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entrepreneurs to aggregate the entire nation into a small community. During the 2003 Christmas shopping season, the New York Times reported that the number-one seller in Amazon.com’s specialty meat department was, at one point, elevages magret duck breast from Fossil Farms. The duck topped offerings from such well-known brands as Omaha Steaks. While there may not be enough people in any one geographic community with an interest in a specialty item, the Internet turns the entire world into a single shopping neighborhood. Lance Applebaum, Fossil’s CEO, notes that the company is “a small business,” but “Amazon (www.Amazon.com) lets us show off on a worldwide basis.” Another example of Internet-based retailing, which simply was not possible a few years ago, is, of course, eBay (www.ebay.com). Over 400,000 people now report that eBay is their main source of income.

• Enterprises take advantage of the phenomenon of unbundling, an inherent result of the Internet’s growth:

For example, local telecommunications agents used to find, sell, and install lines in a specific geographic area. Now, these three functions are exploding apart. Speed Anywhere starts this chain of events by finding the prospects. The Internet makes seamless handoffs possible, so that all of these functions no longer have to operate under one roof. Instead, specialized businesses can do what they do best, and then pass their work on to the next specialized participant in the chain. Indeed, the significance for go-it-alone entrepreneurs of the accelerating trend toward such unbundling is explored at length in Chapter 3, pages 70–79.

To operate a go-it-alone business you do not, by any means, need to be a Web expert. As discussed at length in the next chapter, the essential Web services that make these businesses possible are becoming both more sophisticated and easier to

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Terms of Use GO IT ALONE! Copyright 2004 by Bruce Judson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.