As you pointed out, (of-course?) celebrity is an enormous edge in building start-up traction in a social product offering, just as it is in most if not all other domains that require building external support to achieve a goal. An edge is just an edge though; it neither guarantees success for celebrities nor failures for non-celebrities. As someone that's struggled for a long time with how to seed a social network this seems pretty obvious to me and I agree it's a solution to the chicken-and-egg problem of kicking off a social site that you and I can't really compete with. We would have to win on product in a space where celebrity-type reach is not a requirement to creating value for the initial user base (i.e., a smaller chicken-and-egg problem vs. a larger one).
agreed - nice insights - but those spaces where celebrity status isn't a requirement are so small. even in enterprise software where you can succeed with unit sales, it is hard to sell without either prior sales or a reputation.
do you have any good areas where you think young entrepreneurs should be looking?
The sweet spot seems to be online, paid subscription-based services, priced moderately, bought with a credit card by individual professionals or small businesses.
