Of upper middle class folks who own their own businesses that I have met, more of them own their parents business or a spinoff of their parents business. Those

Of upper middle class folks who own their own businesses that I have met, more of them own their parents business or a spinoff of their parents business. Those that do not, often have come from an upper or upper middle class background where it was a very low risk situation for them to spend a year trying to get an odd business off the ground - they could always fall back to their parents, or their personal network. There are a few who built their own businesses from the ground up, but many of them will tell you that it was luck at multiple points that they were able to latch onto a workable cashflow (not to discount the hard work to explore that cashflow, and smarts to recognize and expand it...). Edit: Addendum, access to capital is key to reducing risk on the path to success, and it can be formally there or informally there. If you listen to podcasts, try "How I built this", interviewing a range of business founders. You have to listen for it, but a huge number start as, oh I worked in the financial industry and then had this idea..., or oh my parents were a lawyer and a physician... etc... The founder of Starbucks, Howard Schultz was saved from being ripped off from his business by a Seattle mogul by Bill Gates, Sr (yes father of that Bill Gates...).