Earn trust, earn trust, earn trust. Then you can worry about the rest.
If you want customers to hear about you, make something worth talking about.
The myth that the CEO is going to discover you and nurture you and ask you to join her for lunch is just that, a Hollywood myth.
The one path that never works is the most common one: doing nothing at all.
Think big. Start small.
Sure, compare. But compare the things that matter to the journey you're on. The rest is noise.