

Ask HN: How did you do with your goals for 2010? - cperciva

Slightly over a year ago, aitoehigie asked what our plans were for 2010.  Plans mentioned included learning Erlang, teaching kids to play Go, quitting a day job, ending the year with 10x as many customers as it started with, writing a book, starting to eat a proper breakfast, and many more.<p><pre><code>  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1013531
</code></pre>
I know patio11 succeeded in his intention to quit his day job; and I know I didn't reach my target (I have lots of new customers, but I'm not up by a factor of 10).  How did the rest of you do with your goals for 2010?
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patio11
Looks like my goal was quitting, traveling, launching a new product, and
finding a nice young lass. Darn this was a good year.

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shanked
In Fall 2009, with only 1 year of experience with high-level web programming
and no computer science background (BS in Management), I created the goal of
working at Google within 3 years.

I enrolled in graduate school pursuing M.S. Computer Science, watched online
course lectures, read textbooks, worked on a number of pet projects, and
learned new programming languages... all while working full-time.

I'm now 9/30 credits towards my Masters degree and currently interviewing with
Google (made it through 2 steps thus far). While I may or may not get an
offer, it is just another step on the path to reach my goal.

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revorad
I could do with some help with setting goals and working towards achieving
them. I am never able to set goals which last more than a few days. I always
end up changing them very quickly because either I get bored or find something
more interesting or exciting. Any tips?

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anthonycerra
Take note when that happens and let that be your guide to telling you what you
should be working on. We all have things we think we _should_ be working on,
but they often get kicked to the curb when something else comes along. The
more you pay attention the closer you'll get to working on what really matters
to you.

But if you want a tip, remember this: The grass may be greener on the other
side, but it still needs to be cut, weeded, and watered.

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mindcrime
Cool, I didn't post in that thread, so I can now make all sorts of claims
about what my goals really were. :-)

all joking aside, I did not achieve everything I wanted in 2010, but I made
some solid progress, and I'm looking forward to 2011. My "real" goal was to
have a product shipping that I could try to sell, in 2010. I got distracted
and lost some time around the middle of the year, and fell short of that goal.
But I at least have some demoable stuff, and I now realize that that's fine,
since I want to apply Blank's _Customer Development Methodology_ before I go
any further.

So my goal for 2011, is to get started doing Customer Development, and both
find "product / market fit" and finish a product.

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moonwalker
-Managed to : quit my day job, start a startup fulltime, release a product. scored few customers. Market has long established players but we have a unique differentiating approach.

-Not yet managed to : ramen profitability. Product is on the market for about a month, new version based on a lot of feedback is coming in early january.

-Goals for 2011: beyond ramen profitability, work, research (I tend to focus on algorithmic products), release a new web app and to get traction. Possibly will need to do a bit of contracting in between which will slow things down a little.

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fezzl
Had $100,000 in liquid assets and a revenue-generating startup by my 22nd
birthday a few days ago. Pretty much what I set out to achieve.

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mindcrime
Clickable

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1013531>

