90% Of Startups Die. Why?

Most people start businesses in industries where the odds are already against them. If you want to win, you start with where the math is in your favor. Let's talk about the survival rates of small businesses. You're going to find that most businesses die, 90% of them, within 10 years. But you look here and you see, wait a second, information businesses, they have a 29% 10-year survival rate. Not great. That's an F. That's below an F versus manufacturing and agriculture. 49% survival rate. You got 50/50. So this isn't actually about being sexy. It's about being solvent. Do not pick places where dreams go to die. That's why we obsess on a bunch of businesses like lawn mowers, power washers, older small business owners answering the phones. These industries are wide open because the people running them, they're all aging out. So I think there is an inverse relationship between age of owner and length of solvency. So what would I do? I'd buy a business someone else built and I'd scale the hell out of it.