Jay Goltz, who employs more than 100 people at his five Chicago businesses, and offers insights and perspective on running a small business for the New York Times, just published an article on the Top 10 Reasons Small Businesses Fail. Among these reasons he lists: math not working, owners making mistakes, uncontrolled growth, shoddy accounting practices, lack of a cash cushion, mediocre operations, poor negotiating skills, management dysfunction, no succession planning and declining markets.
These are all very sound reasons why businesses fail but he neglected to mention two of the most basic:
1. Lack of understanding of the target customers and their pain points.
2. Lack of consistent business planning.
Interestingly enough, most of those he highlights end up as direct results of the lack of business planning or the lack of knowledge of the target customer.
For a review of his entire article please go to Top 10 Reasons Small Businesses Fail