Say the name Steve Wozniak these days and two things pop into our heads: the Segway and Dancing with the Stars. But long before the Woz hit the “big time,” he was just a simple computer geek building computers in a bedroom with Steve Jobs. As it turns out, that part of Wozniak hasn’t gotten lost (despite DWTS’s best efforts to beat the geek out of him) . He’s still got some wise nuggets of wisdom to offer up fledgling entrepreneurs looking to enter the industry he took by storm more than 20 years ago when he and Jobs launched Apple. In an interview with getting-stuff-done blog Lifehacker today, Wozniak offered up some genuinely useful insights (some inadvertently) on technology and entrepreneurship for those of you working on a tech start-up business plan:

“Lifehacker: What are you using to manage your email?

Steve Wozniak: The most important thing I use is Eudora, and that’s discontinued.

Lifehacker: Seriously? Eudora?

Steve Wozniak: The reason I do is, it has an incredible feature that every single mail client should have.

Any feature in the menu list, any action there, can be added as a button….

Lifehacker: So it’s more important for you to have software that fits your specific email style than having the latest and greatest.

Steve Wozniak: I think that’s fair to say, although I’m also a fan with sticking with the most standard software that millions of other users also use, because you get the benefit of all those other users’ problems and solutions.”

Direct advice to those of you working on a business plan, it’s not. But the Woz’s statement brings up an interesting point: while so many tech entrepreneurs are focused these days on the newest, shiniest, most exciting new toy, sometimes it’s the products that simply work that are the best. While it may sound funny coming from one of Apple’s co-founder, sometimes function trumps form, hype, and just about everything else. If you’re a tech entrepreneur, it’s an interesting—and worthwhile—consideration as you craft your technology and business plan.

Looking for more direct advice for getting your tech business off the ground? The Woz’s got that too. Here’s what he says is the best piece of advice he’s got for tech entrepreneurs:

“You’d better have the technology knowledge to do it. I really urge you not to think you can start a whole company and business with just ideas on paper, because you’ll end up owning so few of those ideas. You have to create a working model, something that you can show people and demonstrate that it works, and then you can start building a future for it…

…People can say, ‘Well, I’m the business man, I’m out trying to make deal,’ you might get your company going. But you’d better make sure you’re around some good technologists that you can trust, or your business doesn’t have direction. A lot of things seem to be worth almost no money. But if you do them very well, and they help people fill a need, there’s a great business you can build around that.”

Good advice—which makes it easier to not hold his stint on Dancing with the Stars against him.