Want More Users and Customers? Stop Talking About Yourself

Interesting stuff. I suspect this is a good litmus test for early startups, if you can't easily make the transition from talking about yourself to addressing your customers needs, it probably indicates that you don't have a good understanding of what the customer really wants... and I'd consider that a worrying sign.

On the other hand, my experience with the entrepreneurial charismatic leader types is that they do tend to talk about themselves a lot. They lay out a vision and then inspire people to follow them, and it is that narcistic streak that fuels their charisma.

So the basic skills for building a team could be quite different (or even opposed!) to those of acquiring customers. Fascinating stuff. I wonder if this is part of the reason why having two founders is usually more effective than just one, and why those two founders often seem to have wildly different personalities.