The State of Small Business, Part 3: How It Works in the Real World

The digital economy's effects on traditional small businesses.

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PART 3: HOW IT WORKS IN THE REAL WORLD

This section describes the digital economy's effects on traditional small businesses.

"He thought he'd run an herb nursery and garden center, do some mail-order business, and sell plants to local nurseries. But a technological wrinkle called the Internet has since rejiggered - massively so - that idyll. Gage, a closet techie despite the dirt under his fingernails, decided three and a half years ago to move his agrarian, low-growth business onto the electronic grid of the World Wide Web. Today Gage, at age 55, finds himself working 80-hour weeks and forecasting that his sales will quadruple between 2000 and 2003, to more than $2 million. 'There are a million decisions to make every day,' says the suddenly unretiring Gage with enthusiasm. 'This is my Viagra."

From "The Greenhouse Effect," which explains how a small, nontech business bloomed on the Internet.

PART 3 ARTICLES:
The Greenhouse Effect
Snap, Crackle, Pop!
The Name Game

PART 1: How It Feels at This Moment
PART 2: How It Looks from This Place
PART 4: How It Ties to the Future

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