State of Business Today

Growing a business and franchising is far from easy, but we love to keep trying! How have we been doing in the U.S. lately?

In 2002 (a bad year, but the most recent year with data available):

550,100 companies with employees were started

584,500 companies with employees shut down

38,155 companies declared bankruptcy

Most companies are simple brick and mortar businesses (Retail, restaurants, ...) that a person wants to start up to support their lifestyle. Most of them never have any aspirations to grow into enterprises.

Of those that aspire to become enterprises (And are usually seeking capital), on average:

About 10% of all ventures trying are funded by angel investors

About 1-2% raise venture capital

Of the companies that "Achieved success":

About 30% of venture-backed companies were acquired

.8% venture-backed companies did an IPO

Although this is not a strict predictive model since most of the companies that achieve an exit event are founded at least 5 years earlier, the point is that the number of companies that go from one growth stage to the next (Founding to Angel to VC to Exit) are few.

Bottom Line? Most companies fail, even if they do manage to raise capital. The business model may be a bad idea, ahead of its time, or not scalable. At other times, however, poor execution or planning is the culprit.

GO-S shameless plug - We can help you succeed. Period.