Starting your own business can make you both rich and successful, but it
can also have a large negative impact on your financial life and may even lead
to health problems. Here are some interesting statistics that you should look at before starting a company.

1) Studies show that one in five Americans will at one point in their life start a businesses
2) Sadly only 20% of these businesses will last to be 5 years old.

This means that although 48 million Americans will start a business, most of them will not be very successful and will not last that long.

Why do so many companies fail to survive?

This is truly the million dollar question, and there are many theories out their pertaining to why they don’t. Usually, people do not readily prepare themselves for the mess that they are going to step into because the business world is not kind to anyone. It is like a jungle, in which it is every man (or animal in this case) for themselves.

One wealthy businessman once said that everything in this industry is based on luck, unluckily luck doesn’t exactly make you millions of dollars. Starting a company does not mean that you can take long vacations and have three day weekends. Oh no! If you think that starting, but especially maintaining a business is easy, think again. It requires many hours of work and in case you have back up money, you’re going to have to do it in your spare time will you work at another job. You’ve gotta be serious about it! Commit yourself entirely, don’t spend money at some fancy restaurant to reward yourself, instead put it back into the business.

So how do you make sure that your startup wont becoming a total disaster?

Here are some tips:

• Be organized - This is essential; without organization your
  startup is bound to fail, no question about it.
• Stay positive - I wrote about the importance of being positive in my last post. Keeping your employees and yourself happy is essential to productivity, and being positive not only makes others work harder, but will actually create a better environment in which to work in.
• All press is good press - Understand that even if others are criticizing your work, they will send you possible customers and will help you get your name out there.
• Learn from your mistakes - If there is a problem, take care of it
  in the most appropriate way. Learn from it, and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Once you have made all of the mistakes they’re are to make, you will be a very knowledgeable person.
• Work in a productive environment - If that means getting off your butt and going to the nearest by coffee shop, then by god do it! Make sure that you work in a neat and organized environment, in which you find yourself in focus and nothing distracts you.
• Take classes - It may sound pointless, but statistics show that
  people with degrees in business, finance, and even online course
  credits are much more likely to succeed.
• Get a lawyer - If you’re a startup company aiming at a new market, make sure
  that whatever you’re doing is legal before you invest too much time and money. Make sure that you are not infringing copyright material, because getting sued could completely destroy your business.

Stay tuned for more tips!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.