NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — According to analysis from LendingTree, Kansas is the #3 state for the highest percentage of businesses failing in their first year with 23.2% of businesses failing. Here in Hutchinson, StartUp Hutch is around to help businesses get in a position to succeed.
"The most important thing is, they need to have a plan," said Jackson Swearer with StartUp Hutch. "They need to have a business plan. That sounds like a cliche thing. The reality is that a lot of people jump off the cliff and get started and they don't really have a clear roadmap for what they are trying to do. They just start. That's okay if you want to try some experiments, but if you start getting some expenses and you don't have a clear plan for how you're going to generate enough revenue to cover those, that's setting you up for failure."
LendingTree notes that 18.4% of private sector businesses in the U.S. fail within the first year.
"We work with people to develop business plans," Swearer said. "We can provide examples and templates and review people's work. We also partner with an organization called SCORE, that provides one on one mentoring for people who need a little bit of extra help developing their business plan."
Sometimes, it's a better idea to buy an existing business than to try to start something from the ground up.
"We know that a lot of the current business owners in our economy locally and more broadly across the state and the country are aging," Swearer said. "There are going to be opportunities for people to take over those businesses and if no one is there to take them over, they end up being just a part of those statistics."
StartUp Hutch can help you know where to look for the information on the competitive situation in the field you want to start a business in and decide if buying something existing is best or not.