However on your other points, every startup pretty much has those road blocks to worry about. The rare success will be for those who dare to risk and try to overcome them in the face of failure and low odds. Objectively, it may be that all other counterpoints are excuses that hold us back.

PS: I hope Paul meant that “simple solutions” can be interchanged with “unique solutions.” I don’t think all of them are simple, in fact very often it’s the insane approaches that take off. They just “become simple” much later when we take things for granted. Would we think Google Maps was a “simple solution” oh say 8 years ago?

I have been dropping the occasional hint for over a year as various thoughts still grab me, but the ultimate barrier is Google, especially if I go for a “Million Link Day”

Lots of hints in the related posts

I have a launch such as Blogrush had planned and have partners lined up, but the project still consists of a fairly rough 10 page powerpoint plus some design documents, and has been that way for months.

I have even been offered funding but I couldn’t accept it because it was from non specialists, and the risk is currently just too high.

I fully expect to have 10,000+ equity holders – can they link freely to the project?

On the development side I won’t be looking for perfection straight out of the gate but it is certainly a much bigger project than could be managed by a couple of college kids.

It sounds like you are struggling with how to best progress with knots and complications in your online ventures. As for me, I’m highly susceptible to overthinking and a self-imposed paralysis through trying to hone my plans before they are realized. The problem is that moving too slow leaves you open to many of the environmental risks that you identify, such as competition and changes in the Internet ecosystem.

The two parts of Paul Graham’s startup recipe that really impacted me were (a) simplicity and (f) rapid iteration:

Simplicity is useful in that the simpler an idea is the easier it is for people to comprehend and communicate it. The more viral it becomes. Yet, some simple ideas have really complicated underpinnings that are hidden from view (Apple’s products being a good example).

Crude “beta” release and rapid iteration strikes me as a reasonable balance between “as fast as you can go” and “perfection paralysis”.

In particular, I’m thinking a bit about the BlogRush launch — it launched a little crude and require rapid, iterative changes. It did this it the midst of lots of positive and negative buzz. But the feedback itself enabled them to identify the exact problems as opposed to the theoretical ones. They could have waited longer, fine tuned their product but may have found the “need” already filled in the marketplace making a splashy entry harder to pull off.

I’d be really interested in elaborations of your thoughts on successful online project development, if you care to do so.

(and sorry for the long comment! — I’ve really got to start using linked blog posts for these longer musings rather than use so much of your vertical space)