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8 Chapter 2: High-Impact Entrepreneurs What Michael Drexler, Senior Director, Head of Investors
they are and why they matter Industries, World Economic Forum USA
Maha Eltobgy, Director, Head of Private
13 Chapter 3: Life Stages of Entrepreneurial Investors Industries, World Economic Forum USA
Ventures Peter Gratzke, Project Manager, Investors Industries, World
Economic Forum USA
13 A general-purpose framework
Ernst & Young:
13 Applied to the EoY universe
Maria Pinelli, Global Vice Chair of Strategic
16 Chapter 4: Painting by Numbers Insights Growth Markets for EY Global
from the World Entrepreneur of the Year John Cunningham, Manager, Strategic
contestants Growth Markets
Rebecca Hiscock-Croft, Senior Strategic
14 Just how good are the contestants? Analyst
14 The life stages in practice Villanova University:
21 Dynamics of being a Young company Noah Barsky, Professor
The Bold Ones draws significant insights from our 2013 survey of US
Entrepreneur Of The Year finalists into the ways high-growth companies
exploit opportunities and overcome both business and economic challenges.
We are excited to have partnered with the World Economic Forum, as well as
Endeavor and Purpose.com, two organizations supporting entrepreneurs and
new business models around the world, to release this report. We believe it will
further the conversation among entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers on
how high-impact entrepreneurs influence existing industries and create new
ones.
Over the past three years, they have grown revenue by 56% and increased
employment by 64% creating much needed jobs.
As EYs Global Vice Chair of Strategic Growth Markets, I have had the privilege
to work with high-impact entrepreneurs, trailblazers in their industries who
generate significant economic benefits. Having worked with the worlds largest
technology companies of today when their founders launched their companies
from their garage, I recognize that high-impact entrepreneurs are not only
important to society for the benefits that they create, but to the progress of
industries and economies.
Just over 20 years ago, the internet was emerging and the world did not include
Amazon (founded in July 1994), Facebook, Google or LinkedIn. Yet these
companies are now multi-billion dollar organizations that have created significant
economic wealth, provide thousands of jobs and continue to spark innovation
and deliver useful functionality that benefits society in numerous ways.
Senior Director,
Head of Investor Industries,
World Economic Forum
High-impact entrepreneurs are a class of their own, and we often forget how
much we really owe to them. There is probably not a single day where we dont
use a product or a service that a high-impact entrepreneur has introduced to
society in the last decades. Yet, entrepreneurs never stand alone a lot of
those breakthrough products and services were first conceived in a government
research facility, a university, or a large corporation. It is this interconnected
nature that makes entrepreneurship such a fascinating endeavor. In order
to thrive, entrepreneurs need the right support from policy makers, the right
partnership with other enterprises, and the right financial and investor structure.
High-impact entrepreneurship involves a network of actors in the best spirit of
the World Economic Forums multi-stakeholder framework.
The report shows some interesting quantitative results for example, the
entrepreneurial ventures in this sample outperformed comparable equity indices
comfortably by a factor of two. Between a mere 600 companies, they created
nearly 1/20th of US jobs in the last two years. They grew aggregate revenues
of nearly $100bn by 30% annually for two years straight in an environment
where the overall economy grew at less than 1/10th of that rate. But even
more impressive are the individual stories of entrepreneurs buying a derelict
yoghurt factory and translating it into $1bn of sales eight years later, or turning
a bootstrap solution of taking pictures on a surfboard into the USs dominant
action video brand that allows millions to share their fun and achievements.
In this report, they come together for a privileged glimpse into high-impact
entrepreneurship.
This work could never have been done without the generosity of our
long-standing partner EY, who gave us privileged access to very special
entrepreneurs and expertise. I am personally very grateful to EY, Maria Pinelli
and the Entrepreneur Of The Year team for making it happen. The work also
benefited tremendously from the expertise and bandwidth that Endeavor Global
and Purpose provided both high-impact entrepreneurial ventures in their own
right, who it has been a privilege to work with.
Twenty years ago, many of todays world-leading ventures were not yet born. It
is a safe bet to think that many of the most impactful companies of 2034 are still
a dream in someones head. We hope that many of these dreams get realized,
and that high-impact entrepreneurs continue to shape the world for the better.
Innovation/
customer benefits
Job creation
Wealth creation
Societal impact
Fig. 2.3. Relative job creation over 2 years for EoY sample
High-impact Entrepreneurs Who Transform Industries 9
Breaking down the EoY sample by age reveals that Impact on wealth creation
employment gains sustain momentum as these companies
mature, reflecting their relative size compared to younger High-impact entrepreneurship creates significant wealth
firms and their heightened focus on building out business for successful founders with a consistent two thirds of
infrastructure and scale to meet customer demand and new the annual Forbes Billionaires list having built their own
opportunities (Figure 2.4). It is a good illustration that when fortune in this way. However, a hallmark of high-impact
it comes to job creation, a narrow focus on early-stage entrepreneurship is the vast scope and ambition of their
companies would be misguided. enterprises that allow others to share in this wealth creation
early employees in technology firms being a good
example, often with a significant impact on local economies.
The recent effect of Facebooks IPO on both the local San
Francisco Bay Area economy as well as tax revenues is a
good example. Of course, such wealth creation needs to
Number of employees Net change in number of
employees, last two fiscal years be viewed in the broader picture of societal balance and is
not always viewed completely positively by all stakeholders.
1200 180%
On the borderline between wealth creation and customer
Median headcount growth
160% benefits are companies like Lyft or Airbnb that allow others
1000
Median headcount
the productive use of underutilized assets. While not
140%
entirely uncontroversial, models like TaskRabbit or Amazons
800 120% Mechanical Turk (or less controversially, eBay) also allow
wealth creation among their users through the creation of
100% marketplaces that had until then been non-existent or highly
600
80%
inefficient.
400 60%
Impact on society
40%
200 High-impact entrepreneurs often make a difference
20%
to society beyond their immediate business model or
0 0% innovation this is a particularly important characteristic,
[0, 5) [5, 10) [10, 15) [15, 20) [20, 25) [25, 30) [30, 35) [35, 40) [40, 45) [45, 50)
as many high-impact businesses operate in network
COMPANY
COMPANY AGEAGE RANGE
RANGE [YEARS] economies (or even create them). While a company like
Facebook has clearly changed the way we communicate
and share stories with each other (a customer benefit), it has
Fig. 2.4. Employment and job creation by company age
also created a whole ecosystem of developers that design
features and applications for the platform. In addition, it has
made it easier for interest groups to coordinate among each
other, and therefore, arguably has a major influence on how
societies govern themselves.
This report examines multiple facets of Political societal disruptors share a similar
high-impact entrepreneurs, looking at how dynamic, of trying to bring greater participation
innovative, entrepreneurial companies provide and inclusion, but in another sphere. Although
their customers with different, better tailored the Occupy and Arab Spring movements
products; adapt to create jobs with new and arguably have to date largely failed to bring
different skill sets; and deploy capital (and about their intended changes to the relevant
create wealth) in effective ways in order to create political systems, their ability to give voice to
considerable economic value. Often these groups that felt disempowered is indicative
innovations serve as a way for growing compa- of how new technologies and approaches
nies to capture market share and/or differentiate can bring about political disruption.
themselves in the crowded marketplace. The Wikimedia Foundation provides an
Societal or social disruption, however, is a dif- illustrative example from the non-profit
ferent type of change in that the ensuing value sphere. By democratizing and distributing
creation tends to be more broadly dispersed, the codification of encyclopedic knowledge
and is often largely external to the entrepre- through Wikipedia, its efforts have not
neurial venture. This value creation, in economic only disrupted an incumbent industry,
terms, can be viewed as a positive externality but provided access to many millions of
to the economics of the enterprise itself, and people to the worlds knowledge, as well as
often results in expanded wealth, opportunity, empowered contributors and editors around
or forms of economic empowerment to those the world to participate in the process.
neither directly employed by nor investing in the Purpose is a social business with expertise
organization itself. Although definitions of social in creating and scaling these new kinds of
entrepreneurs are abound, an interesting way to participatory movements and platforms.
identify them in this context is through a lens of Through our work launching groups likeWalk
societal disruption, as a group of entrepreneurial Free, a 6 million person movement and
leaders whose efforts are proactively changing global fund to end modern slavery, and All
society in profound ways. The intended societal Out, the worlds largest grassroots LGBT
changes tend to be progressive, empowering rights movement, we have seen the profound
marginalized groups to become more economi- transformative impact of societal disruption.
cally or politically active, often making them Our work consulting to leading corporations,
harness their power as consumers, economic foundations and non-profits confirms how
agents, or citizens. New technologies and quickly organizations are seeking to adapt
methods of social interaction have opened up to this type of change and develop a new
new avenues for such actors, and the term New power constituency in support of their own
Power has recently been usedto describe the missions. This report therefore highlights
broader phenomenon of how society is chang- important lessons for all organizations, not
ing from the ensuing new power dynamics. just rapidly growing ones. The dynamics
Compelling examples of societal disruptors around societal disruption are relevant
span the corporate, political and non-profit sec- to all, just as innovations in product, job
tors. Airbnb, Lyft and other corporations active creation and capital deployment are.
in the sharing economy are prime examples
of corporate societal disruptors. By allowing
individuals with unused apartments or cars
toshare their excess capacity, millions of new
active participants in the ensuing ecosystems
have emerged. This new dynamic has not
only created very profitable, rapidly growing
companies, but is sharing the value created well
beyond the traditional models associated with
the hospitality and transportation industries.
Disruption
Differentiation Structure/results Cash flow Phase focus
potential
Tough questions The time required for each phase can vary greatly from industry
to industry. Some technology firms, for instance, will show a
From an entrepreneurs perspective, the life stage framework considerable lag from strategy to process to finally, performance
forces the entrepreneur (or his/her investors) to ask some tough management and cash flow generation. As an example,
questions of the company as it evolves through each phase. Facebook reported positive cash flow in 2009 for the first time,
Again, those are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but have more than five years after the company was founded. Others
proven a helpful guide for the judges in the EoY contest: will accelerate the progression and pivot at very early stages
in their lives (e.g., Teslas recent decision to get deeply engaged
Launch Market awareness and acceptance: What is in the battery manufacturing process rather than staying a pure-
new and distinctive about our market offering? Are we truly play car producer).
giving customer experience and innovation priority over
efficiency gains? Are we adequately capitalized to exploit the
opportunity?
Build Business processes: Do we have the right people?
The right technology? Are we aware of the internal process
risks that could undermine our business? Are we well
equipped to grow and scale our idea?
Run Performance management: Are we picking and
choosing operating metrics that make us look good? Does
this make us a better company? Are we overlooking troubling
indicators that may suggest weakness in our business
model? Are we focused too heavily on raising capital?
146
73 72
63
49 46
34 33
23
20
20
15 13 13 12
7 6 6 3 3
2
Hospitality and Leisure
Technology
Services
Financial Services
Automotive
Cleantech
other
Education
Agriculture
Biotech/Med, Tech/Pharma
Telecommunications
social enterprise/non-profit
Transportation
Government Services
Age group
Fig 3.5. Life stage brackets and sector mapping for EoY industry groups
Sector dynamics seem to be confirmed by this analysis Frontier operate more violently in this grouping of course, exceptional
companies reach maturity fastest, followed by service companies companies will live well beyond that upper limit in all industry
and traditional industries take the longest. Particularly striking is groups.
the long time that traditional industries can spend in the Maturing
life stage while individual circumstances might vary, it could The following chapter will describe in greater detail the insights
well be linked to the relative capital intensity of the industry which gained from the analysis of each group along key financial and
makes disruption of a well-established business model by new operating metrics, offering both some absolute benchmarking of
entrants more difficult. The lower top age bracket in Frontier the EoY contestants as well as lessons from top performers.
companies suggests also the cycles of creative destruction
27.9%
23.5%
16.0% 15.9%
14.6%
7.3%
EOY revenue growth EOY asset growth S&P500 Nasdaq Russell 2000 Dow Jones
Fig 4.1. Annual financial metrics (median values) of EoY contestants compared to major indices, FY 2012
Russell 2000: Consumer staples 7.2 The second proxy relates to how high-impact entrepreneurs
define new niches and shape industries.To conclude
Russell 2000: Materials 3.4 with a view on how this looks in practice, we offer the
case study of Chobani, the 2012 EoY winner. Its founder
Russell 2000: Utilities 3.1 created a sector-beating company literally out of a wasting
asset in 2005, only to sell over $1bn worth of yoghurt
Services 35 (20.9) eight years later, in what many would have called an over-
competed segment before he started. This is high-impact
S&P500:Financials 2.9
entrepreneurship in action.
S&P500: Healthcare 7.3
Source: Capital IQ, July 2014, EY. Median Return on Assets data for
Entrepreneur Of The Year participant companies
60.5%
47.9%
33.8%
2.64%
Fig. 4.3. Marginal 2-year job creation rates for EoY sample and the US economy (2010-2012)
194 73.0
134 59.1
97
39.4 41.3
31.1
23.5 25.1
13.0
9.35
3.17 4.47
1.32
Fig. 4.4. Median operating parameters of EoY contestants in the life stage framework
There is, however, a more nuanced view once other metrics Sales/assets measures how effective the company is at
are considered namely financial metrics that measure utilizing its asset base
efficiency, effectiveness and yield of a company the ratios RoA is the product of the previous two metrics and
of EBITDA/sales, sales/assets and return on assets (RoA). expresses the profitability of the company to its owners
These are important metrics for a company, as (who will have purchased or built the assets at some
EBITDA/sales measures the operating profitability stage)
(margin) of the company
184%
165%
Fig. 4.5. Median operational metrics of EoY contestants in the life stage framework
pursuit of growth clearly eats even further into profitability, and 365%
these firms have the funding base to stomach that. The other
industry groups show comparatively little differentiation against
the full EoY sample. 237%
178% 28.3%
In turn, looking at the EoY award winners in the Young life 19.0%
stage reveals an interesting change. While the companies that 12.8%
9.2%
are recognized in Services industries (and to some degree in
Traditional) conform more or less to the already established
pattern, the judges clearly prefer Frontier companies that are
cash generative. Two explanations are at work here firstly, -6.5% -9.0%
the sample is significantly smaller, making the statistics more Frontier Tradional Services
difficult. Secondly, the judges prefer (for good reasons to do
with proven track record and customer base) slightly older
companies within the age group which in turn are further
Fig. 4.6. Median operational metrics of Young EoY contestants
evolved in their business model and only one year away from
the Adolescent group.
29.6%
170% 21.6%
13.4%
8.5%
-12.8%
-17.3%
Frontier Tradional Services
226%
185%
29.5%
13.4% 14.9%
12.2% 10.4%
9.4%
Headcount 86 97 73 95 35 103
Headcount
growth p.a. (last 2 125% 127% 103% 64% 48% 68%
years)
Fig. 4.9. Comparison of firm in the top quartile of sales/assets, median values
Across the board, those firms are more asset-light and Building secure foundations as the
headcount-light than their peers however, their other metrics
look highly appealing in most cases and their growth rates for company takes off
the most part level or outperform those of their peers. While
we lack the data for a proper longitudinal study of those firms Significantly, as firms transition from Youth to Adolescence
(or a wider set of companies to corroborate our findings and up, cultivating and securing core customer relationships
beyond the EoY universe), it seems a plausible hypothesis remains the main channel for impact. An often-overlooked
that smaller firms with excellent sales/assets metrics in the first avenue here is to partner with larger firms or incumbents,
few years of their life cycle would be those to watch for future rather than viewing them as adversaries. In our experience,
outperformance. many incumbents have a great interest in cultivating
relationships with smaller companies (if only to make their own
It is also worth noting that more than 75% of US firms have intrapreneurship efforts more appealing) and entrepreneurs
less than 20 employees so within the first few years of their can gain a lot from being integrated into larger business
life span, the Young EoY contestants have already pulled ecosystems. GoPro has an interesting experience to offer here
ahead of the vast majority of businesses in the country. This (see text box).
further illustrates how impressive and impactful this sample of
companies is. Speaking to the Adolescent firms in our survey, they report:
A focus on angels, friends and family funding and on
Having examined the Young life stage, with its focus on retained earnings to fund short-term investment. Working
creating markets, finding customers, and launching a company capital management is a core focus for future investment.
into the market under resource constraints, we will now have Expectation for private equity/VC to drive capital for future
a closer look at the Adolescent stage where the scaling-up expansion
happens in earnest. Focus on domestic markets in current operations
Similar to Young companies, focus on domestic markets
for near-term expansion, with some appetite for expansion
Dynamics of being an Adolescent into developed though not emerging global markets
company Current investment focus on technology, followed by
human capital
The Adolescent building stage is where high-impact firms A preference for human capital investment and geographic
continue to grow customer acquisition and market recognition. expansion over R&D for future growth
Firms at this point in the life cycle need to demonstrate well- Focus on institutional processes and balancing the growing
run business processes, which strengthening in profitability. institutionalization of the firm with the original entrepreneurial
Growing revenue bases provide the cash flow to cover culture.
overhead, hiring and the foundation for sustainable expansion
and capital investment. These results suggest that while they scale, top performing
Adolescent firms keep a keen eye on their operating
performance, ensuring that they have everything in place for
smooth growth. Adolescent firms need to be able both to
make a market for their offering and to optimize profitability
if their business is to be sustainable. Consequently, their
Headcount
growth p.a. (last 2 53% 55% 18% 29% 32% 27%
years)
Fig. 4.13. Comparison of Adolescent firms in the top quartile of sales/assets, median values
For Frontier companies, the gap between top-quartile to achieve a much higher RoA than their peers.
performers in sales effectiveness has all but disappeared, Overall, it seems that the sales/assets metric is less meaningful
suggesting that other metrics matter more in the Adolescent at this life stage for companies than in the early years, and
life stage in this industry group. The same can be said for that other metrics like profitability (EBITDA/sales, RoA) start
Traditional companies, although similar to Frontier players, mattering more from here on.
the top-quartile companies seem to balance high sales
effectiveness with lower margins (the exact causality is of The next section will examine the life stage where companies
course hard to establish), resulting in only slightly elevated RoA are now in excess of 8-12 years old (depending on sector) and
levels. definitely have hit their stride.
More statistically significant (with 25, 23 and 10 companies Frontier Tradional Services
in the three categories, respectively), it is clear that financial
metrics at this life stage have significance for the EoY judges
certainly the scores of award winners in Frontier and Services
Fig. 4.15. Median operational metrics of Maturing OECD high-impact firms
outperform those of their peer group by a clear margin.
For Traditional companies, it seems that the peer groups
operational metrics are already par for course and the winners
differentiation lies outside the quantitative data.
32.5%
24.7%
18.8% 18.1%
12.9% 12.4%
76%
53%
37%
26%
53.2 55.0
15.9 18.0
Fig. 4.16. Absolute and marginal two-year job creation by EoY contestants by life stage
The results fall in line with a lot of academic research the As probably expected, the marginal job creation rate is highest
lions share of marginal job creation takes place when for Frontier industries and lowest for Traditional industries, but it
companies scale, not in the start-up phase. It is worth noting is worth noting that the latter created more jobs than the other
that the sample results are skewed by some large Young two combined! So, for at least while there is entrepreneurial
companies in the Traditional industry group. Even the marginal activity in that industry group, policy makers should take note
of rates of the other industries are impressive (around 200%), of its strong contributions to employment. This is of course
the absolute numbers of jobs created by Young companies are not to denigrate the other two industry groups, given that every
still less than 15% (Frontier) or 25% (Services) of the life cycle quality job is important.
total in each of the groups.
To offer yet another angle on the job creation issue, we now
Moving to a sector view, and assuming that the EoY shift to a per-company view, and plot again absolute and
contestants suffered from no specific bias when applying, we marginal job creation at the level of a median company in each
can compare the relative job creation rates as exemplary for industry group, displayed in Fig 4.18.
high-impact companies across the US economy. Fig. 4.17.
gives this breakdown.
63%
37%
33%
77.1
40.8
24.1
Fig. 4.17. Absolute and marginal two-year job creation by EoY contestants by industry group
65%
42%
32%
72.0
62.0 60.0
Fig. 4.18. Median absolute and marginal two-year job creation by EoY contestants per company
As an example, the median Frontier company started with 98 These observations gain additional relevance if ecosystem
employees two years ago and added 62 new jobs (or 65% considerations come into play. In many (though by no
of 98) for a current total of 150. While again marginal job means all) cases, Frontier companies need a strong external
creation is highest in the Frontier category, it is interesting that ecosystem of universities, R&D labs, educated workforce to
Services companies create the highest absolute number of thrive Silicon Valley being the most prominent example of
jobs at a per-company level. So if the constraining factor in such a set-up. By contrast, the other two industry groups
an economic environment is the number of companies, then might need less by way of enabling ecosystem and so might
Services offers the best impact. be more successful in circumstances where it doesnt exist.
global
innovation customers
people strategy investment success
employees sales
development
innovative
technology
market
production
financial
opportunities
services
mobile management
brands
family
Michael Drexler is a Senior Director at the World Economic Maria Pinelli is Global Vice-Chair for Strategic Growth
Forum based in New York, where he oversees the Markets at Ernst & Young (EY) Global, a world leader in
community of institutional and private investors. He advising, guiding and recognizing entrepreneurs and high-
joined the Forum after nine years at Barclays, where growth companies. She advises clients who are focused on
he most recently was Managing Director and Global accelerating growth and achieving market leadership. With
Head of Strategy, Commercial/Investment Banking and over 25 years experience providing professional services
Wealth Management. At Barclays, he also held positions to private and public companies, she has led more than
in Principal Investments and Finance as well as Chief of 20 initial public offerings (IPOs) on three continents. Pinelli
Staff to the Chairman. He joined Barclays Capital in 2002 is truly passionate about supporting entrepreneurs and is
from McKinsey & Company. Prior to that, Drexler was an heavily involved in creating a support network for them. She
academic researcher at Stanford University. He holds a PhD founded the Strategic Growth Forum, which convenes high-
in Mathematics from the University of Oxford and an MSc growth companies to share market insights and expertise,
in Electronic Engineering from the Technical University at and oversees E&Ys renowned Entrepreneur Of The Year
Munich. He was nominated as a Young Global Leader by program worldwide. Pinelli founded E&Ys Global Women
the World Economic Forum in 2010. in Business Advisory Council, as well as Entrepreneurial
Winning Women, a program to accelerate the growth of
Maha Eltobgy high-potential female entrepreneurs.
Maha Eltobgy is a Director at the World Economic Forum Pinelli has briefed on trends in entrepreneurship, innovation,
based in New York, where she oversees the community economic growth, and those driving global activity in the
of private investors, which includes hedge funds, private IPO market to a number of organizations and governments:
equity and venture capital firms. She joined the Forum from World Economic Forum; members of the G20; London
Empire State Development, where she was Vice President Stock Exchange; US Senate Banking Committee; US
of Marketing and responsible for managing New York States Securities and Exchange Commission; and European Union
iconic tourism marketing program, I LOVE NEW YORK. and African governments.
Prior to that she was Director of Business Planning at Louis
Vuitton, Vice President at Pearson and Senior Consultant She holds a degree in Commerce and French (Hons) from
at William Kent International (WKI). She holds an MBA from McMaster University, Canada, and completed executive
INSEAD, an MA in International Studies, Economics and education at Harvard and Kellogg School of Management.
Middle East Studies from The Johns Hopkins University and She is a Fellow, Chartered Accountant, CPA, ACA, and CA;
a BA in International Studies and Business Administration Chair of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE);
from the University of South Carolina-Columbia. and Member of the Steering Committee, World Economic
Forum.
Peter Gratzke
John Cunningham
Peter Gratzke is a Project Manager at the World Economic
Forum. He joined the Forum from the New York City John Cunningham has extensive business leadership,
Economic Development Corp. where he was a Project professional services and business start-up experience.
Manager in the Strategic Planning unit. Previously he was He is currently a Manager at Ernst & Young LLP (EY)
a Research Fellow at the UK National Endowment for in its Strategic Growth Markets group, where he leads
Science, Technology and the Arts and a Researcher at the entrepreneurship initiatives in partnership with the World
UK National Audit Office in London. He holds an MSc in Economic Forum, including the release of Entrepreneurial
Philosophy of the Social Sciences from the London School Ecosystems Around the Globe and Early-Stage Company
of Economics and an MA in Political Science, Economics Growth Dynamics - the Entrepreneurs Perspective (World
and Anthropology from Ludwig Maximilian University in Economic Forum report, January 2014). While at EY, he has
Munich. also worked on several global merger integration projects.
Prior to joining EY, Cunningham successfully built and led
several entrepreneurial ventures including BragStats; Best
of Our Town, USA; and Velocity Sports Performance. He
Dr. Barsky is a professor at the Villanova University School As the Director of Endeavor Insight, Rhett Morris leads its
of Business, USA. His research and teaching focus research on high-impact entrepreneurship and emerging
on performance measurement, business planning, risk markets, directs the measurement of Endeavors impact
assessment, and contemporary financial reporting issues. and provides analytical support for its internal operations.
Other academic experience includes positions as a visiting Before joining the Endeavor Global team, Morris worked as
MBA professor at INSEAD (Europe) and a visiting research a consultant at Bain & Company. There, he was engaged on
scholar at the University of Melbourne (Australia). Dr. Barsky a variety of projects focused on international growth strategy
designs and delivers executive programs, management development, customer segmentation and acquisition, and
training, and educational seminars for various business organization redesign. He first worked with Endeavor as
organizations and professional associations across the a volunteer while living in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the
globe. fall of 2009. His previous work experience also includes
serving as the confidential assistant to the mayor of Baton
He has authored five books and published over sixty articles Rouge, Louisiana, USA. Morris earned a Master of Business
in academic and professional journals, including Strategic Administration from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, USA
Finance, Commercial Lending Review, Corporate Finance in 2007 and a bachelors degree in History from Louisiana
Review, Journal of Law & Commerce, and Advances in State University in 2003.
Business Education and Training. Dr. Barsky has received
multiple university teaching excellence awards and has
been recognized internationally for his scholarly writing
and curriculum innovation. His professional experience
includes practice in the fields of accounting and finance as
an analyst, auditor, and business consultant. He earned
his undergraduate and masters degrees from Penn State
University, USA and his Ph.D. from the University of
Connecticut, USA. He holds active licenses as a Certified
Public Accountant and Certified Global Management
Accountant.
Kevin Steinberg
This report draws on data from the participants of the lifecycle phase (this determines the maximum age for
EY 2013 Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) contest. To the industry group without being distorted by age outliers
participate, firms must have 10 or more employees or that do not impact the analysis).
more, and exhibit a strong growth trajectory as measured Vary the second boundary (from adolescent to maturing)
by market share and profits. The EOY honors market- both upward and downward until sample size constraints
leading companies that exhibit strong growth and make are hit (where necessary, adjust the third boundary (from
communities and the world a better place. maturing to adult) to create headroom). Of those,
pick the boundary that showed the clearest difference in
The objective of the study was to identify the characteristics metrics between adolescent and maturing.
and growth path of high-impact entrepreneurial firms. This Vary the third boundary (from maturing to adult) both
was achieved through analysis of key financial metrics. upward and downward until sample size constraints
We analyzed the 669 companies that participated in the are hit. Of those, pick the boundary that showed the
US EOY 2013 national contest. 19 of those were classified clearest difference in metrics between maturing and
in sectors that did not lend themselves to further analysis adult.
(other, non-profit). This process helped establish the most natural
boundaries in company age for each industry group,
In order to facilitate the analysis in such a diverse group of according to the metrics used in this report thus
companies, they were divided into three industry groupings: allowing us to gain insights at which age companies
228, 253 and 169 companies respectively. in a certain industry group will typically reach a certain
lifecycle phase.
We then eliminated incomplete data entries (a total of 22)
and age outliers (a total of 44), which resulted in respective Segmenting companies by industry and age enables
industry groupings of 212 (93% of the original sample), analysis of common attributes of top performing firms
223 (88%) and 149 (88%). The three industry groupings (as defined below), as they move through their life cycle, a
were further segmented into four age groups within each framework for our Launch, Build, Run, Reinvent model.
sector grouping. In each industry grouping, the age groups For each age group, the study assessed firms through two
representing the four life cycle phases (young, adolescent, main metrics;
maturing, adult) were determined by a process of cluster
analysis across the metrics outlined in the report (RoA, 1) sales/assets (asset turnover) and
sales/assets, EBITDA/sales) while also taking into account 2) EBITDA/sales (EBITDA margin)
headcount and absolute revenue. Those life cycle phase
boundaries (age of a company) were chosen that resulted The study also looked at the EBITDA return on assets
in the most significant difference between life cycle phases (EBITDA/assets) of these companies which we abbreviate
across those metrics, while at the same time not resulting RoA. We considered relative performance on asset turnover
in extreme sample size differences (e.g., no life cycle phase and EBITDA margin for participant firms at each stage of
containing more than 50% or less than 10% of the overall their life cycle, which offers insight on the major factors as
sample). The process was conducted iteratively in the entrepreneurial firms grow and scale. The study examined
following fashion the survey responses on factors including investment;
Eliminate companies with less than 3 years of age, as access to capital; talent management and expansion
they do not yet have an established operating record strategy. Characteristics of top performing firms, including
(this affected a total of 6 companies, or less than 1% of headcount; assets; sales and EBITDA, are also examined
the total sample set). by industry and age group. (We choose EBITDA over other
Starting from an equally distributed sample and with the profit measures, as it is both widely used as a valuation
upper age limit at the maximum age of all companies, metric, and least polluted by accounting charges that might
vary the first boundary (from young to adolescent) both vary strongly by industry.)
upward and downward until sample size constraints
are hit (where necessary, adjust the second boundary Within the report, we utilized the OECDs definition of high-
(from adolescent to maturing) and third boundary (from impact for entrepreneurs who exhibit 20% or greater annual
maturing to adult) to create headroom). Of those, growth in employment and 20% or greater annual growth in
pick the boundary that showed the clearest difference in sales over three years for entrepreneurs with 10 employees
metrics between young and adolescent. or more. Since the data in the survey for this report only
Reduce the upper age limit until it has either meaningful cover a two-year period, this report follows the OECDs
effect on the sample size or the metrics of the adult definition, with the limitations of a shorter time period
covered.
High-impact Entrepreneurs Who Transform Industries 41
Technology 146
Biotech/Med, Tech/Pharma 33
Industries
Cleantech 13
Telecommunications 13
Automotive 15
Transportation 6
Agriculture 3
Services 63
Financial Services 46
Education 6
Government Services 2
By Industry
Young firms
(median values) Frontier Industries Traditional Industries Services Industries
Maturing firms
Frontier Industries Traditional Industries Services Industries
All firms in OECD High- EoY Award All firms in OECD High- EoY Award
(median values) group Impact Winners group Impact Winners
Assets [$m] 13.00 18.50 25.43 25.11 27.25 55.21
Sales [$m] 23.48 27.63 56.54 39.40 38.42 61.08
2-year sales growth p.a. 103% 145% 118% 47% 79% 56%
EBITDA [$m] 1.32 1.36 6.11 3.17 2.48 3.37
RoA 14.9% 15.4% 24.0% 17.0% 14.0% 15.2%
sales/assets 224% 234% 226% 213% 185% 213%
EBITDA/sales 8.3% 7.2% 12.2% 8.8% 10.5% 9.8%
Headcount 97 127 127 134 142 220
2-year headcount growth 74% 85% 81% 35% 57% 49%
# of companies in sample 125 65 40 128 62 44
All firms in OECD High- EoY Award All firms in OECD High- EoY Award
(median values) group Impact Winners group Impact Winners
Assets [$m] 31.15 33.05 49.42 59.05 83.70 140.82
Sales [$m] 41.32 33.61 68.53 73.00 114.78 210.56
2-year sales growth p.a. 29% 70% 26% 19% 71% 21%
EBITDA [$m] 4.47 4.15 9.16 9.35 10.69 20.43
RoA 17.1% 15.6% 18.8% 16.5% 19.6% 16.4%
sales/assets 165% 149% 165% 184% 225% 142%
EBITDA/sales 11.0% 11.3% 13.6% 12.0% 11.3% 12.1%
Headcount 194 201 318 356 288 700
2-year headcount growth 26% 52% 32% 14% 79% 15%
# of companies in sample 172 43 58 159 14 63
* excludes submissions with ranged answers and companies outside age brackets (e.g., older than 70 years)
** excluding ranged answers, but including companies outside age brackets (e.g., older than 70 years)
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