if so, you have probably heard many time that most new business ventures fail within five years and that the two most common causes of failure are lack of financing and poor management, If you think this assessment sounds unduly pessimistic, we have good news for you. Most of myth than reality, painting a far more dismal picture than actually exists.
Reflecting back on American business history, you should not be surprised by this. Alfred P. Sloan, the guiding genius behind General Motors, graduated at the top of his class from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On the other hand, Ray Kroc, the founder of MccDonald’s, did not graduate from high school. We have similar difficulties predicting success using such other descriptive characteristics as age, sex, and prior work experience.
At a time when the Fortune 500 firms are aggressively downsizing to become more "entrepreneurial," newly formed companies have become the principal creator of jobs in the American economy. And the trend is growing. In 1965, there were 204,000 business start-ups in the country; by 1988, that annual figure had grown to nearly 700,000.