Rather, I think people always look to RescueTime, or Digg, or Twitter and say to themselves "Hey look, this part of it sucks. I can make this better and make it my own."
In boom times, the competition (Digg/RescueTime/Twitter) is getting lots of funding and praise - so you in turn, marketed to investers as "RescueTime meets X" get funding because the market is already proven.
In bust times, there is culling of the herd, and if you haven't got something to show for yourself, and are very similar to another company - well, everyone prefers winners. So you get less funding, fold, or sold off.
There aren't 10 wannabe Techcrunches because they want to be like Techcrunch. There are 10 wannabes because they believe they have something different that's better.
That being said, there's value in being aware of what's happening around you. I "do my own thing" when I'm not reading or posting on news.yc. If I'm spending time here, then I'm obviously not spending it working on my own thing. A "social news" site would end up pretty quiet and lonely without ever talking about other people.
Then again... how does the quote go? "Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people."
I've seen Mark Cuban say something to this effect several times over the last few months: "You should know more about your market than anyone." We analyze other startups because in order to really make a change, you have to understand your environment and how things work.
Our consensus was that companies need to form around a business model rather than a business model form around a community. Communities suffer form group-think and tons of start ups show this to be true. This isn't how we should be doing business. Keyword there: Business. Not "projects" or "apps" or "widgets".
I find it to be a healthy sign that people are receptive to reading and being open to opinions. I'm on a college campus, one of the highest rated entrepreneurship schools in the country, so I take for granted the massive amount of speakers we get. You hear the same message repeated and you start to see patterns.
Focus on yourself is one of those patterns that very successful people talk about.
I just listened to Jimmy John (the guy who started Jimmy John's) talk about how he doesn't read any of the "self-help crap anymore." He says he went through that stage, and he doesn't even think about it anymore. He says all he worries about is "kicking ass and that's about it." But I think that's a stage in our life that is very important where we question how we should think and behave. I think we all go through it, even Jimmy did (although doesn't like to admit it). This is coming from a guy who lost all of his earliest partners in the business and smoked weed. He obviously didn't have it all figured out from the get go.
When you're starting out, I think it's hard to be confident about which way to think. I don't think everyone has the "leadership" gene in their DNA, so they want to learn about the leadership traits, and what makes a good company founder. I've spent years reading through articles and how-to's, and while I think a majority of them are BS because some guy is trying to make a buck by writing the most appealing article, there are some that are worth reading. Ironically, you don't need to know much to be a good leader. You follow all of the basics, the simplest stuff you could think of. But then again, it may be harder for someone new to leadership and startups to know what that means.
And YC News actually does a GOOD JOB of filtering through the crap. I just read a post by Mark Cuban, with one of those small "patterns" that I keep seeing. It's the "there are no easy ways or tricks to be successful" speech, which I've heard time and time again from very successful people.
Yet, you still see contradictory advice given by people who don't know what they're talking about.
And let me tell you why I agree with this post, too. The more you think about things, the less you use your instincts. And your instincts are there to help you survive, they will guide you. After you do so much reading, you don't even think about stuff. It gets ingrained in your head, and you just do, you don't think at a certain point.
Absolutely agree that you should focus on yourself. But don't block out the really good stuff people like Mark Cuban write, saying there's no easy way. You need people to remind you that you have to work hard for what you want, and that also acts as a source of inspiration because they did it and they're doing fine.
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.