this could be technical... getting users to use the product or service/page. my newest venture is a little different... B2B... so we'll see how that goes.
also, my answer is relevant because with more users comes expansion. my social networking site (before the phrase was coined so feverishly) started with 10 people initially signing up. i had launched the day prior to my vacation and didn't return for 2 weeks. word-of-mouth spread it like wildfire and when I returned... 20k people has signed up. with that however, came the server and bandwidth bill (I was using a shared hosting plan). technically, it made me broke for time (fixing everything that broke and eventually broke during my transfer to the dedicated server) and financially it drained me (back when dedicated servers cost and arm, leg, first born and your dog fluffy). =P
i wouldn't say it's impossible... but if you have too many "leaders" and not enough "doers" then ideas and expectations start to bottleneck. ideally, my preferred team would consist of 2 leaders (one w/ more experience in marketing/biz and one w/ more experience in the flow of programming and visual design layout), a hardcore programmer and a UI designer.
take every project as a learning experience. if you have the ability to select what projects you accept, only take the ones who have an "emotional" connection to you and/or your business... aka, the ones that don't cause you to groan and hate your line of work. :)
why does everyone compare themselves to google? with everything company, something'll happen eventually and it'll turn into the present-day microsoft. the thing that i'm focusing on is to become a leader like google w/o replicating it step-for-step. google found it's wave and surfed it... now it's our turn to do the same in our own niche/product.
traffic and service recognition with a very focused market group. facebook's valuations, as inflated as they may be, could hold some truth based on the market they have targeted themselves into.
also, my answer is relevant because with more users comes expansion. my social networking site (before the phrase was coined so feverishly) started with 10 people initially signing up. i had launched the day prior to my vacation and didn't return for 2 weeks. word-of-mouth spread it like wildfire and when I returned... 20k people has signed up. with that however, came the server and bandwidth bill (I was using a shared hosting plan). technically, it made me broke for time (fixing everything that broke and eventually broke during my transfer to the dedicated server) and financially it drained me (back when dedicated servers cost and arm, leg, first born and your dog fluffy). =P