The new INC 500 list of America’s fastest growing companies just came out.
It’s full of fascinating statistics about these top performing young companies.
Here are some stats that I thought you might find interesting:
39% said running their business has had negative effects on their health.
30% had already had children before starting their companies.
59% worked at a corporation before they started their business. (10% started it direct from college and 9% came from start ups).
Interestingly 46% of the founders have made investments in other start ups.
54% have policies in place to support remote workers.
68% give their employees different jobs to help their development. (23% reimburse money their staff spend on training)
59% said finding good staff was one of their biggest issues. (We can all relate to that one).
And when it came to getting the funds to start their businesses, 74% got it from their personal savings, 20% from loans from family and friends, and surprisingly 22% got it from credit cards.
45% used less than $5000 to start their company. 19% used between $10,000 to $50,000.
Only 4% of the Inc 500 its got their start up funds from venture capital. And even now 47% have never sought out VC money.
Finally, when it comes to their exit plan, 42% aim to sell to another company, 13% to investors and 20% haven’t even thought about it.
For me, the stats that stand out are the ones about their original capital raising. Clearly most of them did not use a lot of money to start their company. And they still did pretty well.
A great idea, good people and hard work is usually much more important than funds.
We should strive to get most of our growth from our company’s cashflow.
