Introduction
Every year, a new cohort of ventures is announced with confidence and covered with enthusiasm. A much smaller number are still operating three years later, and almost none of that later chapter gets covered at all.
The problem
The public conversation about entrepreneurship is disproportionately about beginnings — the pitch, the launch, the first cheque. The middle years, where businesses actually live or die, receive almost no attention because there is no announcement to hang a story on.
What changed
Market Makers began, in part, as an attempt to correct this by measuring businesses at year two and year three rather than at launch, and by building support specifically for that unglamorous middle period.
What we learned
The businesses that survived were rarely the ones with the most impressive launch. They were the ones with the most boring, consistent operational habits — the ones least likely to be written about.
Conclusion
If we want more ventures to survive, we should spend less energy celebrating beginnings and more energy funding maintenance. It will make for worse headlines and better outcomes.