It is an interesting question. Why would anyone want to run their own business? Their are some depressing statistics about this prospect out there:

• Every year in the US, about a million people start a business of some type or another


• At the end of their first year, 40% of them will not be in that business anymore


• Within 5 years, 800,000 of them (80% for the mathematically challenged) will be gone


• Of the 200,000 that survive for 5 years, about 80% will fail in the subsequent 5 years

Why do we (the public, the government, whoever you want the we to be) allow this? If you're paying attention to our current nationwide mortgage issues, everyone wants the Fed and/or the government to intervene to avoid a recession that will affect our bank statements. Why isn't there some intervention to prevent small business suicide on such a massive scale? Why no outcry? For one thing, it is part of our American consciousness to try to rise above our current station in life. That's what all the pilgrims, Wild West adventurers, and industrial giants of the 1800's did and look how glowingly we talk about them. Small business ownership is certainly a modern way to do that. It gives those brave souls who either never looked at the above statistics or choose to ignore them ("I'm not going to fail!) an opportunity that working for an hourly wage will never give them for financial and employment freedom. Good stuff! I applaud people who risk everything for a dream of small business ownership - many of these people are very brave, true risk-takers in the best form of that word, doing it for the right reasons. One such brave soul I know is one of our Athletic Nation franchisees, Jeff Wettschurack of Fountain Hills, Arizona. Jeff got out of the business world and moved his young family to Arizona to start up one of the first Athletic Nation gyms in the country. He is his only employee and his family's livelihood depends on his making that franchise a success - and he is doing it! (Read Jeff's autobiography on the website to learn more about him). I love stories like that.

But there are so many failures, and I wonder about those. We all probably know a "corner of death" in our towns, the place where business after business goes to die. Here in Cary, NC, there is one corner that would seem to have many ingredients for business success: It is adjacent to a large housing development of upper middle class homes, is just off the main access highway leading into and out of Raleigh, has a solid anchor store in Lowe's in the strip mall. Yet in the 8 years I have lived in this area, there have been 4 restaurants come and go from one location in this mall. Nice restaurants, too. The first lasted the longest, then a higher level franchise came in for 2 years, then an independent for less than 9 months, now another. And the restaurant business, besides being very competitive, is very expensive to start. I used to think (before I knew more about the whys and wherefores of small business) that it was sad such nice places kept leaving my neighborhood. Now, I wonder about the cost of starting and failing at such an expensive business. I wonder what is wrong with that corner and the business that I can't see as a customer. And I really start to think about those poor owners who had a dream too, probably like Jeff, yet failed depressingly. Look around when you drive in your area - you'll realize there are lots of little "corners of death" in your experience. I want to try to figure out why those people fail and keep it from happening to me and other entrepreneurs I know.

More tomorrow I hope. I'm having some minor surgery so if you read some very unusual ramblings, you'll know the drugs are working!