Where does the time go? 90% of startups fail.
May 1st marks our fourth year in business. According to Inc., 50% of startups fail within five years (depressing). According to Forbes, 90% of startups fail in general (even more depressing). These are gloomy facts, but I wanted to share them because when we started the business, these are the facts that we paid attention to. Keeping your eye on success is certainly the most important driver to success, but knowing what causes others to fail is equally important. We looked at the factors that drive success and their antithesis.
The primary factors for success according to several authors are:
- Product/Service is perfect for the market
- Adherence to strategy
- Don’t grow too too fast
- Team is everything
- Don’t ignore anything
With this said, we feel like the small- and mid-sized staffing world needs and wants help with marketing. If buy-in is the indicator for “Perfect for the market,” then we believe we are headed in the right direction. All of our wonderful clients have been validating this fact. We thank all of you for your acceptance to new paths and ideas to grow your businesses. We will continue to be your partner in growth.
Strategy has been everything. We defined our strategy early and we do so for all of our clients as well. Sticking to the strategy and avoiding the wandering eye has been paramount. Strategy is more than simply words, it is your plan for growth and as we have done for ourselves, should be reviewed commonly and across the entire team.
Growing too too fast. This one is tough. What is too too fast? I think the indication of too too fast is simply being able to grow without compromising your service levels or principles for working with clients. We have worked very hard to scale and never compromise on what we deliver.
Team. I am so proud of the team we have built and continue to build. Our team works crazy hard to make sure that our clients get the very best possible. Each member of the team has embraced a simple concept, do right by the client and you are doing right by our firm. Thank you to all of our team for these great four years and let’s keep our eye on the ball and push forward.
Don’t ignore anything (such a great concept). We received suggestions from our clients, from our past co-workers, from friends and family and frankly, we want to keep hearing from you. From analytics to service offerings to win/loss ratios to client satisfaction to ROI, we try and ignore nothing. It is tough, but we keep striving.
For those of you celebrating an anniversary and doing everything you can to be in the 10% success range, then best wishes and best of luck. Most importantly, keep up your great work and we will do our best to do the same. Thank you for these past four years and we look forward to many more.