Last Thursday we spent the afternoon judging the finalists for the Startups Awards 2007. It was a fascinating few hours and the quality of the businesses on show was brilliantly inspiring – not only for their achievements, innovation and energy, but also their variety.
Indeed, some companies were so polarised – in terms of employees, turnover, profit, backgrounds, education etc – that it threw open a massively interesting, and at times, heated debate on what constitutes achievement in the start-up world.
Is turnover and profit the true definition of success? You can certainly make a case for it representing pure business success; after all, this would sway an investor first and foremost.
However, pure profit isn’t the reason most people go into business – it isn’t the benchmark for ‘success’ or ‘achievement’ they aim to hit. For some, it’s simply to establish themselves in a difficult market enough to improve their lives; for others it’s to make a positive impact on their community and the lives of the people they employ or sell to.
And not everyone starts from a level playing field: some people have to overcome unbelievable personal obstacles to reach levels of ‘achievement’ others wouldn’t conceive as any great shakes.
Every business has a personal story behind it and it’s very hard to judge success and achievement without hearing that. However, the counter side to that, as argued very persuasively by several top entrepreneurs last week, is that the plight of some shouldn’t take away from the massively impressive business achievements of others.
As the two sides locked horns, inevitably they looked to me as host to solve the problem and decide ‘what exactly are we here to judge on, personal or business achievement?’
My answer, while not helping in finding a solution, was both. How could it not be? These are the Startups Awards and we’re about championing small business and that means a lot of things to a lot of people.
Indeed, with consideration, I’m actually really proud of the fact such big names were actually even debating whether a £1m turnover business had ‘achieved’ more than one ten times its size – when does that ever happen? Certainly not at any of the dozens of business awards I’ve attended whose criteria works to filter out only the slickest, fast growth business operations.
In the end we put it to the vote and you’ll have to wait until 31 October to find out the winners, but in the meantime use the comment box below to let me know what constitutes ‘success’ and ‘achievement’ in your business or the one you’re about to start.
Matt Thomas
Editor, Startups.co.uk
