Executive brief
Funding paths for founders
Seven ways to pay for early software work, compared by what each asks of the company: customers, awards, loans, shares, convertible instruments and crowds.
Executive brief
The real timeline of a business
Applications, first payroll, survival year by year and the 42-month mark, from public U.S. data
Founders tend to pick a launch date first and look at the evidence later, if at all. This brief turns that around. It follows the national statistics on new U.S. businesses from the tax-number application to a first employee, through the survival tables, to the point where a global survey counts a company as established.
It reads four public sources: the Census Bureau’s formation series, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survival tables (for all industries, for the Information sector and for professional and technical services), the Small Business Administration’s summary of those tables and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Each figure carries its source, and the few that are computed from monthly values are marked.
Each finding is followed by a short, separate note on what it could mean for a plan, then a list of the limits of the data.
Every number is about the whole population of new U.S. businesses. None is a result of a program or firm, and none is a forecast for one company.
The brief at a glance
The chapters in reading order, and one public figure that frames the question the brief answers.
The chapters, as a constellation
Show the figures as a table
| Years since opening | All private industries | Information, including software | Professional and technical services |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 1 | 79.6% | 80.8% | 81.6% |
| 2 | 69.1% | 70% | 71.2% |
| 3 | 61.4% | 60.8% | 63% |
| 4 | 55.4% | 53.3% | 56% |
| 5 | 50.2% | 46.8% | 50.3% |
| 6 | 46.4% | 42.6% | 46.9% |
| 7 | 43.6% | 38.6% | 43.2% |
| 8 | 40.3% | 35.4% | 40% |
| 9 | 37.4% | 33% | 37.2% |
| 10 | 34.7% | 30% | 34.3% |
Establishments with at least one employee, opened in the year to March 2015. A closure is not always a failure: it includes sales and mergers.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7 , March 2025 release
These figures describe all new U.S. businesses, not WE's results.
- Format
- Written brief
- Updated
- October 14, 2026
- Sections
- 11
What the brief covers
The sections of the full brief, in order. WE sends the full text by email to the address you give.
- The question this brief answers
- About the evidence
- How many businesses start
- From application to first payroll
- How long new businesses last
- The odds improve with every year
- Software and professional services
- When a business counts as established
- What this means for planning
- What this brief cannot tell you
- Sources
Request the brief
This brief gives considerations for founders. It is not legal, tax or investment advice.
Start a readiness review
Tell WE where the company stands. WE replies to arrange a conversation and a written read of your company's timeline.
A short PDF of the charts and sources, sent by email to the address you give.
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