Focus on yourself • Hacker News Board

Re: Focus on yourself

#11

Post by edw519 » Sun, Oct 12, 2008, 3:34 PM UTC

I know you meant well when you posted this, but to me, it came out so wrong.

I complete disagree with, "Focus on yourself."

I would change it to, "Focus on your customers."

Do well by them and you won't have to worry about yourself.

I'd wager that one of the biggest reasons businesses fail is when they forget to focus on their customers. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to focus too much on yourself.

Re: Focus on yourself

#12

Post by master » Sun, Oct 12, 2008, 5:26 PM UTC

known wrote: post #7

Do we want to compete with others or ourselves?

Great people are always competing with themselves (see, for example, great athletes). Of course, that requires notions/delusions of greatness, but that's another topic!

Re: Focus on yourself

#13

Post by master » Sun, Oct 12, 2008, 5:28 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #11

I know you meant well when you posted this, but to me, it came out so wrong. I complete disagree with, "Focus on yourself." I would change it to, "Focus on your customers." Do well by them and you won't have to worry about yourself. I'd wager that one of the biggest reasons businesses fail is when they forget to focus on their customers. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to focus too much on yourself.

In our industry, it tends to be that your first, and most important customer, is yourself. A lot of the greatest companies started by fulfilling a personal need; conveniently enough, you don't need to look at the DJIA to tell you whether you need to scratch your own back.

Re: Focus on yourself

#14

Post by quasimojo » Mon, Oct 13, 2008, 5:28 AM UTC

i'm not sure how much more narcissistic the web2 crowd could get, but we'll take the post under advice!!