ReadWriteStart

Entrepreneurs demonstrating their latest ideas at the EMO Spring 2012 conference showed that inspiration travels in many directions. The young companies that took the stage Wednesday to kick off the three-day startup fest in Santa Clara, California, demonstrated a surprisingly wide variety of software and Web services.

Unfortunately, one thing most of the new companies share is the lack of a clear plan for building a profitable business. Typical for today's startups - particularly in the mobile and cloud markets, but even in e-commerce - the strategy of choice seems to be building as large of a user base as possible, then trying to figure out how to make money later.

Startup conferences - like last week's DEMO Conference in Santa Clara, California - are great opportunities for young companies to not only gain some exposure, but to network with other like-minded entrepreneurs. One company I spoke to at DEMO, Zappli, makes a social shopping app that leverages many existing services through partnerships and APIs - a strategy many young startups could benefit from.