What’s the likelihood of your company showing up on the front page of USA Today?
The response from Jeffrey Rosenthal of the University of Toronto, quoted in the August issue of Entrepreneur, is the following:
“Let’s say that, on average, each USA Today front page mentions one new company, not counting Microsoft, etc. In the next year, about 365 new companies will appear on the front page, out of about 7 million potential companies [reported by the Census Bureau]. This works out to one company out of every 18,881. To put this figure into context, this probability is about a thousand times more likely than winning a typical commercial lottery jackpot with a single ticket.”
The odds of showing up on USA Today’s home page are terrible but the odds of winning The Lottery are far worse.
The article was also coolio because Rosenthal also discusses the use of probabilities to make better decisions, such as how many people to have on staff at your restaurant or the purchase of insurance to cover disasters.
I’ll have grab his book; Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities
p.s. You’ll notice that the link to the book on Amazon is an affiliate link. (That’s my disclaimer.) But I have to tell you, I’m not sure why I bother. I can’t remember the last time I received an affliate check from Amazon. Then again, it isn’t like I push books all the time.