Customers know their problems - not necessarily the solutions required to solve their problems. They may have a solution in mind for their problems. It is the job of the founder is boil down problems to their core and find solutions.
I think you definitely need to play around (AB test) with your pricing model. People have thrown out options already, another one to consider is one which gives the product away for free for donations under $100 (users still pay the 3.5%) in order really strip away barriers to sign ups. Once they go over $100 a month and your site has proven its value perhaps they won't mind the fees as much since your product has already demonstrated its value.
Unfortunately, most big corporations still judge progress by scheduling and budgeting performance. Did we meet the schedule? Yes! Did we stay under budget? Yes! This is a paper victory.
Nobody asks "is the product ready to ship to customers?".
One thought I have is when clicking to create a list you ask me to sign up... I haven't used your product yet and am not sure if I want to sign up yet. Is there anyway you could allow people to create the list first and thus be committed and then get their email?
I don't think early adopters are necessarily rich. I think they set aside a portion of their income for early technology exploration in the same way some might for vacations or clothes.
As a person who hires coders I've been looking for something like this for a while. I think another helpful service you could provide would be to (for a fee) help non technical people describe the project in the way a developer would want to see it.
I think the design is clean and simple. As soon as I saw it it just clicked and made sense... leading to the thought 'why aren't all recipes presented like this?'
I would think about allowing users to "import" recipes that would turn them into one of your diagrams. Such that any cooking site out there could embed your diagrams into it.
I agree with what you're saying in terms of the ads. But if I'm Google I let the social CRM players duke it out as well as play with alternative ad models - pick a winner and acquire them. Then I can do what I want with the competition.
You just have to find the right nitch to go after. Is it online dating (listen to the mixergy match.com interview - their key was gaining women's trust)? Do people want to talk face to face before going out on a date? Could it be founders looking for founders? I don't know. But what I do know is that you should find a segment that could benefit from this the most and go after them. Who's pain is the biggest in this area?
I think we often only view the world in terms of problems. But there are different types of problems which can be further broken down. I think the quote below puts it best.
"There are three kinds of pain. You can be vitamins to someone, you can be aspirin to someone, or you can be morphine to someone"
The issue as I see it is that not everyone has great vision when it comes to building products/services one could turn a business into. In fact most don't which is why the 10-will-you-buy test is a good way of hacking around this lack of vision.
edit: grammar