October 2, 2025 • 11 mins
Small businesses in Australia are changing. For one thing, there’s 2.6 million of them, employing 5.4 million people and contributing $590 billion to our GDP.
But the reasons for starting a business are evolving, with more people looking for the autonomy and financial independence it gives them. Success looks different to every founder, but surprisingly, almost a third of all entrepreneurs don’t have an endgame in mind.
Sean Aylmer speaks to Angad Soin, Managing Director Australia & New Zealand, and Global Chief Strategy Officer at Xero about why it seems so few founders are thinking about their future, the risks of operating without a long-term strategy, and tactics for entrepreneurs to create an endgame that will turn their vision for success into a reality.
Xero is a supporter of this podcast
Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Fear and Greed Q and A where we
ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more.
I'm Sean Aylmer. Small businesses in Australia are changing. For
one thing, there's two point six million of them, employing
five point four million people and contributing five hundred and
ninety billion dollars to our GDPM. But the reasons for
starting a business are evolving, with more people looking for
(00:28):
the autonomy in financial independence it gives them. Success looks
different to every founder, but surprisingly almost a third of
all entrepreneurs don't have an endgame in mind. Hungered Sewn
is Managing Director Australia and New Zealand and global Chief
Strategy Officer at Zero, which is a trivic supporter of
this podcast. Hungered, you are talking my story here. Welcome
(00:49):
to Fear and Greed, Sean.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
A pleasure to be here and you know I was
going to be. My first question is for fear and greed,
which archetypes you put yourself?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Right? Well, how about we leave that question hanging. We'll
explore the archetypes and I'll tell you at the end.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
How about that sounds good? Right?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So if you recently you've published your It's your Business
report and in it to find three different types of founders.
So this is what I've got to pick. I know
what I am right from the get go. The three
of them lifestyle entrepreneurs, ambitious achievers, situational founders, goes through them.
Let's start with lifestyle entrepreneurs. Who are they?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, well, I mean hopefully the names are somewhat self explanatory.
So forty seven percent of Australian small businesses would classify
themselves as a lifestyle entrepreneur. They want to architect a
lifestyle that works for them. I want to run a
small business. I want to have a business, but let
them do the other things they love, which might be
spend time with family, traveling, whatever. It might be. Your
(01:49):
second category, ambitious achievers. The name should give you some
guidance about thirty percent of these. They're really business owners
that are trying to usually form legacy. Can they build
a lasting business? Are they looking to go global? Are
they really looking to set a mark in an industry
that they really care about? And then you've got situational founders,
(02:11):
which make up the other twenty three percent. And you know,
when I think about this is often as an immigrant myself,
I know many of these people. They come from another country,
maybe they have no option, and they've got to start
a business, and that is their way of making a
living and then growing from it. The one thing I
think that's quite important is people don't stay in these archetypes.
(02:33):
It's not like a single minded point, right. So some
people might start a lifestyle business, see the impact they're
having and become an ambitious achiever and look to a
scale maybe more than they ever thought they were going to.
So I think that's an important thing around these archetypes.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
It's fluid. So if I look at those archetypes for myself,
I think I'm sixty or seventy percent one of them,
and then kind of fifteen percent the other two, which
is interesting. I'm sure all these things play into it.
What is so many people start a business? The thing is,
when I started business, and I've got three small businesses,
(03:10):
including Fear and Greed, people kept talking to me about
your exit strategy before you even got into it, your
end game, and vaguely I've thought about that. You know,
oh yes, I'm a bias. It'd be fine so much
for you. But really I haven't given it much thought,
and your report suggests that many people don't actually have endgames.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
That's right. I think actually two important points, right, So
one is that thirty one percent don't have an endgame,
and up to forty nine percent don't have long term goals.
So I think there's I think both are interesting. One.
I'm with you, Shan, and like, how often does someone
where they're sunning a business have to instantly go and
I want to exit, I want to sell it, I
want to hand it down to my children maybe, or
(03:53):
I want to like just let it run to the
ground and I'll retire. That's a hard thing to think
about straight away. However, long term goals, I think is
something that's more fascinating to me that forty nine percent
don't have long term goals, because even if you don't
know your final final destination, knowing where you're trying to
head is so critical when you're building a small business.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I mean, if you think of private equity firms, which
you're talking about larger businesses, they all go in with
an exit strategy. They're thinking the endgame all the time.
And maybe there's a lesson in that for this smaller businesses.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, I think to your point, they need to know
they're in that game, right. You've got to know how
I'm going to get out, Otherwise I don't know how
I'm going to make my return. And I would say
the reality is that this happens at all sizes of businesses.
Of course we're talking small businesses, but large companies go
through this when market environments change, when ownership structures change.
(04:46):
There might be new shareholders, there might be a new
executive team, they're going to rethink that. I think the
hard thing for a small business is they can't just
bring in an external party to help them think through
that one. It is their small business and they've got
to think about it. And if you are like I understand,
if you're and greed is a little bit, you have
multiple small business owners. They all might have a slightly
(05:08):
different view of the endgame.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
How important is this to get it right? What's the
opportunity cost? If you don't think maybe not in game,
but long term goals certainly.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah. I think long term goals are important for a
key reason I think for all sides of businesses, but
small businesses in particular, it is it's your north star.
You want to know where you're going. And if again,
if you're in that lifestyle entrepreneur or if you're in
that ambitious achiever or situational founder, that primary goal might
be slightly different. So if you're a situational founder and
(05:40):
you want to make just enough money so you can
feel like you've got stability you can support your family,
whatever it might be, or broader long term goals, then
anchoring on what that minimum threshold of income is is
critical to thinking about your business model. How many customers
do you need, how are you going to get those customers,
what do you charge them, and what's appropriate. If you're
(06:02):
a lifestyle founder and you end up building a business
that doesn't give you the lifestyle goal you set out
to achieve, you're not going to feel as content. So
I think that's why having those long term goals is
really important because then you can work back from them.
And often, if you're a small business owner, you're really
passionate about one or two different parts of your business
(06:23):
and you want to make sure you're creating enough of
the right decisions that actually allows you to do the
thing you love and not regret. Kind of going on
this limb because it's hard to start a small business.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
How do you do it? I mean, what you're saying
all makes sense, right? Can you do it on your own?
You better to find an advisor? How do you do it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I'd say two main bits of advice I would give one.
You do have to be honest with yourself and you
do have to have some alone thinking time, I would say.
And I would say, in a hierarchy of things to
think about, start with number one. It's we call the report.
It's your business for a reason. It's highly personal. So
(07:06):
if you don't first start with what's critically important to
you as a human being and as an individual, you
can kind of forget about the rest. Then I would say,
what is your financial set of goals? Like again, if
you want to be a really large company, you're going
to structure it differently. If you want to get funding,
you're going to structure it differently. If you want a list.
(07:27):
At some point you'll think about these things differently and
how much scale and investment you might need. And then
you know, last, but not least, you might have some
views about how you want to run the business, what
values you might want, what kind of people you want
working for you, but I would see it in a
room first, and be brutally honest. Don't write the things
that you think someone else wants to hear. You are
(07:50):
the person that has to get out of bed every
day and run this business or the people, so be
brutally honest. And then I think to your point, schean
get advice, and that can be professional advice. It could
be an accounter and bookkeeper that can help make sure
you structure the business in the right way so you
can achieve those goals. Could be legal advice. It could
be other founders who are going to tell you some
(08:12):
of the pitfalls, challenges, things to look out for ahead.
And I would definitely say don't try and go it alone.
There are plenty of people in the community that will
help you. But I think the only way, because you're
going to get contradictory advice, I'll tell you that right
now as well. And so the only way that I
think you can help make sure you use that advice
(08:34):
is you have clarity on your end goal and you're
brutally honest about what those things are important to you.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I'm good, I'm not sure that I'm enjoying this conversation
at the moment, we'll move on the other thing the
report talks about is kind of the legislative environment that
a business operates in. What does I mean? It identifies
priorities for governments that would help sm succeed. What are
(09:00):
some of those?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I think the biggest things we talk about, think
about it as a business ourselves, is how do you
give time back to small business owners? It's the thing
they have the least of and it's the thing that's
most important. And so when we think about regulation or
the things that government and industry bodies, and we believe
we have a part to play where a service provider
(09:22):
to small businesses, which is how do we think about
all the things that can give you that time back?
And so, if you're a small business owner trying to
navigate seven different regulatory bodies to just know how to
get started, employ someone, and win some customers, it's too hard.
You know. The stat we always talk about it's like
(09:43):
there's five different definitions of a small business from government,
You've got five definitions. It means you're going to create
inherently five different types of regulation. That means it's just
hard for a small business to navigate that environment. That's
time lost doing the thing they love, which is serving customers,
winning business and join their last time.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Fantastic out of time. But I've got to say I've
been thinking about it. I reckon I started as a
lifestyle entrepreneur six years ago and we started Fear and Green.
That was very much because my children were in high
school and I kind of needed flexibility and time around that.
But I got to say, I'm heading towards the ambitious
achiever at the moment. But to your point, yeah, we're
alowed to change along the way.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
You are allowed to change on the way. And then
do you want to share what your end game is?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Well, I mean, honestly, the end game is actually to
create something that has a voice, that makes a difference,
that actually informs people in a really plain English way
about what's going on in the business political world, so
that they can use that to achieve their goals. And
that's kind of a bit altruistic, you know. Beyond that, Yeah,
(10:52):
we'd love to sell it at some point, you know,
without a doubt, and make money from it, but I
think kind of that's always in the background. But our goal,
the three of us, Michael Thompson, Adam Lang and I
as actually we reckon we can make some at the margins,
some slight difference, particularly to small and medium sized businesses,
particularly to investors, about making things better. Very altruistic. I
(11:12):
think I'm on my safebox. I'm God, I better stop
that right this moment. Thank you very much for talking
to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Thanks for having me you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
That was angered Seyn Managing Director Australia in New Zealand
and global Chief strategy officer at Zero, A great supporter
of this podcast. I'm Schanelmer and this is Fear and
Greed Q and Day
Welcome to Fear and Greed Q and A where we
ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more.
I'm Sean Aylmer. Small businesses in Australia are changing. For
one thing, there's two point six million of them, employing
five point four million people and contributing five hundred and
ninety billion dollars to our GDPM. But the reasons for
starting a business are evolving, with more people looking for
(00:28):
the autonomy in financial independence it gives them. Success looks
different to every founder, but surprisingly almost a third of
all entrepreneurs don't have an endgame in mind. Hungered Sewn
is Managing Director Australia and New Zealand and global Chief
Strategy Officer at Zero, which is a trivic supporter of
this podcast. Hungered, you are talking my story here. Welcome
(00:49):
to Fear and Greed, Sean.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
A pleasure to be here and you know I was
going to be. My first question is for fear and greed,
which archetypes you put yourself?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Right? Well, how about we leave that question hanging. We'll
explore the archetypes and I'll tell you at the end.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
How about that sounds good? Right?
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So if you recently you've published your It's your Business
report and in it to find three different types of founders.
So this is what I've got to pick. I know
what I am right from the get go. The three
of them lifestyle entrepreneurs, ambitious achievers, situational founders, goes through them.
Let's start with lifestyle entrepreneurs. Who are they?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, well, I mean hopefully the names are somewhat self explanatory.
So forty seven percent of Australian small businesses would classify
themselves as a lifestyle entrepreneur. They want to architect a
lifestyle that works for them. I want to run a
small business. I want to have a business, but let
them do the other things they love, which might be
spend time with family, traveling, whatever. It might be. Your
(01:49):
second category, ambitious achievers. The name should give you some
guidance about thirty percent of these. They're really business owners
that are trying to usually form legacy. Can they build
a lasting business? Are they looking to go global? Are
they really looking to set a mark in an industry
that they really care about? And then you've got situational founders,
(02:11):
which make up the other twenty three percent. And you know,
when I think about this is often as an immigrant myself,
I know many of these people. They come from another country,
maybe they have no option, and they've got to start
a business, and that is their way of making a
living and then growing from it. The one thing I
think that's quite important is people don't stay in these archetypes.
(02:33):
It's not like a single minded point, right. So some
people might start a lifestyle business, see the impact they're
having and become an ambitious achiever and look to a
scale maybe more than they ever thought they were going to.
So I think that's an important thing around these archetypes.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
It's fluid. So if I look at those archetypes for myself,
I think I'm sixty or seventy percent one of them,
and then kind of fifteen percent the other two, which
is interesting. I'm sure all these things play into it.
What is so many people start a business? The thing is,
when I started business, and I've got three small businesses,
(03:10):
including Fear and Greed, people kept talking to me about
your exit strategy before you even got into it, your
end game, and vaguely I've thought about that. You know,
oh yes, I'm a bias. It'd be fine so much
for you. But really I haven't given it much thought,
and your report suggests that many people don't actually have endgames.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
That's right. I think actually two important points, right, So
one is that thirty one percent don't have an endgame,
and up to forty nine percent don't have long term goals.
So I think there's I think both are interesting. One.
I'm with you, Shan, and like, how often does someone
where they're sunning a business have to instantly go and
I want to exit, I want to sell it, I
want to hand it down to my children maybe, or
(03:53):
I want to like just let it run to the
ground and I'll retire. That's a hard thing to think
about straight away. However, long term goals, I think is
something that's more fascinating to me that forty nine percent
don't have long term goals, because even if you don't
know your final final destination, knowing where you're trying to
head is so critical when you're building a small business.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I mean, if you think of private equity firms, which
you're talking about larger businesses, they all go in with
an exit strategy. They're thinking the endgame all the time.
And maybe there's a lesson in that for this smaller businesses.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, I think to your point, they need to know
they're in that game, right. You've got to know how
I'm going to get out, Otherwise I don't know how
I'm going to make my return. And I would say
the reality is that this happens at all sizes of businesses.
Of course we're talking small businesses, but large companies go
through this when market environments change, when ownership structures change.
(04:46):
There might be new shareholders, there might be a new
executive team, they're going to rethink that. I think the
hard thing for a small business is they can't just
bring in an external party to help them think through
that one. It is their small business and they've got
to think about it. And if you are like I understand,
if you're and greed is a little bit, you have
multiple small business owners. They all might have a slightly
(05:08):
different view of the endgame.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
How important is this to get it right? What's the
opportunity cost? If you don't think maybe not in game,
but long term goals certainly.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah. I think long term goals are important for a
key reason I think for all sides of businesses, but
small businesses in particular, it is it's your north star.
You want to know where you're going. And if again,
if you're in that lifestyle entrepreneur or if you're in
that ambitious achiever or situational founder, that primary goal might
be slightly different. So if you're a situational founder and
(05:40):
you want to make just enough money so you can
feel like you've got stability you can support your family,
whatever it might be, or broader long term goals, then
anchoring on what that minimum threshold of income is is
critical to thinking about your business model. How many customers
do you need, how are you going to get those customers,
what do you charge them, and what's appropriate. If you're
(06:02):
a lifestyle founder and you end up building a business
that doesn't give you the lifestyle goal you set out
to achieve, you're not going to feel as content. So
I think that's why having those long term goals is
really important because then you can work back from them.
And often, if you're a small business owner, you're really
passionate about one or two different parts of your business
(06:23):
and you want to make sure you're creating enough of
the right decisions that actually allows you to do the
thing you love and not regret. Kind of going on
this limb because it's hard to start a small business.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
How do you do it? I mean, what you're saying
all makes sense, right? Can you do it on your own?
You better to find an advisor? How do you do it? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I'd say two main bits of advice I would give one.
You do have to be honest with yourself and you
do have to have some alone thinking time, I would say.
And I would say, in a hierarchy of things to
think about, start with number one. It's we call the report.
It's your business for a reason. It's highly personal. So
(07:06):
if you don't first start with what's critically important to
you as a human being and as an individual, you
can kind of forget about the rest. Then I would say,
what is your financial set of goals? Like again, if
you want to be a really large company, you're going
to structure it differently. If you want to get funding,
you're going to structure it differently. If you want a list.
(07:27):
At some point you'll think about these things differently and
how much scale and investment you might need. And then
you know, last, but not least, you might have some
views about how you want to run the business, what
values you might want, what kind of people you want
working for you, but I would see it in a
room first, and be brutally honest. Don't write the things
that you think someone else wants to hear. You are
(07:50):
the person that has to get out of bed every
day and run this business or the people, so be
brutally honest. And then I think to your point, schean
get advice, and that can be professional advice. It could
be an accounter and bookkeeper that can help make sure
you structure the business in the right way so you
can achieve those goals. Could be legal advice. It could
be other founders who are going to tell you some
(08:12):
of the pitfalls, challenges, things to look out for ahead.
And I would definitely say don't try and go it alone.
There are plenty of people in the community that will
help you. But I think the only way, because you're
going to get contradictory advice, I'll tell you that right
now as well. And so the only way that I
think you can help make sure you use that advice
(08:34):
is you have clarity on your end goal and you're
brutally honest about what those things are important to you.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I'm good, I'm not sure that I'm enjoying this conversation
at the moment, we'll move on the other thing the
report talks about is kind of the legislative environment that
a business operates in. What does I mean? It identifies
priorities for governments that would help sm succeed. What are
(09:00):
some of those?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I think the biggest things we talk about, think
about it as a business ourselves, is how do you
give time back to small business owners? It's the thing
they have the least of and it's the thing that's
most important. And so when we think about regulation or
the things that government and industry bodies, and we believe
we have a part to play where a service provider
(09:22):
to small businesses, which is how do we think about
all the things that can give you that time back?
And so, if you're a small business owner trying to
navigate seven different regulatory bodies to just know how to
get started, employ someone, and win some customers, it's too hard.
You know. The stat we always talk about it's like
(09:43):
there's five different definitions of a small business from government,
You've got five definitions. It means you're going to create
inherently five different types of regulation. That means it's just
hard for a small business to navigate that environment. That's
time lost doing the thing they love, which is serving customers,
winning business and join their last time.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Fantastic out of time. But I've got to say I've
been thinking about it. I reckon I started as a
lifestyle entrepreneur six years ago and we started Fear and Green.
That was very much because my children were in high
school and I kind of needed flexibility and time around that.
But I got to say, I'm heading towards the ambitious
achiever at the moment. But to your point, yeah, we're
alowed to change along the way.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
You are allowed to change on the way. And then
do you want to share what your end game is?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Well, I mean, honestly, the end game is actually to
create something that has a voice, that makes a difference,
that actually informs people in a really plain English way
about what's going on in the business political world, so
that they can use that to achieve their goals. And
that's kind of a bit altruistic, you know. Beyond that, Yeah,
(10:52):
we'd love to sell it at some point, you know,
without a doubt, and make money from it, but I
think kind of that's always in the background. But our goal,
the three of us, Michael Thompson, Adam Lang and I
as actually we reckon we can make some at the margins,
some slight difference, particularly to small and medium sized businesses,
particularly to investors, about making things better. Very altruistic. I
(11:12):
think I'm on my safebox. I'm God, I better stop
that right this moment. Thank you very much for talking
to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Thanks for having me you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
That was angered Seyn Managing Director Australia in New Zealand
and global Chief strategy officer at Zero, A great supporter
of this podcast. I'm Schanelmer and this is Fear and
Greed Q and Day
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.