Based on the premise that start-ups tend to fail through lack of customers rather than lack of technology or product features, customer development is a systematic way of identifying who the customer is, what it is they need and whether that need is sufficient to build a business on.
As long as you keep doing the right thing and have the best product, you can beat the bigger company.
Bootstrapping is a way to do something about the problems you have without letting someone else give you permission to do them.
Do things that allow you to win and that allow someone else to win. It is not a zero-sum game
The main question you have to answer for the business model is: “What will customers actually pay me for?
Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
When bootstrapping, you need to find a team that's willing to work for nothing and spend their off hours with you.
Make something someone specific needs, launch fast, let users show you what to change, change it, repeat the last two.
Great companies don't throw money at problems, they throw ideas at problems.
The web is a social movement and I like to think of a new company as a manifesto.