The successful entreprenuers, it seemed to me, would be those who were able to somehow make money by bringing down the costs of doing business. The challenge, though, for information providers, is to do this while supplying your information for free. The computer can be such an efficient dispenser of information, and the potential market is so large, that costs can be very low indeed. Quality has to be high. But you can have a high-quality information site and no traffic.
Marketing is clearly important, but can be very costly.
Early entrants can quickly get a name in certain areas. It is already much more difficult for new sites to make an impact in cyberspace. There are those who believe that huge offline marketing campaigns are the answer. But if I watch our traffic growth compared to our opposition who spend lavishly offline, I note that in the key areas we need to watch, we are outperforming them by a factor of several times. Partnering is also very important.