Back 2 the Basics Month

13 years ago

Over 50% of businesses fail each year.

8 out of 10 businesses fail within the first three years.

Approximately 2 million new businesses will be launched this year and by the fifth year more than 80 percent will belly up.

Businesses with fewer than 20 employees have only a 37% chance of surviving four years (of business) and only a 9% chance of surviving 10 years.

Restaurants only have a 20% chance of surviving 2 years.

Entrepreneurs often hear these statistics (or something similar). This sounds extremely bleak and after hearing these statistics over and over again, often it makes me wonder, why entrepreneurs even want to think about starting a business. Maybe you should just give up. Think again. Entrepreneurship is alive and well and there has not been a better time to take the plunge into its opportunistic waters. For every entrepreneurship disaster that make you second guess starting a business, there are entrepreneur success stories like a young Harvard dropout that achieved the 3rd largest IPO of all time. Or an entrepreneur who could have easily been a statistic, but turned his music dream into millions and now owns a basketball team that he's bring to his hometown. Or there's the young executive who was offered billions of dollars by a popular search engine to purchase his company, but declined to continue living his dream and eventually take his company public. There are millions of inspiring stories just like this from the baker around the corner from your house to the plumber who fixed your leaky faucet.

This is the spirit of entrepreneurship, and this is the spirit of CEO Blog Nation.

More than any other time in the past few years it has become more and more important to return to the basics–the bread and butter of your business venture. Good accounting practices, excellence in product design and sales have become required ingredients in successful businesses, and these ingredients are arguably more important than any other time in history. While pessimists might have you believe that the sky is still falling, that is simply not the case for everyone. Entrepreneurs, while some fail, some do succeed. Those that do succeed get back to the basics. The same recipe of hard work and dedication that makes great athletes succeed and great musicians excel. It is no different in business. Throughout this month CEO Blog Nation will help entrepreneurs and business owners get “Back 2 the Basics”.

It is the bricks of today laid carefully with hard work, dedication, patience and focus which can eventually grow to the castles of tomorrow.

– Gresh