About a year ago I was at a hotel having breakfast with a good friend who is quite savvy about spotting business trends. Suddenly he started spreading sugar packets and portion cups of cream around the table.

He said, “This is the business model of the future.”

The statement puzzled me. “You mean the business model of the future is individual portions?”

“No, no. I mean, people are going to have more than one stream of active income. Instead of having one job that provides everything, people will have this gig going over here [pointing to a packet of Splenda] and that gig going [pointing to a cup of Hazelnut non-dairy creamer] over there.”

“You mean e-commerce stuff?”

“Sure–it could be that, but not necessarily. There are lots of small business opportunities that you can jump into now, and as things change, [scrambling the packets around on the table] you can reprioritize your efforts.”

It certainly seems as though my friend had put his finger on something beside sugar packets. The Internet has reduced the barriers of entry to almost nothing for many types of enterprises. For instance, using an online store like Cafepress, a person can be selling imprinted t-shirts globally in less than 24 hours, with practically no investment.

Taking it a step further, a rising tide of online business creates new offline opportunities. A boom in imprinted t-shirt sales means somebody has to manufacture them, package them, and ship them.

Obviously, low barriers to entry is no guarantee of success. But no longer do entreprenuers have to put all their eggs–or sugar packets–in one basket.