I don't see how the small-business route isn't also a similar funnel, where it gets narrower and narrower towards the top. Only a small percentage of small businesses become medium-sized businesses, a smaller percentage still become largish, and very few become Cloudflare. Are the odds actually better than the odds of making C-level on the corporate ladder, even if you take into account that you can start multiple businesses?
I would personally make this decision on some other grounds than the (very small) likelihood of getting megarich, though. The lifestyle, set of skills rewarded, etc. are pretty different on the two routes.
If you do this once or twice, you can easily have a million a year coming in without having to do too much work. Or you could pay off the debt + sell it on. Seems like a decent way to generate $5 million over, let's say, 5-10 years.
I meant; buy a business, run it for 3-6 years + pay off debt, and sell it off. And then do it again, if you still feel like it. It doesn't even need to grow a lot (though that is obviously preferred). If you do it well, you can sell it for a similar amount (or higher!) you bought it.
Got it. Lots of factors to consider though as you know. Depends a lot on getting good financing and buying cheap. Buy a company for 3.5X free cash flow, finance it for 5 years at 10%, and you're barely making your debt payments. Pay 3X and you're doing much better. Pay 4X and you're insolvent. Assuming no growth of course. Maybe your plan is to improve it so you can sell it later for a higher multiple, but that's not easy and at that point you're flipping the business rather than buying it for its cash flow. Might as well just flip homes or buy rental property.
I would personally make this decision on some other grounds than the (very small) likelihood of getting megarich, though. The lifestyle, set of skills rewarded, etc. are pretty different on the two routes.