Greek Startups: Understanding the Factors That Shape Their Performance

Greek Startups: Understanding the factors that shape performance What we did. This study examines the factors that shape the performance of Greek startup companies. As Greek startups, we consider companies which sustain staff and operations in Greece, were established in 2009 or later, have a scalable business model and are characterized by high growth potentials. We developed an online questionnaire that measures various factorS, such us business plan, resources, founding team's background and experience, innovation, external environment and company's performance. Performance was measured with the total sales and the entire lifetime earnings of the associated companies. We consider as high performing startups, the companies which score high in both sales and earnings and low performing startups, the companies which score low in both sales and earnings. The survey took place from January 2013 to December 2013. We recorded 46 responses. The analysis concluded on the following results: Innovation While only 655 Patent 50% 78% of high performing startups had a clearly innovative idea. A high degree of innovation is a crucial ingredient. of low performing startups had an innovative idea with a low rate of new product introduction. Business Plan In contrast only 4/10 =BP==BP=-BP==BP==BP==BP==BP==BP= 8/10 =BP- of high performing startups placed great importance on forming a structured, solid business plan right from the start. of low performing startups structured a business plan on their early days. Business Plan: Startups' best friend. Internationalization Meanwhile only 44 53% 74% of high performing startups have already accessed a foreign market, outside Greece. Startups that target international markets demonstrate much higher resuts in sales & earnings. of low performing startups have approached international markets. Resources When only 31% 67% of high performing startups value the quality of their acquired resources en route to success, from financial flow to employee skills & knowledge. Best performing startups utilize the finest resources". of low performing startups think highly of the quality of resources they have at their disposal. * Employer skills. Know-how. Market knowledge. Customer relations. Availability of financial resources. Distribution channels. Demographics 27% 73% 26% Women Men Students Founding Sectors Team HQ Offices Software 41% Athens 69% Hardware 15% Thessaloniki 10% Retail 13% Volos 5% Other 31% Other 16% Research and Visualization is a project by ThinkBiz, student entrepreneurship club in Athens, Greece. The project involves entrepreneurship-related academic research on several aspects that define and affect the Greek startup ecosystem, as well as techniques and tools related to visualizing the final outputs and making them more engaging and attractive to the audience. On one hand, the project concentrates on the method and processes required for running a solid, structured research that leads to legitimate results. On the other hand, it seeks to present its results in a more comprehensible and appealing way to the general public, using modern means of visualization, such as infographics, interactive minisites or videos. RESEARCH TEAM: Stavros Manos (Leader) / Vasiliki Bouzoula / Fani Dimitriadi / Lina Ioannou / Christina Latroni / Nikolaos Pappas / Victor Vrachamis @stavrosmanos @lila bz @fani dim @linaioannou @latrwni @nikospappas @vick_victorious Special thanks to Giorgos Papagiannakis, PhD ( senior researcher at AUEB ) & Katerina Fraidaki, PhD ( researcher at Eltrun ) think biz ThinkBiz © 2014 thinkbiz.gr/rnv 13