About 20% of new businesses fail within the first year.
May 30, 2025 by Sheryl J. Moore
Did you know?
About 20% of new businesses fail within the first year.
This rate climbs to roughly 50% after five years.
And approximately 65% of businesses fail by their tenth year in business.
I have no idea what the stats are for year 20.
But here’s the deal…twenty years and one day ago, I paid $50 to become the CEO of a market research firm, Wink, Inc.
(Yep- all it took to be a hashtagBoss in Des Moines, Iowa was fifty bucks!)
I took my frustrations from the home office, and turned them into a business.
Today, Wink, Inc. tracks life insurance and annuity companies, their products, features, rates, sales, regulatory resources and marketing.
Our LifeSpecs and AnnuitySpecs tools have evolved dramatically over that period. We have transformed “Wink’s Sales & Market Report,” so that it is the first stop for those interested in entering the life insurance and annuity markets. We’ve made tracking sales at an index level a breeze via “Wink’s Index Intelligence Report.”
Basically- we’re product bad@sses.
Product intelligence is something we know a lot about, given that our staff has nearly two decades of experience in insurance, nearly half of which has been spent performing competitive intelligence/product management.
It’s just hard to believe that we have been doing this so long.
I couldn’t have done it without the impressive contributions of my team:
- Victoria Grossman
- Cathy Andrews
- Talia Chaffee
- Julian Chairez
- Rita Holtz
- Jamie Johnson
- Peter Lamond
- Daniele Longo
- Vince Lozada
(Wondering where we’ll be at year 40?) -sjm
