It's not really something new or insightful, but I've noticed something whenever I read forums such as this. When reading past threads I always come across people who had big dreams of success. They post a new website or ebay store... and when I click to check it out, it's no longer there. And these could be threads only six months old.
Did their business fail to make any profit and went under? Did their business show promise but quickly became too cumbersome for one person to run? Did they lose steam and lost the motivation to keep the business going from the get-go? Did they find something else more profitable? Did their business quickly take off and make them truckloads of money so they stopped working and are now living in the Cayman Islands?
It's a commonly stated statistic that most businesses fail (although an article in Entrepreneur this month states that this is an old and incorrect statistic). But it's a sobering reminder to me of the average life expectancy of business startups.
But I won't let this deter me from achieving my financial dreams. As Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com said, "I knew that if I failed I wouldn't regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is never trying."