from Hacker News

This is the trend I see in the start-up world. The new ventures could be divided into two groups: 1) Breakthrough business models (e.g. Groupon) Advantages: greater potential Disadvantages: if it enters into an industry with very low multi-homing costs, a great business model, if easily duplicated, could still be taken over. (e.g. yahoo vs google). Breakthrough innovations generally suffer from more risks because the market needs more time to adapt/ learn about the new technology.

2) Incremental innovations that support existing platform e.g. http://attachments.me/ (enables people to hunt attachments in their gmail inbox quickly)

Advantages: It's more secured because it is more likely to be acquired. Disadvantage: the impact it creates is relatively small compared to breakthrough innovations.

The trend I see is that more and more entrepreneurs will be attracted to the start-up industry, however, more people tend to design products that support existing platform because it is more secured. Understandably, in the economic downtown, VCs could be tempted to be more conservative. But it is breakthrough products that creates technology disruption and create a big, positive, long-lasting impact to its consumers.

How to strike the balance?