I think that Kickstarter was one of the first major companies to start dabbling in the "sharing economy", or making money by connecting users to other users. This is one of the reasons why it was so innovative and able to get off the ground so smoothly. I also was impressed by the statistic that over 1/3 of the businesses featured on the How I Built This podcast initially raised funds using Kickstarter. This definitely makes me think that Kickstarter was an important element in the evolving small-business economy of the last decade. Barriers are being broken down and it is easier than ever for independent, aspiring entrepreneurs to make an impact in the world, especially because of services like Kickstarter.