Opinion: Millennials grew up during the startup boom. Now, MYOB CEO Paul Robson argues, many are taking a more measured path to business ownership, favouring dependable service businesses with recurring revenue.
For much of the past two decades, entrepreneurship has been synonymous with disruption. For many, success was measured in funding rounds, rapid scaling and ambitious plans to reinvent entire industries. The startup founder became a cultural icon, while traditional service businesses may have been viewed as less exciting paths to growth.
A quiet shift is now underway. A growing number of millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) are choosing to build more traditional businesses.
Businesses such as lawn mowing services, property maintenance, car washes or laundromats may not have always been considered glamorous, but they are proving to be anything but boring.
This new wave of business owner is redefining what ambition looks like and capitalising on businesses with proven demand, recurring revenue and long-term return.
Ask millennials what they want most from business ownership and the answer is not status or scale.
Disruption is no longer the rage
According to MYOB research, control over time is the single biggest motivator for starting a business, cited by 53% of millennials, compared with 43% of other generations.
However, this is an indicator of something bigger than changing workplace preferences.
Millennials are considering business ownership at a time when financial pressures, family responsibilities and economic uncertainty are reshaping traditional ideas of career success.
For many, owning a business is less about taking a speculative gamble and more about creating an asset that can generate wealth while providing greater control over how they spend their time.
Rather than piecing together multiple income streams or pursuing portfolio careers, millennials are building businesses designed to compound in value over time. They are choosing sectors where demand is tangible and customer relationships enduring.
Few examples illustrate this better than Erica Neale. At 37, the founder and CEO of Magnus All Property Services in Newcastle didn’t set out to build a seven-figure company. She and her business partner purchased a couple of lawn mowing runs through Facebook Marketplace to fill spare capacity and generate some additional income.
There was no business plan designed for investors. No vision for disrupting an industry. They simply focused on doing the work well.
Word of mouth quickly became their strongest growth engine. Today, what began as a small number of mowing rounds has evolved into a seven-figure property services business spanning mowing, pressure washing, strata maintenance, real estate services and commercial trade work across Newcastle and the Hunter region.
A cautious approach
In the same MYOB survey, among those considering starting a business, 62% of millennials have children under 18 living at home, more than double the rate recorded across other generations.
At the same time, millennials are significantly less likely to quit their jobs immediately to start a business, with only 14% willing to make the leap without first seeing evidence of stable revenue, compared with 22% of other generations.
This results in a measured approach to entrepreneurship, building businesses that can generate reliable income and withstand economic events.
At the heart of this approach is sector selection. MYOB’s SME Performance Indicator, based on anonymised data from more than 200,000 Australian businesses, identified property services as one of the strongest-performing sectors in the March quarter.
It is no accident this is where millennials are training their focus. Consumers may postpone a renovation or delay a major purchase, but lawns still need mowing, gutters still need clearing and properties still need maintaining. Demand for these essential, ongoing services will persist, regardless of broader economic conditions.
We are witnessing an important shift in how a generation thinks about business ownership. For years, entrepreneurship was portrayed as a pursuit of the new: the breakthrough app, the disruptive platform, the next unicorn.
But many millennials are reaching a different conclusion. One of the most effective paths to wealth is not always creating something entirely new. It may be owning and growing businesses that have been creating value for many years.
Striving for low-key success
The businesses being built this way may never attract headlines for a product launch or a venture capital raise.
But their success will be as meaningful: in strong customer relationships that place them at the forefront of a local community where they thrive.
It is a quieter form of entrepreneurship, but no less ambitious.
And as economic uncertainty continues to reshape how Australians think about work, wealth and opportunity, don’t be surprised if the future of entrepreneurship looks a lot less like Silicon Valley and a lot more like the local businesses that have kept communities running for generations.
Paul Robson is the CEO of software company MYOB.
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