This is what I understood: "Is it possible to grow an audience organically on the web and reach ramen profitability within a year or so"
My answer: It is not likely to happen. Getting traction is the single hardest problem for startups that are neither technically challenging, nor game changing. By organic audience I mean users acquired through WOM, and press coverage.
You can spam (just like Facebook and Myspace did) and get your product in front of more people and hope they click SIGN UP.
I know most people find sending an unsolicited email as a huge ethical issue, but quite frankly a spam email sent to the potentially right user can be helpful to both her and your business.
