4 ms·
The whole "90% of businesses fail" thing is pretty meaningless without a timespan attached to it. Obviously almost all companies eventually go out of business f
by opencl 8y ago
The whole "90% of businesses fail" thing is pretty meaningless without a timespan attached to it. Obviously almost all companies eventually go out of business for some reason or another.
About three quarters last more than a year, about half last to 5 years, and about a third last to 10 years.
https://www.fundera.com/blog/small-business-survival https://www.fundera.com/blog/small-business-survival
- TeMPOraL 8y agoAlso if you forget the whole startup "go big or go home", what also matters is whether the company left the people involved - the founders, the employees - richer than they were before, or did it ruin the founders. Because a business that lasted 5 years and closed because the market dried up, but in that time netted the founder more than a regular job would, is pretty successful in my books.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoThanks for posting that, TeMPOral. It helps to put things in a good perspective - our business has given us much joy, far more joy than a regular job would. Not so great on the money aspect; which I guess is why no-one has stepped up with interest to take it on.
- ghda 8y agoIt’s a completely made up statistic, as far as I can tell, and it’s repeated constantly. It probably does a lot of harm, too, by discouraging people from having a go, people who might have actually got off their arses if they’d instead believed “half of all businesses fail within five years”.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoYes, sorry, the phrase repeated by nearly everyone was "90% [of [small] businesses] fail in the first year". Which compared to your 25% figure is pretty markedly different - that's the sort of discrepancy I was seeing.