No such thing as business ethics - Seth Godin

What he says about the local store is a constant struggle for me too. Of course over the long term giving more and building relationships etc is going to be very rewarding and I love doing that.

But early in the life of a startup it feels like "Man I'm really not making enough profits, maybe I should just do these short term things (blackhat seo, hard selling, spam etc) instead until we get ramen profitable, THEN we'll focus on the long term".

Does/did anyone else struggle with this too? Did you give in or not and how did that work out for you?