Thanks for the reference! I didn't really dig into this too deeply, but I'm not sure how accurate these numbers are. Or at least, they're very open to interpre

Thanks for the reference! I didn't really dig into this too deeply, but I'm not sure how accurate these numbers are. Or at least, they're very open to interpretation. For example, see my other comment regarding which businesses we're talking about. But even taking the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, my immediate questions are: 1. What constitutes a small business? LLCs? Are sole proprietarships also counted? (Definitely relevant when thinking about freelance work, after all). 2. What consitutes failure? Sure, there's bankruptcy. But there are lots of businesses that continue to exist, but are not active. You might very well start a company for doing freelance work, stop doing the work and start work as an employee (which is also a question - failure or personal choice?), and keep the company in operation. Just to dig even deeper into this example from a freelance dev perspective (what I know most about): Let's say Sarah starts work as a freelance dev through her own LLC. She charges a very low rate. This is the kind of competition I refer to in my original comment. After a year and a half, she realizes that she isn't making enough money for her trouble, and decides to start working as an employee for a company. The LLC sticks around for another 5 years for various reasons. How should we count this? Is this a case of a business failure? She certainly didn't go bankrupt or anything. The LLC is still around, so she probably counts for governmental purposes. And arguably, she shouldn't count as a "failed business". On the other hand, if I'm a freelance dev in the area who knows that you need to charge twice what she's charging to get anywhere near a decent salary as compared to working as an employee. From my perspective, this is definitely a business failure, in the sense that if someone tells me "your rates are too high, look at Sarah's rates, why don't you charge less", my answer to them would be "she doesn't realize it, but she's selling 1 dollars' worth of value for 80 cents".