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The more prepared an entrepreneur is before
embarking on a new venture, the better are
his chances for success. Even before the recent `Great Recession', the failure rate for
new businesses was high. According to the US
Bureau of Labor Statistics, "The data show that,
across sectors, 66% of new establishments were still
in existence two years after they were built, and
34% were still in existence four years after. It is
not surprising that quite a few of the new establishments disappeared within the first
two years after their birth, and then only a
smaller percentage disappeared in the subsequent
two years. These survival rates do not vary much
by industry." Further analysis of US
government data, involving just single-establishment
firms, found that only 45% of these firms were still
in business after five years and 29% were still operational after 10
years.
My original theme for this article was,
"The Top Ten Start-up Skills" for
budding entrepreneurs. However, it didn't take
much research and reflection to conclude that the top
10 list should be more like a top 25 list. EntrepreneurshipWeb.com sums it up nicely:
"An entrepreneur is a person who organizes
and manages a business, assuming the risk for the
sake of profit. The best way to minimize your risk is to
be prepared for the road ahead."
As summarized in the checklist in Box 1, and discussed next,, the budding entrepreneur
should not rely on an intuitive, haphazard
approach. He or she should keep in mind this five-P
acronym: Proper Planning Prevents (or, at least,
reduces) Poor Performance! As America's greatest
inventor, Thomas Edison, once noted: "I never did
anything worth doing entirely by accident.... Almost
none of my inventions were derived in that manner. They were achieved by having trained myself to
be analytical and to endure and tolerate hard
work".
It is essential that a budding entrepreneur be
well-grounded in the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and be aware of—and
digest—a wide variety of available resources. Box 2
lists more than 20 free online resources dealing
with entrepreneurship. These resources include: associations, guides, blogs, and various lessons.
A good first book to read is Guy Kawasaki's, Art
of the Start (an inexpensive Penguin Group paperback). |
