What is the “Blue ocean strategy” for a startups?

First, every startup can be imitated, so don't let that worry you.

Here's what I like to do: Define your "perfect customer." The person who has every single pain you solve, in the most extreme way. Call this person "Carol."

Now ask: What would you put on your home page that would make Carol understand immediately that you are her savior? What would you put in an ad? How would you say in one sentence?

Then do it. Yes, it's true that few of your customers are exactly Carol, but it turns out that by being specific and extreme, even those people who only match 20% of the criteria will understand what you do and be impressed that you can solve their problem.

Here's a more complete description of the strategy.

I would recommend using this to guide you: see http://venturehacks.com/articles/customer-development and buying a copy of 'Four Steps to the Epiphany'.

I am just beginning to see the wisdom of the method suggested by Jason. My adventure crafting a marketing strategy for numeroom.com has revealed that people want a solution that solves their problem. Everything else, no matter how cool it is, is superfluous.

As a technical founder it can be very difficult to not see how providing too many options in the sales pitch can actually scare away prospective customers. Focus on your "bread-winning" feature and sell to the segment that will die to use it. Make sure and focus on a nice (hopefully the biggest one) market segment whose problem is solved by your product or service. Then craft ways to reach out to that segment (or hire some one who knows how) and slowly build upon the base of potential customers that will be more likely to evangelize your service.

So really I am just cosigning to Jason's excellent advice.