Redefining Business Success
Can you call a business a success if it closes its doors? Can you say you are successful if your small business isn’t growing? If you have to shut down or sell or leave a business, can you really call that successful?
I think you can.
The capitalist machine marches on, to a drum beat that makes us believe success is only found in millions and billions; that accomplishment is only worth celebrating when the IPO is made, or the funding is secured, or when the exit is enormously profitable.
We’ve come to believe this because famous founders and CEOs get a lot of airtime. They get clipped on social, they get articles in Forbes, they get interviewed on TV. But when we only focus on these large businesses, we disregard the other half of the American economy.
Small businesses represent 43.5% of America’s GDP. Somewhere in between it all—between the crappy self-made websites, the stressed-out owner-operators, the personal loans from family members—small businesses account for nearly half of the economic value of the United States of America.
Along the way, there are casualties. 20% of businesses close after their first year. 49% don’t last five years. Over 65% of businesses close before their tenth birthday. If a majority of small businesses close before their tenth year, and small businesses account of nearly half of America’s GDP, then one thing is clear: we need to redefine “business success.”
If your small business is open for more than a year, that’s already a win. If you run a small business for more than five years, you’re officially better than the average. If you’re in business for ten years, you’re special—in a 35% small business.
Let’s look beyond the numbers, because anyone who has started their own business knows the sacrifices you have to make. They know how much is required, and how emotionally challenging it is.
In a casual blog about his own small bookstore, Ryan Holiday wrote this: “If starting a business makes you a worse person—if it stresses you out, if it tears your relationships apart, if it makes you bitter or frustrated with people—then it doesn’t matter how much money it makes or external praise it receives. It’s not successful.”
Does your business make you a better person? Do the challenges you face enrich your life? Do your products and services make your customers’ lives better? Do the things you learn lead you to greater opportunities? Are you able to pay your own bills, and help pay your employees’ and vendors’ bills as well?
Congratulations! Your business is successful. No matter the financial outcome. Forgetting the comparisons to the behemoths. Even if you have to close your doors.
Being in business is its own success.
