Founder of eco-friendly beauty products company Ethique, Brianne West, says she often receives mentoring requests from people trying to create or scale businesses trying to solve environmental or social problems. Photo: (Supplied)
A well-known entrepreneur has launched a new initiative to help prevent the failure of start-ups that have an environmental or social purpose.
The founder of eco-friendly beauty products company Ethique, Brianne West, has started the Business, but Better initiative, aimed at teaching budding entrepreneurs everything there was to know about business.
It came as she stepped down as Ethique's chief executive, nearly 11 years after launching it as a 24-year-old biochemistry student.
West said she often received mentoring requests from people trying to create or scale businesses that were trying to solve environmental or social problems.
"[The initiative covers] everything from business foundations - so imagine something as simple as setting up a limited liability company or how to buy a domain name for people who have literally never done anything like this before," she said.
The initiative would also teach things such as setting up an export market, the process of raising capital and finding investors.
"I'm trying to make it an all-encompassing programme," West said.
It would also draw on knowledge from finance and legal experts.
West said setting up a business was the easy part, but keeping it running was a different matter.
"Less than 10 percent survive their first 10 years.
"The number one reason that companies fail is cash-flow, or simply running out of cash. The second reason is a product/market fit or simply not having a product that anybody wanted."
West said within three weeks of launching, her programme's first marketing course intake was already full and attracted interest from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
