett.

“Startups are ultimately the output of a collection of people and most startups fail because they either can’t attract great talent or they can’t retain them,” said Gannett.

The first priority of every entrepreneur must be to focus on people and on the team, agreed Band.

“Build the absolute best team possible,” said Band, “And ensure they have everything they need.”

On stage, Band told a story of severely messing up the young company’s culture, solely from a lack of focus.

“I was on the road fundraising,” said Band, “No one was looking at our culture and morale.”

This turned into a significant problem, said Band, and as he was wrapping up fundraising efforts, he finally noticed that there were significant issues that the team was facing, and that there had been some neglect of the team and of individuals.

“I learned a lot,” said Band, “The most important being to always have a clear line of sight into everyone in the company.”

“Entrepreneurs need to have both have unwavering optimism and the ability to assess situations dispassionately and make the best decision for the company,” said Gannett. “These two things can feel like they are in conflict, but in reality, what gives you that optimism is a actionable assessments of your situations that allow you to move forward.”

If you’re successful, your role in the company will change dramatically, and will chance quickly, said Band. It certainly won’t get easier, said Band.

“If things work out, you go from hacking on the website yourself and talking to the first customer to managing the first employees and building process for them, to managing senior executives who have their own ideas,” said Band. “It’s hard to use the same term “entrepreneur” for myself between today and four years ago.”

There’s nothing easy about being an entrepreneur, said Miller. “Like, ZERO.”

“Nothing is easy four and a half years into this,” said Miller, “I’m still learning.”

One important habit that Miller has formed is engaging with key people outside of the company, including regular check-ins with current and potential investors.

The best advice I can give is to stay on people’s radars,” said Miller about working with investors. “No one is looking for you, so you be the one getting in the faces of those people instead.”

Monthly check-ins or progress reports need not to take a ton of time, said Miller, but it’s time well spent.

“I’ve opened more doors simply by doing this simple exercise every month than anything else I’ve done to date,” said Miller.

“You should be engaging investors throughout the entire lifecycle of the business,” said Gannet. “Investors make decisions in large part due to their confidence in the founding team and that confidence can only really be built over time. If the first time you meet an investor is when you are fundraising, you will face a struggle to both convince them of your idea and yourself at the same time.”

“The truth is that fundraising is a never-ending process,” said Band. “You should be working with investors just as you’re working with users.”

Part of this work is learning how to manage your own emotions, said Band.

“The nature of entrepreneurship leads to having the highest highs and the lowest lows, all in a day,” said Band. “Gaining control of how you handle those peaks and valleys is critical.”

For the first two years, said Band, there was a persistent little voice in the back of his head that was telling him he would fail. He found that he would worry about every detail, about every other company that investors or potential customers mentioned.

“Don’t be afraid of them,” said Band, referring to potential competitors in the marketplace. Doing so is, said Band, “a huge cognitive waste, and in the future I’m never going to spend more than a few minutes thinking about competition.”

Yet, entrepreneurship is certainly not for everyone, agreed the panelists.

“I believe every day you work on your venture is a choice you have to make when you wake up in the morning,” said Band, “If you feel it’s not worth it anymore, then don’t.”