There are plenty of risks to starting your own business, and this does put a lot of people off of even trying. Starting your own business can put you in a much stronger economic position – but is it really worth all the risk? And is there really that much risk?
It’s no secret that a lot of start-up businesses fail; some sources say that over half of them do within five years, and over 90% of them fail within a decade. This scarily high number should not put anybody off pursuing their own business, however. Success comes from hard work, right choices, and being in the right place at the right time. That number doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a 90% chance your business will fail; this is a misreading of statistics!
Understandably if you have a family, or just don’t want to take the chance of losing everything you currently have, you may feel it’s better to stick to your day job. But this may be a sign that you don’t truly believe in your business idea. And if you don’t believe in your product, your potential customers probably won’t either. It’s a two-way street!
It’s not as though a regular 9 to 5 comes without its risks, though. If you were to lose your job due to an economic downturn, what would you do Starting up your business and running your business is solely down to you, which means your future is entirely (or, at least, mostly) in your hands. Many may argue that the security one feels when employed by someone else is, in fact, a false sense of security.
There’s plenty of help you can receive when starting up a business. No matter what industry you want to go into, there are advice centers and accountants that will assist you with the setup of your business. This is essential to remember; while starting a business is indeed risky, there are so many ways you can mitigate that risk. There are a lot of types of insurance out there that can help protect you from business-destroying lawsuits and fines; click here to find out more. Working with accountants and business lawyers can help ensure you take the right legal steps to protect your capital. And ensuring you don’t sign up for a loan with ridiculous interest rates is also advisable!
It’s important not to analyse the amount of failed businesses. It’s just a statistic; it doesn’t give you the details of how these particular businesses failed, or if the business owners moved on to do something else that did become successful, or if they changed their idea. One of the most important things to remember is that the majority of that supposed 90% of “failures” don’t necessarily feel like failures. Most people who run a successful business have, at one point, run an unsuccessful business. But you learn from a failed business just as you do from a successful one.
Our advice? If you have a good business idea and are willing to take precautions such as the assistance of lawyers, insurance, and accountants, then you should go for it. And even if your startup isn’t a mind-blowing success, you’ll learn a lot – you’ll be able to apply everything you know into a new venture.