Ok, I am starting a web company simply because I was doing well enough as a freelancer, my mother allowed me to quit my full time job and work from home.

I will be an established company in just a couple weeks.

My question though is simply however may not be simple to find information.

How can I my self conduct industry research and see which industries are growing, which are not doing well if Retail is better than Services etc.


I have always wanted to start a web company and a retail company and with the profits being pulled from web development I will possibly form an ecommerce business as well.

After comparing the following facts it makes me wonder if I should go with my original dream of becoming an ecommerce company...

Largest web / domain company...

GoDaddy profits 2008 - 349 million, average company like Network Solutions and Web.com about 80million.

Overstock.com $760 million
NewEgg.com 2 billion
Gamestop.com 8billion
MicroCenter 1billion
Amazon.com 19billion

stats are pulled from Wikipedia business financial info.

being an advanced web designer and developer, I can design websites which can be competitive and considering my thrill is ecommerce and not really web design or retail I am thinking about taking advantage and starting now.

I can always pay people to manage a company or sell it off should a company get too big. I am not pulling the top ecommerce websites off thinking I can get there too however because I am showing the comparison in profits companies can make.

Then I am looking at...

losses, taxes, etc , what are the small guys making etc etc

Thanks