Help for Years in Business to help compare companies.

Years in business is one of the clearest indicators of business success. It's logical to assume a correlation between how long a business has been around and its general success: More years in business = successful business ...generally.

Another common way to qualify the years in business indicator is the statistics on business survival as measured in years. Generally speaking about 75% of new businesses are still operating after 2 years and about 50% after 5 years. The percentages will vary considerably across industries.

HOWEVER, every company must be evaluated on its individual merits, meaning that a relatively new business could be enormously successful right away and be the next Google and an established company that 10 or 20 years old could as easily be on the brink of insolvency.

So when evaluating a company, the years in business is just one indicator and while they are averages at play, number of years in business does not automatically denote success. Use this statistic along with other information and your own good judgement before making any decisions about an organization.

See the Business information sites and resources page for more help on this topic.