Do something hard that nobody else wants to do. Get so far into the project that you get past the ugly parts and can start doing things nobody else is. Aim for

Do something hard that nobody else wants to do. Get so far into the project that you get past the ugly parts and can start doing things nobody else is. Aim for critical mass in terms of learning ideas and skills. When you are at the point where you no longer know how to explain it to somebody well from scratch, that's when you can start getting other people involved. It's impressive to watch a guy try to explain a project he obviously knows way too much about.