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Sure, but your personal preferences have an outsized effect on your chances for success because they are very much aligned. I know plenty of founders that gave

by jacquesm 11mo ago

Sure, but your personal preferences have an outsized effect on your chances for success because they are very much aligned. I know plenty of founders that gave it all and then some (including their health, their family relationships and in some cases their lives) and that ended up worse than the shape they were in when they started. So yes, you hear a lot of stories about secondary stock sales and so on but those are the exceptions and very much not the norm. That's just survivorship bias.

bpt3 11mo ago
Fellow small business owner here. Just as a reminder, discussing any successful (where successful is defined as not failed) business is a lesson in survivorship bias. Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years.
- lurk2 11mo ago
  > Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years. I hear this all the time with variations to the number of years, which makes me suspect it isn’t true.
  - LastTrain 11mo ago
    What part do you suspect isn’t true?
    - lurk2 11mo ago
      That a majority of businesses fail over a given duration of time. It’s probably true on a long-enough timescale, but the idea that the majority of businesses fail within one year or ten just seems completely dubious. How is a business defined? How is failure defined?
      - LastTrain 11mo ago
        You don’t need to wonder, that information is readily verifiable. Most businesses fail. https://www.bls.gov/bdm/bdmage.htm https://www.bls.gov/bdm/bdmage.htm
      - bpt3 11mo ago
        Ignoring the available data indicating that it is the case, I'm curious about why this seems dubious to you in the first place? Starting and maintaining a functioning business is difficult; the default outcome is failure (the end of the business as an operating entity) and you have to work to prevent that from happening every day that you want to remain open. And I've never seen a claim that the majority of businesses fail in a year. Most anecdotes say a majority fail within 5 years, which seems to be approximately correct based on US data.

bpt3 11mo ago

Fellow small business owner here. Just as a reminder, discussing any successful (where successful is defined as not failed) business is a lesson in survivorship bias. Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years.

lurk2 11mo ago
> Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years. I hear this all the time with variations to the number of years, which makes me suspect it isn’t true.
- LastTrain 11mo ago
  What part do you suspect isn’t true?
  - lurk2 11mo ago
    That a majority of businesses fail over a given duration of time. It’s probably true on a long-enough timescale, but the idea that the majority of businesses fail within one year or ten just seems completely dubious. How is a business defined? How is failure defined?
    - LastTrain 11mo ago
      You don’t need to wonder, that information is readily verifiable. Most businesses fail. https://www.bls.gov/bdm/bdmage.htm https://www.bls.gov/bdm/bdmage.htm
    - bpt3 11mo ago
      Ignoring the available data indicating that it is the case, I'm curious about why this seems dubious to you in the first place? Starting and maintaining a functioning business is difficult; the default outcome is failure (the end of the business as an operating entity) and you have to work to prevent that from happening every day that you want to remain open. And I've never seen a claim that the majority of businesses fail in a year. Most anecdotes say a majority fail within 5 years, which seems to be approximately correct based on US data.