Cover Story: "The next little thing"

In its cover story, FSB features 10 big ideas coming from small businesses in 2007.

When a new product from Microsoft debuts, it doesn't arrive quietly. Instead it gets tracked through the R&D pipeline by trade magazines, bloggers and carefully controlled announcements from the marketing department.

Small-business innovations don't work that way. They tiptoe into the market, heralded by minimal PR (if any) and propelled instead by the inventor's enthusiasm.

What makes that more ironic is that small businesses these days come up with better ideas more consistently than their corporate competitors. "Rates of R&D growth among small firms tend to have been higher than among large R&D-performing firms," says John Jankowski, director of the R&D Statistics Program at the National Science Foundation.

To find these innovative companies you need a field guide, and that's were FSB comes in. Exploring everything from ocean-generated electricity to six-foot roses to an ATM for books, the stories on the following pages offer a preview of the companies, products, people, trends and ideas likely to make news in 2007 - all from the world of small business.

Asiaing Links:

Fortune Small Business Magazine Official Web Site

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