There was a time in America, when you started your company to meet the needs of the local community. And the local community supported you, and then came the train, which allowed people to travel and shop and see other products that were similar to the local product, now your competition became your community and the other communities in which the people could travel. People could now travel or have there product shipped by train.

 As you know it didn’t stop they’re as the advent of cars, airplanes and of course the television, your competition began to expand to include all of America. You could have your product shown all across America, and possible the world, television products however, were really only shown in the country that was airing the program.

 Now comes the Internet that is truly viewed globally.  Giving startups a greater opportunity to connect to more people.

 So what does that mean, it means that you as a small business leader have to know the needs of your customers and who your customers are. So that you can tailor your product to fit the needs of all of your customers with their very diverse lifestyles and living environments.

 Your company must diversify more than companies in previous times, this will allow your company to be less acceptable to the ups and down of the markets in any one country.

There use to be a time when an entrepreneur only had to have an good idea, and then people who were called VC, or Angles would come to you with money in hand wanting to invest, in what they considered the “Next Big Thing”.

 Well my friend, times are a changing, now with Banks going out of business or being bought out, and the stock market is going south, today’s entrepreneur has to have a solid business plan, marketing plan, profit projection and perfect credit to even be considered for a loan from a banking institution. 

Times like these help us to define our idea’s, and to gain a better focus of the task at hand. It divides those who have a get rich quick idea from those who have a great product.

But the question still remains, “Where or how do we get funding?”

Well, it is not easy but you must return to the old school entrepreneur style, and began to sell your idea to anyone who will listen, you must become a salesman, if you believe in your idea and truly have a passion about your product then you must convince other's of your products greatness, and if your not a salesman type then convince one person who is, and allow him or her to sell your product. 

It will be hard! And it will seem like it is all uphill but it can be done and has been done many times. 

This is not reinventing the wheel, it is more like returning to the basic.

As the stock market continues to fall, will the fan's continue to pay the high ticket prices to see their favorite teams, Will fans continue to pay for five dollar hot dogs ? or will the owners begin to reduce prices, so that families can still follow their teams?

Cloud computing is an old ideal that has it roots in the 1960's started with John McCarthy.  Cloud computing really started taking root in the 21st century, with companies that  saw the great potential in developing applications in the cloud

Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software.
Wikipedia describes Cloud computing as:
"The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals. It is a style of computing  where IT-related capabilities are provided "as a service“, allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the internet  ("in the cloud") without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them."

At ESPN we embrace cloud computing,, and I believe that cloud computing and Saas (Software as a service) will continue to expand far into the future.