Robert Grass from Turbobeads gave a fantastic talk at the MRS in Boston about how to bootstrap a company. And his was even a very difficult field that required actual tangible hardware instead of "just" time. The basic point was that they had a technology, and so they didn't bother with patents, patent searching, or anything like that. Instead they just started asking customers what they wanted, worked to make it, and then started selling it everywhere. Five years later, they own their entire company, and sell stuff all over the world using ebay and similar for fulfillment initially, and google ads instead of complicated marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately I can't find an online version of the talk. But if you get the opportunity, consider checking out local trade conferences to see if they have speakers talking about fields outside of CS. If it works outside if CS it will almost definitely work even better inside of CS...