Doomed?

Seriously, new companies that don't have something substantively different about them don't have good odds. In brick-and-motar that "something different" might just be geographic location (e.g. a car mechanic in a town that doesn't have one), but in the online world, you usually need something more.

The "somethings different" can be only slight changes to the models (better customer service, better support for language X, etc.), but they're always different in some way.

"Startup" can imply something radically different, but it doesn't have to, and in any case, even companies that _try_ to stick to an existing business model rarely do, and the plans always change and adjust as you go along, it doesn't matter what kind of business you're in.