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Global perspective a winning perspective: BDC [infographic]

There are so many great facts highlighted in this infographic (scroll down) put together by BDC, but the one that hit home most to me is the need for startups to adopt a global perspective.

Look at those numbers in the bottom corner of above. Only a small percentage of small and medium size firms export, but  they account for 17 per cent of export value.

In our recent Startup Grind Fireside Chats in Toronto, Bob Dorf (Startup Owners Manual) and Anish Achary (Google Ventures) and George Babu each highlighted how important it is for local startup to begin with a business that is designed to have customers anywhere. As Bob pointed out, “You are going to be working 12 or more hours a day on your startup, you might as well be working on a huge opportunity.”

Here are a few other interesting factoids highlighted below:

  • 98.2 per cent of businesses have less than 100 employees.
  • British Columbians have been starting the most new businesses in recent years but Ontario still has the most SMEs at 35 per cent.
  • The top five businesses attracting new entrepreneurs: construction, food and accommodation, business services, wholesale and retail trade, healthcare.
  • Only 60 per cent of small businesses plan to invest in technology but when they do – 83 per cent obtain a positive ROI.
  • A third of our small and medium sized businesses are led by women.

 BDC_SME_INFOGRAPHIC-web

 

 

Michael Cayley
Michael Cayleyhttp://www.cdling.com
Having attracted over US$50-million in investment and closed over $21-million in pre-launch sales for startups in China, the USA and domestically, Michael is living the struggle of the self-funded, pre-revenue Founder in Canada. He understands the pace of global innovation. He founded & funded the Ontario Cross-border Technology Innovation Ecosystem (OCTIE) study and he designed and taught the first, post graduate level, social media course in a full time program in Canada: crowdsourcing over 100 global experts as mentors. Cayley is the Founder of Cdling Capital Services Inc. (pronounced "seedling") a ratings agency that measures risk and builds trust between Founders, Investors and Experts in the era of low cost, globally funded startups and he is the Founder & Director of Startup Grind Toronto.

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