9. Mistakes Aren’t Just for Big Companies—Small Company Chains

“Don’t gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.”

—Will Rogers

One of the best-known business stories in the world is how a very talented and visionary college dropout founded a software company and in 20 years, became the richest man in the world. For every huge success like Bill Gates and Microsoft, there are millions of hopeful entrepreneurs who would be happy if they could achieve even a more modest level of success.

We have focused on large enterprises in this book and, we hear about them in the news daily, but much of the world’s economy is driven by small businesses. In the United States, ...

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