Happy birthday, Yahoo!

The beginning of this month saw Yahoo’s 15th birthday. While for many businesses 15 is not an advanced age, on the Internet it makes you one of the elders.

Back when Yahoo started, search engines were not a common concept, and, indeed, only a small percentage of the population was going online at all. It’s inspiring to think that this global, million-dollar company was started by two young graduates who happened to see a need. It’s a pattern that we’ve seen over and over again, as the Internet starts enabling Joe Normal to make it big, with nothing more than a rock-solid idea.

Yes, many companies fall by the wayside, but as we begin to understand this manmade phenomenon, the Internet, we also learn more about how to use it to succeed. Let’s take a moment to salute Yahoo, and to hope that our own small businesses might one day match this behemoth of the online world.