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JapaneseI met last week with a friend of mine who has been in the startup/growth equity ecosystem about as long as I have. We were walking down memory lane discussing startup activity and companies we had worked with, or even ones who refused to accept help as they already knew everything. The conversation then switched to how many of the individuals who decided to startup a company actually succeed. Everyone always says the majority of them fail, but I decided to actually explore the make-up and success rate of an entrepreneur/small business owner. I came across this article by Small Business Trends and found it very insightful.
Over the past 5 years, 73% of entrepreneurs are male whereas the remaining are female. One of the most fascinating facts was the age range of an entrepreneur. Without looking, which age group do you think dominates the entrepreneurial landscape? Nope, I am pretty sure you were wrong as you will see below.
• 50-59 years old: 35%
• 40-49 years old: 25%
• 60-69 years old: 18%
• 30-39 years old: 14%
• 18-29 years old: 4% (this was most surprising)
Now keep in mind, the article didn’t just cover new entrepreneurs, but still only 18% combined from the Millennials and Gen Y folks. The article covered small businesses that started in the year 2014. Here is the breakdown:
• 80% made it to the 2nd year
• 70% made it to the 3rd year
• 62% made it to the 4th year
• 56% made it to the 5th year
I guess the devil is always in the details here as we don’t know the state of the companies that made it to the 5th year. Are the companies in distress? Are they profitable? Is there more than one employee still? In my experience with startup companies, most of them consider a “pivot” early on as quite often the company they envisioned at the beginning is different than what it became. Still more than half of the companies are still in existence in the 5th year gives an entrepreneur hope and a sizable runway to work within.
If you are experiencing challenges or considering pivoting your company to a successful trajectory, please reach out to me.
