There are four primary ways people come into business ownership, and they all have different failure rates: starting a new business, franchising, inheriting a family business, and acquiring. If you are looking for a new venture, you may want to select one based on your amount of capital and risk tolerance.

Starting a New Business
Starting your own business is where you’ll find the most significant upside, but failing is expensive both in time, money, and your health. There are dozens of reasons a startup will fail, but a lot of the risk comes from the fact that it is hard to build the company and processes, which have nothing to do with the product or service you may be providing. Your service offerings are only part of running a business.

How much money you have to get started makes an enormous difference in which options are available to you. For example, Broker.xxx currently provides acquisition opportunities starting at $25k (and sometimes lower) into the millions. If you have little capital, starting your own business may be your only option (and it won’t be easy).

The average startup cost is $100,000 on average. There are hundreds (thousands) of stories of people getting started for much less. Many other website publishers and affiliate marketers get started with just their time and no cash at all. My first website cost me nothing to start, but it didn’t make much money. (But, it was my first website purchase at $300 that I turned into a business profiting 6-figures a year). I recently met with a multi-million dollar distribution company in LA that was started with just $4,000 and is now seeking mergers and acquisitions as they grow and expand. [Continue Reading in XBIZ Magazine]