This past week I’ve enjoyed reports of loggerhead turtles hatching off the beach of Oak Island, North Carolina — the beach my family visits each year. Only about 1 in 1,000 sea turtle hatchlings survives to adulthood. The odds are brutal. Yet the species persists.

Small businesses face similarly daunting odds. Most don’t make it past five years. But the ones that do survive share something with those turtles: they found the right conditions, the right support, and they kept moving toward the water. Coaching, community, and the right financial systems are the equivalent of that protected path to the ocean. Don’t try to make the journey alone.