Young and upbeat

Just one more sleep until we can reveal the winners of the SmartCompany Crown Lager Business Start Up Awards, and the excitement is at fever pitch.

Now, the team would kill me if I gave away any of the winners (although you can get a sneak peak by voting in our People’s Choice category) but a survey released by accounting software firm MYOB this morning underlined the really pleasing themes of the awards – that start ups are really helping to drive the Australian economic recovery.

The MYOB report shows that start up businesses (categorised as those who have been in business two years or less) have travelled brilliantly through the downturn, with an impressive 72% reporting revenue increases in over the last 12 months, with sales most commonly increasing by 10-29%.

Now, it’s important to point out that when you are starting a new business, sales really only have one way to go and that’s up.

However, this is an impressive result given the difficult environment that these businesses have launched into – as our award entrants will attest, getting customers to back an untried business is tough at the best of times, but especially difficult in a downturn.

The survey also shows that start up entrepreneurs are looking to accelerate the growth of their business in the next 12 months, as the economy starts to recover. In total, 64% of owners of start up businesses of less than two years are expecting revenue increases in the next twelve months, compared to 34% of owners of businesses established for more than 10 years.

The survey also shows that start up, micro and small businesses owners are more confident about the next 12 months than their medium-size colleagues. Overall, 33% of businesses surveyed say they have the same amount of work in the pipeline, 27% report a little more and 10% report a lot more.

All these very positive signs are underlined by the entries we’ve received to the SmartCompany Crown Lager Business Start Up Awards.

This is a group of smart, focused and passionate entrepreneurs who have negotiated the downturn by being flexible and nimble.

Some of these companies were stopped dead in the tracks when customers stopped buying or, in some cases, collapsed all together. But they’ve picked themselves up, switched focus and got back to business.

It’s a brilliant list and we can’t wait to show it off tomorrow night.