Found out 80% of agency owners quit in their first year according to a 2022 survey I stumbled on

Honestly I was scrolling through some industry stats last night on a site called AgencyScale and saw this number that blew my mind. 80% of agency owners throw in the towel within 12 months of starting. That seems wild to me because I almost quit myself around month 8 when I had a concrete project go sideways and lost $3k on a single job. It made me wonder how many of those people just had one bad month like me and gave up too fast. Has anyone else here looked into those numbers or got a different take on why people bail so quick?

2 comments

2 Comments

paul_burns13d agoMost Upvoted

Does that 80% number include people who were already running a side hustle or just total newbies jumping in blind? I bet a lot of those failures are people who never had steady cash flow before, so one bad client or a slow month feels like the end of the world. The real threshold is probably closer to surviving until you get that first repeat client, not just making it a full year.

taylor_barnes5913d ago

I mean, I get what you're saying about the side hustle thing, but I think that 80% number might actually be pretty accurate even for people who thought they were ready. The whole "one bad month feels like the end of the world" thing kind of proves the point, doesn't it? If you can't handle a rough patch without quitting, maybe running an agency just isn't for you.