If you take angel/institutional money, you should at least have a good idea of what billion-dollar-plus market you're going after.
How specifically you monetize within that market can't always be pre-determined because its a function of a really good product (which takes a lot of morphing/iteration).
It's not a good idea to bank on advertising (unless you're building an ad network) or unless you're product has a great context for capturing purchase intent (from which you can do some pretty killer lead-gen/affiliate).
There is always room for new startups to do the same thing, but in consumer internet it typically requires a drastically different angle because network effects and switching costs kick in (whereas it does not for a single pizza parlor).
This is why Friendster was forced to focus on China and give up hope in US.
YouTube's competitors had a hard time moving in on mass-consumer video (they were forced to go white label or focus on businesses, monetization, or analytics) due to the push-pull effect of YouTube's entrenched publisher-viewer community (and their network effect of widgets scattered across the web).
Kijiji positioned dramatically different than Craigslist (100% ad supported and much better UI) and it was seeded with a different audience (all the inactive eBay users were spammed giving it overnight critical mass).
SmugMug does a terribly good job and its not clear what angle you would take in entering their market. They have scale (300K paying users) and killer customer support (which is critical for their target customer who typically lacks technical expertise) and can outprice folks looking to replicate their offering with a significant incremental improvement to their service.
What angles to entering the photo-sharing market do you folks see?
Interestingly enough, the founder of Intuit is actually an adviser to Mint (since before it launched). Similar to to Ellison and Salesforce.com, sans the huge ownership stake.
Surprisingly, lot of RSI problems originate from poor back posture, which distends the discs through which nerves run down to your wrists.
Wrist exercises may provide short-term relief without actually solving the root of the problem.
>>Try tweaking how you sit and sleep (90% of your waking hours).
1) Get a used Aeron chair off of Craigslist with lumbar and wrist support (a $300 chair will lave thousands of dollars in Chiropractor bills).
2) Sleep lying straight with your head resting in the curve of a single foam pillow (http://tinyurl.com/87exg3).
3) Learn and properly practice the McKenzie Tecnique (http://tinyurl.com/a8hr2g), a 30 second means of straightening your entire spine using just your pointer finger on your chin.
At my initial evaluation for my RSI problem, the physical therapist said she thought my typing/mousing was relatively inconsequential in light of my head-forward position, forward-sloping shoulders and asymmetrical back muscle development. She believed this had developed from poor posture and slouching while seated at the computer. I tried to pay attention to it but couldn't seem to translate my posture-in-my-head to my posture-in-reality. I considered using some kind of brace to try to hold my posture in check until I get used to a more upright posture but couldn't find anything that would be inconspicuous at work. The McKenzie book sounds very promising for my problem because it seems to address some of these undesirable physical developments that I have grown into from my computer lifestyle. I have already tried #2 although a lifetime habit of sleeping on my side is hard to kick - even on a low pillow I manage to turn onto my side. As for #3, I doubt I could manage to get permission to have one at work which is a pity because I have no problem paying for one and would like to try it out because so many people have recommended it. Thank you for pointing me to this book which I assume has helped you. I look forward to reading it.
1) You should be covered by worker's comp (by law), in which case a brief to-the-point conversation with a key decision maker in your company over the trade-off between them covering thousands of dollars of WC coverage vs. allowing you to bring your own chair to work is in order.
2) Habits are formed and habits are broken. If you believe you can't change your sleeping posture, than you're absolutely right. The opposite is also true.
