Yes but it requires you to achieve a huge userbase before you start seeing any significant profit, and honestly I don't see his startup being able to do that, because I'm guessing his niche is very small

My comment was regarding the statement:

"The one caveat was that each project must have to have a clear and realistic path to monetization (for example: subscription, not advertisement)"

I don't think an advertising monetized startup is unclear or unrealistic and it means that you discount a lot of ideas from the start.

Yes, realistically neither subscription nor advertisement is likely to bring in a lot of money. My guess is that they want to do things the "37 signals" way, and that means acting as though advertising isn't "realistic".

yeah, the video of DHH's talk at startup school influenced the team a lot!