Growing Pains, 5th Edition

Chapter 1Transitions Required to Build Sustainably Successful Organizations^®

It is well established that approximately 50% of all new ventures will fail within five years. For every Southwest Airlines that succeeds, there is a People Express that goes bankrupt. For every Facebook, there is a Myspace that was once popular, but that is now an afterthought. For every Starbucks, there is a Diedrich Coffee that failed. For every Dell, there is an Osborne Computer (who very few people even remember—even though it reached $100 million in sales revenue in three years before going bankrupt, and was a leader in personal computers prior to the founding of Dell).

It is a great achievement to create a successful start-up, given their 50% failure rate. ...