What you’ll learn to do: explain why entrepreneurial ventures fail

Here are some interesting statistics: According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), about 80 percent of firms continue after the first year, two-thirds of businesses survive at least two years, and about half survive at least five years.^[1] What happened to the 50 percent that didn’t make it? Why did they fail? Some of the reasons for small-business failure are avoidable, and others, sadly, are not. In this section you’ll learn why.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

The learning activities for this section include:

• Reading: Why Do So Many Small Business Startups Fail?
• Self Check: Why Some Ventures Fail

Take time to review and reflect on each of these activities in order to improve your performance on the assessment for this section.