As I’ve pulled NetBooks together, I’ve had innumerable people try to warn me off, saying things like “small business people are flakes/unsophisticated/unreliable.” And my personal favorite, “80% of small businesses fail within two years.”

I don’t know where this ‘conventional wisdom’ comes from, but things like this seem to develop a life of their own.

For the record, the correct statement is “of small businesses that fail, 80% do so within the first two years.” This makes sense: when a venture is in its infancy, it is most vulnerable. And if the owner turns out not to be good at running a business, and isn’t a quick learner, they’re going to hit the wall early.

But very few small businesses actually fail, for the simple reason that for them failure is not an option. The fact that they are self-employed doesn’t mean that they suddenly are absolved from providing for their families.

Instead, what happens is that these courageous entrepreneurs figure it out – every day. They try something, pay close attention to the results, adapt, and do it again. (Lather, rinse, repeat.) Their key advantages over big businesses is their ability to react quickly, to make decisions, to be nimble, to be responsive to what their customers want and need.

Corporate America could learn a thing or two from these folks.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.