Hi Boyd,

> You mentioned getting the word out. EbaY has
> created an extremely efficient and
> user-friendly mechanism to match buyers and
> sellers.

Yes, that's true - eBay does help to make things easy, I must agree... I personally think that an "eBay business" is probably the easiest kind of business to start online...

> Another part of the essence should relate to
> figuring out what to sell, which brings up
> the area of competition or market
> saturation.

Yes, that's true... When I said you have to have a "good offer" - I actually (implicitly) mean it has to be good for at least some of your customers, compared to what's already on offer (the competition)....

I think you really do have to consider what's already out there, and how what you're offering will compare for your potential customers....

This is where niches can be profitable. If you can find a "niche market" which nobody is really serving very well, it is definitely an opportunity, if you can make a better offer to that niche market than anyone else can....

I actually plan to do something to probably target the "popular physics" niche market some time in the near future (over the next few months)....

> Should business people enjoy what they do in
> business? That's a good question.

I think you really ought to enjoy what you do. After all, most people spend most of their waking hours working - so it's best to enjoy what you do!

I know some people have alternative views, but this is another reason why I like "multiple streams" of income - it helps you to find out what you like, and what you don't like. If you really don't like something, then you can just drop that stream, and replace it with something else.... "Multiple streams" gives you flexibility which you don't have otherwise....

> What we need is something like a HAL 9000
> that can data mine the internet and build up
> a relational database 500 terabytes in size
> (a thousand copies of the Encyclopaedia
> Britannica is about 1 terabyte. 500
> terabytes would be about the equivalent of a
> billion books).

Boyd, I actually know someone who's working on a project like this.... Though, if I'm not mistaken, it's for US military use.... (He does some work for the US military.)

> Thanks for your reply...

Thanks Boyd for bringing up this interesting topic! :)

- Dien