Ask HN: Great idea, but loose/vague patents might exist

I've come up with a rather interesting idea for a web application that might make a fair amount of money. Being one of the few times this has happened I decided to dig in and do some research.

One of my mentors and friends looks at the idea and approves, but says he remembers seeing a lot of patents that describe something like it. He remembers them being very vague and loosely defined.

Being the optimist I am I decide to do some simple patent searches to find out if he's right.

That ended up being a little harder than I thought, and there are already a few that seem similar.

What's a hacker to do? Give up on the idea? Is there a better way to find patents that might conflict with an idea? Should I just not care?