The Small Business Gamble

What are your chances of growing your company?

Everyone knows that creating a large enterprise from scratch, in any industry, is an incredibly difficult process that could take generations of entrepreneurial effort and skillful management. Actually, the current chances of succeeding to grow a company from 0-4 employees to above 5,000 employees in the US are a mere 0.03%

However, if you divide company growth into stages, the probability is actually less daunting. The chances of growing your company from a one-two person startup to an organization with 10, 20, 50, or 100 actually averages at around 20% (or 1-in-5) per stage.

Surprisingly, the chances become increasingly more favorable as the company grows from 20 to about 150 employees. Above 150 employees, there’s a significant drop-off. Growing to 500 and then again to above 5000 actually becomes less probable .

Here are the rough estimates I created based on data from the U.S. Small Business Administration:

Chances of growing from 0-4 to 10-14 employees: 11.08%

Chances of growing from 10-14 to 20-24 employees: 20.54%

Chances of growing from 20-44 to 50-74 employees: 21.23%

Chances of growing from 50-74 to 100-149 employees: 30.59%

Chances of growing from 100-149 to 500-749 employees: 7.21%

Chances of growing from 500-749 to 5,000+ employees: 11.62%