There's a whole lot of chatter going on about whether or not it's a great time to start a company. Some of it is the fear that the market is saturated. Maybe there is a fear that there isn't enough money to fund everyone. Who knows, really, but to suggest that it's not a great time to start a company is to suggest that there are bluer skies ahead. At least in terms of saturation, there's no time like the present. Competition on the web is only going to increase from here on out.

Development is constantly getting easier, our processes are continuously maturing and the kids coming out of school right now have grown up online. Developing web applications for many of them is second nature. Having grown up wide-eyed towards their dot-com heroes of yesteryear, you can beat your ass that they're itching to get into the game. I'm not sure that the allure of working for a big company really appeals to the them. They want to start their own company and create their own gig.

Another thing to consider is the effect of applications being so cheaply produced. Someone can whip together a rails app over a holiday weekend to solve some sort of issue in their life, release it into the wild as an ad-sense supported service, and all of the sudden there is even more competition – competition that may have no major profit motive because there is no major cost.

Start-up costs are incredibly low. Development is easier. In many cases, the success of the site isn't even remotely defined by its ROI ("it took me a day to code, who cares"). These lowered barriers can only mean one thing. Abundant amounts of competition might signal a bad startup market to some, but it's not going away.

The answer isn't to avoid starting a company, it's to focus on clever ways to increase the audience. This whole mini-revival going on really only exists within our own little world. Find a way to bring your product to the masses, and even crap websites like MySpace can succeed.