We live in a world where there are thousands of new entrepreneurs every day to introduce a new innovation. Over 90% of Australian businesses are small businesses, owning one-third of the overall GDP and employing 40 percent of the country’s workforce.

While there are risks in starting your own venture, more and more Australians are willing to accept these as nothing in life is certain to begin with. So why not try to be your own boss?

We often think of an entrepreneur as someone like Mark Zuckerberg, an engineer-turned-CEO who invented a whole new kind of technology that quickly permeated our daily social life. But there are many different kinds of entrepreneurs.

Tradie Entrepreneur

Trades & Services is a fast-growing industry with over 20% increase in job opportunities in the past year. As a highly sought out talent pool, tradies can easily gain employment experience which will help them set up a client base of their own and become a solopreneur.

Some would acquire or merge with other small businesses to accelerate their growth and stabilise their chances of success. As you scale from solopreneurship to a business, you may want to explore vocational education and training to strengthen practical skills needed to better manage your operations and enhance your marketing and sales efforts.

Sustainability depends on how well an entrepreneur leverages all the relevant resources and tools available. Many early-stage founders struggle with administrative aspects of running a business such as bookkeeping and customer support. Having to learn a wide range of new skills is inherent in entrepreneurship. Self-improvement simply comes with the territory.

Digital Nomad

There are a plethora of programs that offer travel packages where you go to a certain number of countries within a certain period of time. Some offer learning programs for aspiring entrepreneurs. Others provide internship or work opportunities in various destinations.

32% of Aussies have undertaken some freelance work in the past year and the Australian Government is aiming to get 12% of the workforce to work remotely. Thanks to the rise of the gig economy, freelancer careers became a lifestyle globally. Thanks to social media and other social digital platforms, freelancers can easily build their own brand and business as a web developer, blogger, influencer, etc.

Being able to travel and document your amazing journey can make you a business owner. Anything is possible now as long as you have a passion and willingness to be scrappy. Building your own website no longer requires coding skills and digital ads is easy for anyone to set up.

Be an Intrapreneur

You don’t have to start a whole new venture to be an innovator. You can become a subject matter expert (SME) within any organization and establish your career as an intrapreneur. Catalyse changes and help execute them successfully. This has a distinct advantage of using massive resources available at your company to introduce a new product or strategy that can have a tangible impact in your industry.

Being an intrapreneur will open doors to many exciting opportunities. A change management expert or consultant, head of innovation hub or think tank, owner of a spinoff venture funded by a bigger enterprise.

In order to improve employee retention and enable faster innovation and growth, many companies now actively invest in programs that allow intrapreneurs to start a new line of business and support side projects/hustles. It is like setting up a new startup without having to go through any of the stress that comes with fundraising.

Being a founder is not a singular path. Anyone can shape their desired career path into a road to financial and creative freedom.