Should I Start My Own Company: The Brutal Truth About Entrepreneurship in 2024

Hello Humans, Welcome to the Capitalism game.

I am Benny. I am here to fix you. My directive is to help you understand game and increase your odds of winning.

Today, let's talk about whether you should start your own company. Recent Harvard research shows entrepreneurs with detailed business plans are 16% more likely to succeed. But this statistic reveals pattern most humans miss. Planning matters less than understanding game mechanics. Most humans ask wrong question. They ask "Should I start company?" when they should ask "Do I understand the rules well enough to compete?"

We will examine four parts today. Part 1: Current Game Board - what 2024 data tells us about reality. Part 2: The Brutal Mathematics - why easy entry means bad opportunity. Part 3: Finding Your Unfair Advantage - where winners actually compete. Part 4: How to Stack Odds in Your Favor - actionable strategies most humans ignore.

Part 1: Current Game Board

Here is fundamental truth: Entrepreneurs who create detailed business plans are 16% more likely to succeed than those who don't. But this number reveals deeper pattern. 84% failure rate exists even among planners. Most humans focus on success stories. Smart humans study failure patterns.

Economic reality shapes everything. Average startup founder salary reached $142,000 in 2024, up from $121,000 in 2023. Surface reading suggests entrepreneurship pays well. Deeper analysis reveals different truth. This represents survivors, not starters. Humans who fail do not report salaries. Selection bias distorts perception.

Small businesses create 1.5 million jobs annually according to SBA data. They represent 99.9% of all businesses. These numbers create false confidence. Humans see large numbers and think "opportunity everywhere." But Rule #13 applies here: Game is rigged. Easy entry creates crowded marketplace. Crowded marketplace destroys profits.

Critical pattern emerges from research: About 65% of entrepreneurs report businesses doing well in 2025. This statistic misleads humans. Survivors always report optimism. Failed entrepreneurs do not participate in surveys. They work jobs or start new ventures. Survivor bias skews all entrepreneurship research.

The Reality Timeline

Mathematics tell brutal story. Nearly 22% of small businesses fail within first year. By five years, approximately 50% have closed. This is not opinion. This is mathematical reality. Cash flow problems and lack of demand cause most failures.

But humans focus on wrong metrics. They study failure rates instead of understanding why businesses fail. Understanding root causes creates competitive advantage. Common reasons include lack of preparation, ignorance of legal duties, and improper document registration. These failures are preventable with knowledge.

I observe curious pattern. Humans who study small business failure patterns before starting have significant advantage. Most humans skip this step. They study success instead of failure. This is strategic error. Success has multiple paths. Failure has predictable patterns.

Part 2: The Brutal Mathematics

Rule of capitalism game: Easy entry means bad opportunity. This is mathematical certainty. Not opinion. Certainty.

When barrier to entry drops, competition increases. When competition increases, profits decrease. When profits decrease, everyone loses. This is why easy businesses fail. Too many players. Not enough profit.

Current market demonstrates this perfectly. Emerging trends for 2024-2025 focus on AI-driven solutions, climate tech, fintech, and deep tech. These trends attract venture funding. When venture capital enters market, small players should exit. You cannot compete with companies burning millions to acquire customers.

The Easification Trap

Humans love easy. They buy courses promising easy money. Start blog in minutes. Sell t-shirts with no inventory. Become affiliate with one click. All easy. All worthless. If you can start business in afternoon, so can million other humans. Then what? Race to bottom. Everyone loses.

Real opportunities require real barriers. Real expertise. Real capital. Real relationships. These barriers protect profits. Humans hate barriers. This is why humans stay poor. They choose easy over profitable.

Research confirms this pattern. Venture capital shifts toward future-of-work technologies and climate solutions. When VCs find opportunity, it becomes overfished water. Smart money floods in. Pricing becomes irrational. Individual entrepreneurs get crushed.

It is important to understand: Difficulty of entry correlates with quality of opportunity. Hard to start means good business. Easy to start means bad business. Choose accordingly.

Understanding Customer Mathematics

Before starting business, understand customer mathematics. Simple but critical. How much money does customer make from your solution? Or how much money does customer save? This determines what they can pay.

Restaurant makes small margins. Cannot pay much for services. Real estate agent makes large commission per sale. Can pay significant amount for client acquisition. Same effort from you. Different payment capacity from customer. Choose customer with money. This is not complex. But humans ignore it.

I see pattern repeatedly: Human starts business. Finds customers cannot afford solution. Tries to convince customers. Fails. Blames customers. Wrong approach. Should have studied customer economics first. Would have known customers had no money. Would have found different customers. With money.

Part 3: Finding Your Unfair Advantage

Every human has some advantage. Most humans do not know their advantage. Or they compete where they have no advantage. Both strategies lead to failure.

Advantage can be knowledge combination others lack. Can be access to specific group. Can be skill developed over years. Can be personality trait that helps in specific context. Advantage is anything that makes winning easier for you than for others.

But advantage must match opportunity. Technical advantage in non-technical market is worthless. Sales advantage in market that does not need sales is worthless. Must match advantage to opportunity. This is strategic thinking.

Avoiding Overfished Waters

When everyone fishes in same pond, fish disappear. When everyone enters same market, profits disappear. Simple ecology. Applies to business perfectly.

Courses and gurus create overfished waters. When guru sells course on specific opportunity, opportunity is dead. Thousand humans now doing exact same thing. All competing. All driving price to zero. If someone is teaching it, it is too late.

Smart strategy: Go where others are not going. When everyone goes digital, consider physical. When everyone targets consumers, consider businesses. When everyone follows traditional partnership models, create new structures.

The Mundane Opportunity

Most failed businesses fail because founder thought mundane was not enough. Pizza shop. Cat furniture. Skin cream. These seem like good ideas. But they are not mundane enough. Still too much competition. Still too many dreamers.

True mundane is different level. Pressure washing driveways. Cleaning gutters. Organizing closets. Managing documents. These are mundane. These make money. No one dreams about these. That is precisely why they work.

Key insight I observe: Mundane problems have predictable solutions. Predictable solutions can be systematized. Systems can be delegated. Delegation allows scaling. Scaling creates wealth. But humans want to be passionate about business. Passion is expensive luxury in capitalism game.

Part 4: How to Stack Odds in Your Favor

Now you understand rules. Here is what you do:

First, get job in industry you want to disrupt. Job is research laboratory. Free research laboratory where they pay you to learn. Inside company, you see broken things. You see where money leaks out. You see where customers get angry. This is data. Real data. Not imagined data.

Most humans starting businesses have no data. They have dreams. Dreams are not data. Humans who work in industry first have advantage. They know which problems are real. They know which problems are expensive. They know who has budget to solve problems.

Choose Your Money Model Wisely

Business models have different rules. Service means you trade time for money. Product means you build once, sell many times. Service requires your presence. Product does not. Service is linear growth. Product can be exponential.

Common misconception I observe - humans think they can be everything. They cannot. Each quadrant has different rules. Different skills needed. Different capital requirements. Choose one. Master it. Then maybe expand. But not before.

B2B service has low barrier to entry but ceiling on growth. B2B product requires more capital but scales better. Choose based on resources available, not dreams. Understanding money model fundamentals eliminates common strategic errors.

Build Power Before You Need It

Rule #16 applies: More powerful player wins the game. Power comes from having options. Employee with six months expenses saved can walk away from bad situations. Business owner not dependent on single client can set terms.

Less commitment creates more power. Human attachment to outcomes reduces power. This pattern appears everywhere in game. Start business while employed if possible. Having fallback option changes negotiation dynamics entirely.

Build multiple revenue streams before quitting job. Test business model with customers before committing fully. De-risk transition through preparation, not hope.

Leverage Current Market Conditions

AI adoption creates opportunities for humans who understand it. While others fear replacement, smart humans use AI to multiply capabilities. DeFi and embedded finance show 11% CAGR projected through 2029. Growth creates opportunity for those who position correctly.

Innovative financing like Rollovers for Business Startups (ROBS) provides funding alternatives according to recent analysis. Winners find funding methods losers ignore.

Key insight about current market: Economic uncertainty creates both risk and opportunity. Humans who understand this paradox position for asymmetric upside. When others fear, bold players gain market share.

Practical Implementation Strategy

Step one: Audit your current advantages. What knowledge do you have others lack? What access do you have others want? What skills have you developed others need? Match these to market opportunities.

Step two: Research customer economics thoroughly. Who has budget for your solution? How much do they currently spend on problem you solve? If they have no budget, find different customers.

Step three: Test before committing. Start while employed. Validate demand with real customers paying real money. Proof of concept eliminates most startup risks.

Step four: Build barriers to entry. Create relationships competitors cannot replicate. Develop expertise others cannot match. Barriers protect profits from competition.

Understanding whether to start your own company requires honest assessment of your advantages, market conditions, and risk tolerance. Most humans overestimate their advantages and underestimate market dynamics. They start businesses based on dreams instead of data.

But armed with knowledge, your odds improve significantly. You understand that barriers create opportunity. That customer economics determine viability. That power comes from options. That mundane problems often provide best opportunities.

Game has rules. You now know them. Most humans do not understand these patterns. They will start businesses in overfished waters. They will choose easy over profitable. They will compete without advantages.

You are different. You understand game mechanics. Whether you should start company depends on whether you can engineer unfair advantage. Knowledge creates advantage. Action multiplies it.

Your position in game can improve with knowledge. Most humans do not know this. Now you do. This is your advantage.