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Baby Boomer Owned Businesses

The greying of privately-owned businesses

by Trends Staff

Small businesses have not typically had friendly odds of long-term survival. It is probably general knowledge more small businesses fail than succeed. These two often-used statements or those similar are not untrue, but they fail convincingly to tell an accurate story, even a broad one. They are probably used as soundbites without explaining things like time-periods, types of businesses, or an analysis of the reasons for failure.

Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Business Employment Dynamics, Fundera.com provides the most recent estimates at: “20% of small businesses fail in their first year, 30% of small business fail in their second year, and 50% of small businesses fail after five years in business”. Further, 70% of small businesses fail in their tenth-year.

The Occupations in Demand article found in the Trends in the News section briefly discusses the differences between an Infographic and a Data Visualization. Fundera.com has a great infographic on U.S. small businesses posted on the Trends website here. As you can see, there is a lot of great information, but it is a very large image and cannot be viewed without scrolling. As you scroll down the infographic, it tells a story along the way, but without the Q & A.

This is in stark contrast to the Businesses Owned by Baby Boomers in Washington State data visualization by Project Equity and the Whatcom Community Foundation where the user can interact by making selections to change what data is viewable.

The data visualization starts with the state figures, which are approximately: 57,730 boomer-owned businesses, 571,420 employees, $20.6 billion in payroll, and $112.6 billion in sales. Being interactive, you can ask questions with the most obvious being, “What are the numbers for Walla Walla County?” By clicking on the county, my first question is answered. Is it your first question too? It takes less than a minute on this data interactive to find out.

You can then use the dropdown menu titled “Select Foundation”, and highlight “Blue Mountain Community Foundation” to filter down to its service area to include Columbia and Garfield Counties with Walla Walla County. At any point, you can click on elements of the pie chart to see a further breakdown of an industry for the for the selected county or foundation region.

If this interactive leaves you with questions about how other U.S. states would look in the pie chart, Project Equity has created a similar data interactive for the U.S.