What Businesses Have the Most Risk of Failure?

Coming from a family of local business-owner/entrepreneurs (of varying success levels), I have first-hand experience of the difficulties of trying to start your own business. When I was young, my father started a restaurant in Huntsville, TX, which was successful enough, that he had to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week. I know this because I spent my single-digit years running around that restaurant! He sold the restaurant a few years later to finally get some rest and started another restaurant venture in Conroe, TX, which failed. Eventually, he owned a super market in Santa Cruz and a burger joint in Boulder Creek, CA, which I spent my teen years working EVERY single weekend. I am not bitter. What teenager doesn't want to work every single weekend while everyone else is out enjoying beautiful California weather?

My aunts and uncles have also had varying degrees of success starting and running their own businesses. I've even had my own thoughts of starting a business, but which ventures have the most risk of failure? I came across this interesting article on Yahoo!, titled: The 7 Most Overrated Businesses. No surprise here - 'restaurants' shows up on the list.

Here's an excerpt:

...about 60% of restaurants close in the first three years, according to a 2003 study at Ohio State University. That's quite a bit higher than the roughly half of all start-ups that close in the first five years.

The reason: Restaurants typically have low profit margins and need strong managers who can run an ultra-tight ship through seasonal fluctuations and other struggles. Most people don't have that kind of intense managerial ability to pull it off.

Well, I guess I should think twice about opening up my Houston Rockets-themed restaurant in California. In the meantime, no matter what business you start or have, MerchantCircle is the ONLY free network that allows you to blog, build coupons and newsletters, and email them to customers.

Join the free network here today or communicate with other local business owners in our forums here.

Sincerely,
Community Relations

Best Local Business Sites

I got an emailed newsletter today from one of the merchants that's in my network for my production company: Treasure Islands of Santa Cruz. It's one of the best, most informative newsletters I've come across. I've spoken to Rick Cook, the owner, before and he says that he often fields calls from merchants asking him how he did certain things on his MerchantCircle page. Well, I guess he finally decided to put it all down in a newsletter! Check it out by clicking here.



In the newsletter, Rick wrote several articles, including:

• How to Create a Free Website Banner and a MerchantCircle Ad with Bling
• Make Your Own Free Banner for Your MerchantCircle Ads or For Your Website
• Creating an Ad on Your MerchantCircle Page With Your New Banner
• In Layman's Terms How MerchantCircle Can Work For You
• Helping Out a Fellow MerchantCircle Member in Need

Thanks Rick, for making my job a lot easier! Follow some of his tips, which increased his website traffic by 500%. Check out his MerchantCircle listing here.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations