The State of Small Business, Part 1: How It Feels at This Moment

This collection of articles reflects the changes taking place in the state of small business in the year 2000.

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PART 1: HOW IT FEELS AT THIS MOMENT

This section chronicles changes that could happen only now, at this moment in history.

"In 1997, Howley started hearing about a new Web site called eBay. ... On a lark he searched for a THRUSH rifle, a mid-1960s toy version of the weapon of choice for the villains in the television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ... [It] was a prize he had searched for his whole adult life. ... But just two minutes on this electronic flea market and there it was -- where anyone, anywhere could find it. It was at that moment that Howley became very, very afraid. How could his little specialty stores in the backwater of central Massachusetts compete with a giant, wonderfully stocked rival like that -- one that was everywhere a laptop could be, virtually in the air around him?"

From "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and (Almost) Love eBay," which examines one entrepreneur's reluctant acceptance of life after the on-line auction.

PART 1 ARTICLES:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and (Almost) Love eBay
Catching Up to the New Economy
Young Dot-Com Millionaires in Love
Any Given Start-Up
Rock through the Ages

PART 2: How It Looks from This Place
PART 3: How It Works in the Real World
PART 4: How It Ties to the Future