Good post by Stephen Fleming out of Atlanta.  He now heads up Georgia Tech’s commercialization program after stints as venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and executive at Nortel.  He talks about a framework for evaluating investments picked up from Kevin Fong at Mayfield Fund.

"We divide business plans into three categories: candy, vitamins, and
painkillers. We throw away the candy. We look at vitamins. We really
like painkillers. We especially like addictive painkillers!"

Here’s some good perspective from Stephen:

"Honestly, I think most of Web 2.0 is vitamins at best, candy at worst.
(Which is perhaps why most of the Web 2.0 services are free. Here’s a
tip: If no one wants to pay for what you’re providing, maybe that’s a
hint that it isn’t worth much.)"

Bottom line:  focus on the problem you are solving and why people would pay for it