So, how is customink.com different from, say, cafepress.com, which launched before? Or spreadshirt for that matter. Making your own custom t-shirts is not really a novel idea.
And, it's not the idea that the story is focussing on anyway, it's the fact that it's basically a two-man shop with a 19 year old founder completely bootstrapping it while waiting to declare a major in college, and the grim economic realities nurturing these "ultralight" businesses.
As a business, making and selling tshirts is no great innovation, I agree.
But when the web application is a painstakingly detailed clone of another company's, I think that the virtue of "completely bootstrapping it" to be undermined, and reduced to little more than a "me too" business.
I think that if someone started up a company called MacRonald's, specialized in selling cheap hamburgers, and had a clown mascot who wore a funny tophat, it wouldn't be praised much. Even if the founder was a 19-year-old.
What is the difference between me-too and competition? Or is competition suddenly unhealthy. If the original company is so much better than the upstart, they don't have anything to worry about.
And, it's not the idea that the story is focussing on anyway, it's the fact that it's basically a two-man shop with a 19 year old founder completely bootstrapping it while waiting to declare a major in college, and the grim economic realities nurturing these "ultralight" businesses.