Small businesses account for more than 40 percent of the offline economy (IDC, January 2001).

An estimated 25.5 million small businesses in America employ more than half of the country's private workforce, create three of every four new jobs, and generate a majority of American innovations (Small Business Administration, 2000).

Small businesses represent more than 99 percent of all employers (Small Business Administration, December, 2000).

Small businesses and home offices account for 40 percent of all technology investment in the United States (IDC, January 2001).

Five million small businesses and 15 million income-generating home offices still don't have a web site, and fewer than 5 percent of small businesses that are online have been selling products and services online for longer than a year (IDC, January 2001).

By 2004, small e-merchants — those with fewer than 10 employees and less than $3 million in annual sales — could account for as much as 10 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (Keenan Vision Inc., 2000).

About 3.4 million nonresidential small businesses now have Internet access, along with 7.4 million small-business branch offices (Cyber Dialogue, June 2000).

Today 84 percent of small businesses have PCs, 57 percent have Internet access, 21 percent have web sites, and 18 percent have high-speed access (AMI International, May 2000).

An estimated 85 percent of small businesses will be conducting business over the Internet by 2002 (Small Business Administration, June 2000).

Small companies will see their online sales grow 336 percent to $120 billion from 2000 to the end of 2002 (Ami-Partners, Inc. 2000).

The average annual income of a small business utilizing the Internet is $3 million per year compared with an average of $1.9 million for small businesses in general (IDC, April 2000).

More than three million businesses are minority-owned, and this number is growing (Dun & Bradstreet, 2001).

There are more than 9.1 million women-owned businesses — accounting for more than a third of all U.S. companies — and this number is growing (Dun & Bradstreet, 2001).

The number of home-based businesses in the United States surpassed 20 million this year, and is expected to eclipse 25 million by 2003 (see table), according to the research firm International Data Corp. (IDC). The average household income of those with home businesses topped $57,000 in 1998, says the IDC. Think about this as you consider entering the home-business world: Nearly 8,500 new home businesses start every day, and there are no signs of a slowdown.

The Internet is largely responsible for this "no place like home" trend, offering more ways to do business at home than the telephone ever could. In 1996, only a quarter of the home-office households had Internet access, according to IDC. Three years later, more than 65% were hooked up. Last year, as a group, small- and home-office workers spent $52.2 billion on technology, a figure that will jump to $78.8 billion in 2002.

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KEY FACTS

In 1999 over 9 million information products were sold over the Internet.

Information products accounted for over 20% of all Internet sales.

The cost of reproducing and delivering an electronically published information product to a customer is virtually zero.

If you're thinking about starting an Internet business, doesn't it make sense to go where the money's at?