Does your idea have to be "unique" for your startup to be successful or you can be just "+1" to the market, execute well and still succeed?

You are more likely to fail if you are "unique".  Its safer and easy to clone existing businesses and incrementally improve them.  First movers almost never understand the market as well as their competitors and are usually annihilated by the later competition (which only has to improve their product or exploit a new marketing channel).

Creating a new market and holding it is the most difficult you can do, where as incremental improvement is much easier and has comparable financial advantages.

Google was not the first search engine.  Google did not invent search monetization (Overture did).

Facebook was not the first social network.  It was a clone of HouseSYSTEM and myspace.  Myspace was a friendster clone.

Zynga did not invent Farmville, they copied the game almost to the pixel from Farmtown.  Farmtown was a copy of the Chinese game HappyFarm.

The iPod was not the first mp3 player.

Microsoft Windows was not the first or even the best GUI OS.  In fact it was technically inferior to its competitors, but won the standards war because Microsoft had a better understanding of the market and the nature of computer standards than IBM or Apple.

And so on.  Its rare that the first company into a market is the company that becomes the dominant player in that market.  I have never seen it happen in the absence of a government granted monopoly.

Your product should be designed to satisfy a validated demand that consumers have, but perhaps in a new way, or with a new technology; for instance, people have been watching video since the 1960s, but Youtube enables them to satisfy that need over a new medium (the internet/web-browser).

If there is not a product in a market (or atleast an extreme shitty product), the reason is generally that there is no demand for that product.  However, concepts like tablet computing and Groupon were tried several dozen times and failed before they were successful.

Personally, I am big fan of improving existing services, exploiting superior knowledge about your market (such as using better marketing strategies or distribution methods) and market segmentation.  Market segmentation is great strategy for grabbing your competitor's customers and potentially being able to achieve higher margins

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What books are on your "must read" list for web startups?

1. Startups Open Sourced (Jared Tame) - This is a really great collection of interviews and promises to share some insight into some of the most interesting stories you typically won't hear on HN.
2. The Thank You Economy (Gary Vaynerchuk) - This book attest that your relationship with your customers will define your business's success.
3. Designing for the Web (Mark Boulton) - This material was eye opening from a developer's perspective because it helps you understand the designer's process. This is great from a designer's perspective because it covers 80% of the ground that make most web designers great! (Not to mention it's FREE to read online!)
4. The Four Steps to the Epiphany (Steve Blank)This seems to be the entrepreneur's bible to business development. 
5. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development: A Cheat Sheet to the Four Steps to the Epiphany (Brant Cooper , Patrick Vlaskovits) - I understand that this book really dissects the Customer Development process.
6. Business Model Development: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers and Challengers (Yves Pigneur and Alex Osterwalder) - Excellent book which walks you through developing your business model and efficiently pivoting until you achieve product-market fit.
7. Founders at Work (Jessica Livingston) - Case studies on some of the great businesses and their founders of our day. Fascinating insight from people who have walked the walk.
8. Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur (Pamela Slim) - I haven't gotten to this book personally, but I'm told there are some great takeaways. I've seen Pam speak on several occasions and have high expectations from her book as well.
9. My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley (Ben Casnocha) - Another book I haven't gotten to, though the hot spot that is Silicon Valley has been a personal interest for me. I'm expecting a first-hand experience of what a new company in the Valley goes through.

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