The most successful online projects I've known (and been directly involved with) have been ones that took a small idea and made it big. Usually a single concept, done exquisitely well with no effort spared for execution and continuous improvement, with tenacity and perseverance and confidence that their idea (or technique or product or whatever it is) was worth something. Some failed within months. But a few have gone on to earn multimillions. And these aren't the famous ones like Google or Twitter, these are average local folks who tapped into something big at the right time with the right idea, believed in it, worked really hard, and profited immensely from it.
Those that failed usually had one thing in common - they were founded on a vague desire, not a concrete service. For instance, "I want to make money buliding web sites that earn money" is not a good starting point for a business. "I want to offer this very specific service to the world" or "I want to leverage this particular business model" are.
Second point: On the web, scalability is everything. There are many "thousandaires" out there earning a few pennies per hour from their online projects. That's nice... but not worth quitting your day job for and certainly not enough to retain employees or pay down your mortgage. Many people develop sites that have a built-in ceiling, above which they'll never scale, or a model that isn't replicable. Those are the ideas you need to reject - good as they might be - as being not good enough.
You mention taking things to the next level. Make sure there IS a next level.
I don't want to sound too much like Seth Godin, but to go to the next level, your project needs to be remarkable, and profitable, and stable, and scalable.
If you build something with those qualities, you won't have to fight hard to get thousands of happy customers. And if you have thousands of happy customers, you won't have to fight hard to get the attention of people with money to invest. If your pitch is weak or your product is ho-hum, then it really won't happen.
Your first step in pushing your online business up a notch is to envision that next level so clearly that the steps to get there are obvious. Then execute them. And see what happens!
