One in three businesses does not reach the third year of life
Entrepreneurship has become one of the most popular verbs in Spain and one of the activities preferred by workers. Despite this, not everyone achieves success, moreover, 50% of the entrepreneurial initiatives launched by these workers do not exceed the fifth year and the quota of three only reaches 66%. In the words of the president of the Association of Autonomous Workers (ATA) Lorenzo Amor, “one in three independent entrepreneurs does not reach the third year, that is, before three years they stay on the road around 30% of the projects"
Against this, "we have to distinguish two issues," says Amor. In 2019, "the number of initiatives entrepreneurship has slowed", And secondly," most of them have developed them people over 45" Regarding this last point, Amor explains that "they are people who have been young and were expelled from the labor market with significant experience and probably belonging to a financial or telephone company with a large bagage." Because of this, "they do not want to be on the sofa in their home, so they decide to start a business that, in many, ends in failure." Thus, during the last three years, the number of self-employed workers in our country has skyrocketed in 50%, but "the figure of self-employed people under 30 years of age has declined," adds the president of ATA.
Since 2013 there is a positive trend to detect business opportunities and "there has been an evolution in the mentality of the Spaniards towards self-employment", according to Enric Serradell-López, professor of Economics and Business studies at the Oberta University of Catalonia (UOC). So, 6.4% of the Spanish adult population is an entrepreneur. A trend that is reinforced by the fact that almost half of the population between 18 and 64 considers that they have the knowledge, skills and experience to undertake, and reaches 84% in all those who are involved in entrepreneurial activities, according to the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report.
This dynamic of entrepreneurial creation does not follow the same course as that of job destruction. In this regard, according to the report, the half-life of emerging companies Spanish round the 3 years, while in Europe it touches the four. The main obstacles that these companies encounter are, among other things, the sector for which they bet, the necessary financing Y product objective They market. And not everything is compatible. Thus, Spain has one of the highest rates of creation and destruction of companies in the major European economies, only surpassed by the United Kingdom. Faced with this, Serradell-López explains that it is due to the fact of "copying Silicon Valley when the same business culture is not shared." Cultural aspects "are very important," he says, and one of the characteristics of entrepreneurial culture in the United States "is that of recognition of failure, that is, failure is seen as another point in the entrepreneur's journey and is valued positively. "
Of course, “if undertaking were a guarantee of success there would be no single 3 million entrepreneurs in Spain, but it would be 6 million, ”says Love. It should also be noted that in the last three years, in Spain," autonomous women entrepreneurs have been more successful than men, since "this group has exceeded the 60% growth in terms of autonomous entrepreneurship. There are even more autonomous women than in 2008, and fewer men than in the same year, ”concludes Lorenzo Amor.
