Starting a business is never easy and odds of your success or failure are about even money. The fact is, approximately half of all small businesses fail within first four years. And a large percentage of those failures occur within first year. These are statistics that keep many entrepreneurs awake at night. Like Sisyphus, always pushing that boulder to top of hill only to have it tumble back to bottom each time, you never know when you're going to lose your grip on your business and have it tumble back over you.

OK, so far in this column I have managed to squeeze in references to modern American television and ancient Greek mythology. Enough highbrow beating around bush. Perform autopsy and learn from it. Only by knowing real reasons your business died can you identify and hopefully stave off those maladies before they take you down next time, if there is a next time. And if you're a true entrepreneur there will be a next time, trust me on this.

There are many reasons why businesses fail, but according to a recent survey by U.S. Bank, majority of business failures can be attributed to three reasons: bad management, bad financial planning, and bad marketing.

Bad management comes in many forms. The survey showed that seventy-eight percent of business failures examined were due in part to lack of a well-developed business plan and a business owner who had no business being in business he was in. In other words, business owner did not have an adequate knowledge or a thorough understanding of business he had chosen to start. This is why software entrepreneurs like me don't start shoe stores. I have feet, I wear shoes. That's not enough to qualify me to go into shoe business.

Next, seventy-three percent of business failures in survey were also manned by owners with rose colored calculators. These business owners over-estimated revenue projections (the number of expected sales) and under-estimated burn rate (the amount of money required to sustain business per month).

Q: One of my former employees has started a competing business and is calling my clients and trying to steal their business from me. Do I have any legal recourse against him? -- Brad J.

A: I hate to break this to you, Brad, but unless this former employee signed a noncompete agreement while on your payroll, there is probably very little you can do to stop him from wooing your customers. You should discuss situation with your attorney, but unless this person is also breaking law in some other way (using stolen trade secrets, for example) your attorney will probably concur with me.

Renegade former employees riding free enterprise wave is one reason noncompete agreements are gaining in popularity among employers who hope to use them to help protect their business from competitive threats launched by former employees. Many employers are now demanding that key employees sign noncompetes as a stipulation of employment. While signing noncompetes usually doesn't sit well with employees who view them as potential roadblocks to their upwardly mobile career path, many businesses will not hire a key employee without his or her signature on dotted line.

A noncompete agreement is a formal contract between you and your employees in which they promise not to use information or contacts pertinent to your business in a competing situation. In other words, they agree not to take everything they learn working for you and put it to use for someone else. This could mean going to work for a competitor or starting a competing business of their own.

While not popular with employees, noncompete agreements are a good way for employers to keep key employees on payroll and protect company's proprietary information. That said, do not go overboard with noncompetes: not every employee should be required to sign one. If an employee does not have access to sensitive information, customer or accounting data, or is integral to overall success of your business, there is no need to have them sign a noncompete. The janitor, for example, poses very little threat to your business if he gets a job with a competitor. Your sales manager, on other hand, can devastate your business by hooking his wagon to a competing horse.

Which employees should sign noncompete agreements? While prerequisites vary from business to business, following is a good general list. The term "employees" represents executive level, management, supervisory, and non-management personnel relative to that example: