What a miserable bludger you are Paul. Your whining would drown out any intelligence you ever heard.

Most small businesses go broke with in 5 years of starting.

Not only don't they drive flash cars, after going broke most have lost their home, that they used to finance the business in the first place.

I can only assume you are a public servant, or work for a large company. No one that had even half a clue could talk the kind of crap you go on with. Certainly no one who had ever had to earn their keep could be so stupid, or so misinformed.

Hasbeen sound like you ran a small business that went broke. You got to expect that. The majority will go broke, considering their only qualification is their own incompetence. These same dreamers blame everyone for their failings except themselves. They blame their employees, their customers, the government, public servants, any one but themselves for their own stupidity. These are the same people given half a chance will rip-off their fellow Australians, be it a tax rip-off, or ripping off their poor employees and customers, if they can get away with it, they will!
If you can't make it in a small business in Australia where everything is in you favor to succeed, then you deserve to go broke, and the quicker the better!

You sound more like the one who wants to rip off people Paul. I have found that those who go crook about others ripping people off are just the ones who would do it given the chance. Why else would they believe it of others, if it was not their own nature.

Sorry I haven't managed to go broke. I found it was remarkably easy to run a moderately successful business, if you know what you were doing, charged moderately, & treat customers as you would want to be treated. It is no recipe for getting rich, but it works.

I have salvaged a couple of bankrupt business which is much harder, as you have to live down a bad reputation previously generated with suppliers & customers.

The reason so many fail is that like you they have no idea of the costs involved, or the problems with cash flow. So many employees see all that money, but don't understand the costs.

One company I ran in the mid 80s, had a half a million insurance bill every April, at the end of the worst revenue period, & just after spending another half a million on maintenance. Someone saw all the cash on short term deposit in late January, & reckoned we were coining it, because they had no idea of the logistics.

I have had friends go broke because they thought more of the money in their business account was theirs, where it was all about to have to pay suppliers, insurance companies & governments. Too few smaller businesses do their budgeting well enough to realise the big costs about to descend on them, especially tradesmen starting out on their own.

I would be interested to know how you earn a living Paul 1405 or perhaps you are retired like me ? Opinions are quite varied on this forum and replies often create a picture in our imagination that could be quite false. I suppose that's why ones occupation is a start in understanding the background and thus the opinions expressed.

See Hasbeen, you proved my point << Sorry I haven't managed to go broke. I found it was remarkably easy to run a moderately successful business, if you know what you were doing, charged moderately, & treat customers as you would want to be treated. It is no recipe for getting rich, but it works. Agree 100%.

I have salvaged a couple of bankrupt business which is much harder, as you have to live down a bad reputation previously generated with suppliers & customers.>>

By the way for a number of years I ran my own small business. A service business to do with engineering. Employed people etc, and it was successful, kept us going for a good few years. I knew what your history was I've read it before on the forum.
I done a small business course at night, my wife done the books and I used an accountant. Before that I had done 8 years studying engineering. I prefer running a service business, rather than selling product. I made a few mistakes, like trusting people, then have problems with bad debts, live and learn. I was lucky in that the people I employed were good people I knew and had worked with before, so they were reliable at getting things done on time. My function ended up more estimating and customer liaison, which took up most of my time. In a service business the key word is service. keep your customers happy and they will will keep you happy.