You can’t read or talk about small business long before you run across it. If you haven’t heard it before, it could well rattle whatever resolve you have to go into business for yourself. Ninety percent of small businesses, you’ll learn, fail within one year of startup. Are you now thinking twice about refinancing the house and draining your retirement account to finance your startup? Oh, yeah.
However, without passing judgment on the specific prospects for whatever startup you are considering, if you listen to the 90 percent failure rate stat, you are probably making a mistake. It’s a myth, and far — very far — from the truth. No one seems to know where that factoid came from. We can say that, whatever it’s source, it’s flat wrong.
According to well-supported studies by reputable researchers, 70 percent of new firms that have at least one employee survive for at least two years. Roughly half go on for five years. That comes from the SBA, but other studies reached similar conclusions.
You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and get the rest of the story…
