Convenience

Business Closures 
Business Start-ups
Year
F I G U R E 5 . 5
Business Start-Up Successes and Failures
Over the most recent ten-year period for which data are available, new business start-ups numbered
between 700,000 and 900,000 per year. Business failures during this same period, meanwhile, ranged from
about 600,000 to 950,000 per year.
Source: http://www.bls.gov/bdm/entrepreneurship/bdm_chart5.htm, accessed on March 2014.
Chapter 5:
Entrepreneurship and New Venture Management
1 4 9
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very existence to the Internet. At the same time, however, many would-be Internet entre-
preneurs have gone under in the last few years, as the so-called dot-com boom quickly
faded. In 2010, online retail sales exceeded $142 billion, an increase of 3 percent from the
previous year.
Indeed, it seems as if new ideas emerge virtually every day. Andrew Beebe, for
example, is scoring big with Bigstep, a web business that essentially creates, hosts, and
maintains websites for other small businesses. So far, Bigstep has signed up 75,000
small-business clients. Beebe actually provides his basic services for free but earns
money by charging for the so-called premium services such as customer billing. Karl
Jacob’s Keen.com is a web business that matches people looking for advice with experts
who have the answers. Keen got the idea when he and his father were struggling to fix a
boat motor and did not know where to turn for help. Keen.com attracted 100,000
subscribers in just three months.
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