Congrats on taking the road less traveled. I too started a business while I was in college to pay the bills-- turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life. Looking back, the most important thing I had going for me was a great co-founder that complimented my interests and skill set.
When we were starting out we thought about the following questions all of the time:
- Do people want our product?
- How are we differentiated?
- What will this cost us?
- How will we make money?
- Who can we ask for advice?
- What are we forgetting?
Focus on making something people want-- this is paramount. A good rule of thumb is that your product needs to be good enough that people willingly recommend it to others. Make sure your product is differentiated-- people won't trust you at first (and they will trust an established competitor) so you need to offer something customers can't get elsewhere. Charge for your product-- sounds obvious, but you can't make money without it and it's not as easy as it sounds. Network, network, network-- too many founders forget to network with customers, vendors, business partners, future employees, etc. because they get too focused on developing the product. Networking will be a great source of feedback and will open doors you may never have known existed. Remember, you're creating a business not just creating a product.