If you’re a small business owner, you’ve heard how much of a contribution you make to the economy and your local communities. According the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) in the 3rd quarter of 2013 30% of net job growth came from firms with 1-49 employees. Additionally, companies with fewer than 500 employees accounted for 60% of net new jobs from 2009-2013. That’s pretty significant. 
On the other hand, we also constantly hear how challenging it is for small businesses to succeed. With stats like: 8 out of 10 businesses fail within the first 18 months (Bloomberg) and only about 45% survive to 5 years (Smallbiz Trends) we can oftentimes feel like we’re fighting a losing battle.
So, what does it take for a small business to succeed? Well, we went local to find out. We asked three Walnut Creek area business owners who share coworking space at Laptop Lounge what makes them successful in business and here are their answers:
Leif Welch, CEO JamLoop
Leif attributes the success of his company to delegating important but non-sales producing tasks. Many of his business partnerships were made through the collaboration and connections he’s made through the Laptop Lounge coworking community.
“By virtue of working in a shared office space, we’ve made some key connections that help us run our back office and administrative tasks more efficiently. For example, we met our corporate lawyer, medical benefits consultant, HR specialist, and website designer through our time spent at Laptop Lounge. The core team members at JamLoop need to focus on the day-to-day sales and operational aspects of our business, and we’ve managed to outsource our less strategic, but no less critical, tasks to talented partners we’ve met at the shared office space.”
Matt Miller, Owner of Miller Media
Matt’s success comes from a very personally motivating place.
“My success results from a healthy balance of feeling unwaveringly confident and proud of my work while simultaneously never being satisfied with anything I do.”
Randy Wight, Owner of E5 Management
Randy says his success comes from being in-tune with his clients and thoroughly understanding what their needs are.
“[Our success comes from] treating each client as unique and evaluating their current situation to create short and long term game plans.”
What’s your secret to success? The best way for us to remain businesses that contribute to the economy instead of the failure stats is by collaborating, sharing, and learning from one another. So please share your secrets with our community of entrepreneurs and business owners. We’d love to hear from you!
