"it is perfectly fine for a startup to earn a million or less a year, and never even aspire to earn billions, as long as it pays the bills". That's basically the concept of Micropreneurs and Solopreneurs here; also not to take VC funding (at least not until much later) and instead either bootstrap or crowd-fund. It's not as glamorous or much talked about as the Silicon Valley startup scene, but it definitely exists here, too. For example, http://imgur.com started out that way: http://thisweekinstartups.com/imgur-alan-schaaf-andreessen-h...