The Web makes the impossible possible. Just imagine the pitch for eBay on a 1998 version of Dragons’ Den. “You bid a fraction of the real value… may sell for less than you paid for it… pay before you’ve even seen the goods, let alone held them… trust the seller to post the product to you… count on people writing nice reviews about you… etc.”

How about the pitch for an online encyclopaedia compiled by unpaid, unprofessional authors? Would you have fancied investing in a Wikipedia concept a decade ago?

Tom Peters advocates not even starting a business until you’ve canvassed a huge range of opinion. He’s not looking at the middle ground but the edge, the ‘berserk.’ Peters said, “Never get seriously underway until you’ve surfaced a couple of ideas that score perfect 10s, or at least 8s, on the … Berserk Scale.”

Cue eBay, Wikipedia and Craigslist.

I’m not sure if many entrepreneurs would go there deliberately, but if you end up on that much of a fringe listening to the berserk, at least you should know you’re in good company.