[emodendroket]

When I have a question, I rarely settle for one piece of advice. Instead, I read a bunch of them, often in a forum like this one. Inevitably people will start arguing with each other, and I will find myself sympathizing more with one or another side of the argument. Well, there you are: that's what I think I should do.

On the other hand, "how to be successful" is so nebulous that I think your first step is defining the question better. Of course the advice is vague and un-actionable, because what you need to do if "being successful" means being the world's greatest Tekken player is different than if it means starting a business, and different again if it means being a great parent, and different once more if it means doing well as an employee in the company you work for now (and among these one can imagine many more variations). I guess in most cases the unspoken premise here is that we're talking about a tech-based startup, but even then, if your startup has so few unique traits that you can ask such a broad question, what's your competitive edge, really?