The general consensus across the board is that the US economy is continuing its slow but steady rise from the Great Recession that started in 2007. Of course, that entire sentence is loaded with important qualifications: “general consensus”, “slow but steady”… what does it all really mean? Basically, as you probably already know if you’ve found this article, the climate for startups and successful business ventures has never been a sure thing. In fact, it can be downright risky.
Everything you know is wrong.
An article by Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, came out earlier this year with some really sobering statistics from the polling experts themselves. It was called, “American Entrepreneurship: Dead or Alive?” and I strongly recommend reading it when you have a few minutes.
The Cliff Notes version, however, is simply this – many of the statistics you hear touted on TV and published online regarding the recovery of the US economy and specifically about US entrepreneurship are misleading. The actual facts show that, although the economy is certainly in a better place than it was several years ago, starting a business and keeping it alive is not as easy now as it was prior to the recession.
