1) Build the best experience
2) Have the best people (marketing,dev,etc)
3) Have a rich value proposition for users
4) Work harder at “web marketing” than everyone else
5) Suck the air out of the room in your vertical such that everyone else is seen to be “following” vs. “leading”
6) Have an ability to buy other people’s eyeballs (e.g. take a page out of the Marchex book)
6.a.) That means have cash to take others out when you see a good opportunity
7) Understand search engines better than your competitors
8) Understand link building better than your competitors
9) Understand “conversion” better than your competitors
10) Do the best PR in your space
11) Look outside your space constantly for inspiration that can be applied (e.g. look at Yelp! Where did they come from!? And why?)
12) Spend “smarter” than everyone else – no matter how much money is in the bank
13) Develop and engineer with a “360 degree” view: best UI, best usability, high performance, ability to scale, best prioritization of value features, best optimization for search and community functions
14) Develop a genuine emotional connection with users so they eventually feel a responsibility for the success of the company…and the community. At some point, it has to become less about the management and more about the users.
15) Move faster than everyone else

Back to the cash thing:

For some businesses today, the ability to buy others eyeballs might be A LOT easier than organically attracting them. That takes cash. But I suspect that buying ability still doesn’t let anyone off the hook when it comes to having to build the best product. But having the best product isn’t always a cash equation. It’s a people question.