Seth Godin  has a great post listing important elements to consider when starting a business today. Here’s 10 of the elements, but you can read the rest on Seth’s blog.

1. Build in virality. Consider: Groupon.
2. Don’t sell a product that can be purchased cheaper at Amazon.
3. Subscriptions beat one-off sales.
4. Try to create an environment where your customers are happier when there are other customers doing business with you (see #1).
5. Treat different customers differently.
6. Generate joy, don’t just satisfy a need for a commodity.
7. Rely on unique individuals, not an easily copyable system.
8. Plan on remarkable experiences, not remarkable ads.
9. Don’t build a fortress of secrets, bet on open.
10. Unless there’s a differentiating business reason, use off the shelf software and cheap cloud storage.