I founded 1-800-Flowers.com 50 years ago. This is the secret to business success

Fifty years is a long time for any company to stay in business. About 20% fail in their first year. By year five, roughly half are gone. By the end of a decade, nearly 70% don’t make it. Reaching a golden anniversary raises a question about what allows some businesses to last.

The answers are often framed in terms of Herculean efforts, access to capital, and brilliant strategy. All those matter. But in my experience, the gift of longevity is the result of something less visible and harder to measure...