I get asked the following questions all the time:
What’s the best type of business to start?
What’s the best age to start a business?
Is it better to get experience before you start?
Are women just as likely to succeed as men?
Can I succeed without a lot of money?
What’ll be the next hot sector?
What if someone has already done my idea?
I’d be stinking rich if I knew the answers but I usually do my best to give a reasoned reply using the latest stats, research and opinion. After all, it is my job to know these things!
It’s also no coincidence that ‘The average entrepreneur’ is one of the most popular pages on Startups.co.uk. I do understand people’s fascination with finding the secret recipe for business success – and quite often or not it merely stems from a reassurance that they can do it.
Compiling and analysing our Startups 100 list released this week did provide greater clarity on issue and your questions, however. For fear of appearing unhelpful I’ll probably soon revert to the stats+ research, but for now, having looked at more than 150 brilliant new businesses, here are my new answers:
What’s the best type of business to start? Don’t know
What’s the best age to start a business? There isn’t one
Is it better to get experience before you start? Sometimes
Are women just as likely to succeed as men? Definitely, er, maybe...
Can I succeed without a lot of money? Yes! i think
What’ll be the next hot sector? Nobody knows
What if someone has already done my idea? So what?
Not very helpful, I know, but to clarify: The Startups 100 list proves and disproves the lot.
It's full of innovative ideas I’d never have come up with, not just disrupting existing markets and sectors but making their own. On the flipside, it’s also full of ideas that have been around for years, brilliantly tweaked or better executed – the chart topper BeatThatQuote being a fine example.
Some of the strongest businesses have been bootstrapped, others have raised substantial debt and/or equity finance. Our list has entries run by women who didn’t once refer to their gender as an obstacle and yet while the list represents many minorities it’s still dominated by able-bodied white males.
Common denominators are far more likely to be attributes than statistics: determination; persistence; ability to spot opportunities, good people managers etc. Oh and, of course, instead of worrying about whether they should go into business: they’ve just got on with it.
Perhaps the answer to all your nagging questions is simply: ‘you’ll never know until you try’.
If you’re still unsure, take inspiration from our set of 2008:
www.startups.co.uk/100