High Growth Entrepreneurs: “Help Wanted”

The Young Entrepreneurs Organization (YEO) is a group of “business professionals, all of whom are under 40 years of age and are the owners, founders, co-founders, or controlling shareholders of a company with annual sales of million or more.” In many cities, this group represents the leading edge of high growth entrepreneurs. This group is clearly an economic bell-weather.
In a recent poll of their membership, they found that 84 percent were planning on hiring in the next few months, and 11 percent indicated that they plan to hire at least 10 employees this year. Even more see growth in their companies over the next year, with 92 percent expecting sales to grow this year compared to last year.
“Mark Comiso, owner of Sunnyvale, California-based Liquid Digital and president of the YEO Silicon Valley-Bay Area Chapter, is one that fits this trend. ‘I’ve sold one company, started a new one, bought capital equipment, and plan to hire at least two or three more people this year,’ explains Comiso. ‘Overall, these statistics are a very good quantification of the increased chatter I’ve heard from the business owners that I know.’ Comiso adds, ‘I was personally surprised to see that many are hiring — the number was almost unanimous — but it is representative of what is going on in our space.'”
This study was reported in the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship.