Reality check: digital barriers are higher than many small businesses and start-ups expect
Remember when the internet started bursting into the mainstream? For a while, it seemed as if scale would not necessarily be an advantage for bigger companies and that small businesses could win online by being fast, nimble and innovative. Yet the world has changed dramatically since a little start-up called Amazon brought such massive disruption to booksellers and then to the wider world of retail.
Today, a handful of companies dominate web traffic, from Facebook and Google in media to Amazon in e-commerce, and it’s no easier to compete with them than with a well-funded, large-scale brick-and-mortar incumbent. Yet many business owners still think that it’s quick, cheap and simple to create an online business that can deliver outsized profits, if only the product or idea is a winner...
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