Time magazine has a nice story about companies who are trying to get bought out - just like YouTube did.
During the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s, garage innovators could peddle imaginary businesses in initial public offerings. If an idea seemed as if it might make money someday (remember Pets.com?) that was good enough. Today's upstarts are more fully formed and are often led by wealthy veterans of the first boom.
True, but few of those dotcom boom companies bothered writing a business plan either - or making a profit for that matter. That's why the dotcom crash happened.
Okay, so Google didn't envisage that its revenue would come primarily from advertising, but the start-up attracted investment because its founders had clearly "built a better mousetrap", and it earned significant revenue from licencing its search technology.
I agree that it's different this time around. Investors are more prudent. Start-ups are encouraged to create "servucts" on a shoestring budget, not by burning capital. But coming up with the right recipe and making it happen - that's the truly difficult part, and it has a lot to do with self-belief.
Personally, I'm always suspicious of those entrepreneurs who's intention from the start is to have their company bought. But hey, what do I know?