<i>&quot;How lucky I was to be running a startup company now rather than two decades ago.&quot;</i><p>In some ways, it&#x27;s harder. Two or three decades ago, there was a huge software vacuum - there were obvious niches no one had filled yet. If you could build it, they would come.  Now, there&#x27;s something for almost every niche, no matter how obscure. Also, the price point for software is way down.  People complain about $5 now, when they used to be willing to pay $95.<p>Yes, today anybody can do a startup.  There&#x27;s even &quot;Startups for Dummies&quot;[1]  It&#x27;s easy to get the component services, from hosting to credit card processing.  So everybody is doing it.<p>Most phone apps lose money for their creators.  Small ad-supported sites are much less successful than they used to be.  It&#x27;s worse than starting a restaurant, the previous way to spend time and money and go broke.<p>Yes, there are big winners, but not very many of them.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Successful-Online-Start-Ups-For-Dummies-ebook&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B008TSC4UE" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Successful-Online-Start-Ups-For-Dummie...</a>