New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur magazine recently announced its Hot 100 ranking of the fastest growing startup businesses in the U.S.

 

They did their research by starting with nearly 21 million U.S. businesses and of those, considered only 64,000 businesses (or 0.3 percent of the total) that met the following criteria:

• Must have been founded no earlier than 1999 and no later than 2003
• Company sales in 2003 must be $100,000 or greater; 2007 sales must not exceed $1 billion
• Must have positive job growth between 2003 and 2007
• Must have a minimum level of sales growth or a sales growth quantifier of 1 or higher between 2003 and 2007; the growth quantifier is a measurement that combines percentage and absolute growth
• The founder must be actively involved in the company
• The company cannot be a spin-off or a division of a larger company
• Sales for 2007 must be at least $1 million

The interesting part of the story is how the companies were financed, since this is a burning question for many would-be entrepreneurs.  According to the research, the sources of funding for the 100 top companies were as follows (the totals add up to more than 100 because some companies had multiple sources):

• Savings and Personal Funds - 79 companies
• Friends and Family - 19 companies
• Bank Loan - 14 companies
• Lines of Credit - 23 companies
• Private Investors - 16 companies
• Credit Cards - 12 companies
• Venture Capital - 3 companies

I was actually surprised that only 3 of the top 100 companies had used venture capital and only 16 had used angel investors.  What that speaks to is that these highly successful entrepreneurs are more independent than ever. 

 

For more information on the Entrepreneur Hot 100: Entrepreneur.com