Are you thinking about owning a business? In most cases, I believe that buying an existing business—with real customers, a revenue stream, employees, name recognition and policies and procedures already in place—is a much better proposition than starting one from scratch.

Here’s why:

1. Start-up risk: Experts say that 80 percent of all new businesses fail. While a good portion of these might be multilevel marketing businesses that people just give up on after a few months, the reality is that a start-up usually has little to no immediate cash flow and is often immediately crunched for working capital right off the bat. (more…)