Entrepreneur Brianne West, Founder of New Zealand’s largest regenerative beauty export, Ethique, is stepping down as the CEO of the company to launch a new initiative to support Kiwi Social enterprises – Business, but Better.
West launched the initiative to “reduce the failure” of environmental and social purpose start-ups across New Zealand.
In the latest government data, it revealed that 45 percent of start-ups, including those with a social mission, will survive past their first five years. The Business, but Better initiative was created to support that 55 percent that don’t.
After building up Ethique from her kitchen to a now $100 million business, West is stepping down as CEO after 11 years and using her knowledge and skills within the business world to support others.
She will however remain with Ethique to support them through product, sustainability and brand focuses.
West says that there is a “significant amount of entrepreneurial talent in New Zealand” but there is a lack of female mentors, which is especially important when research shows women prefer to be guided by other women.
Further research shows that women are more likely to start up a business but are often faced with barriers such as inaccessibility to information funding and gender-specific networks and support.
Read more: Ethique’s CEO gets very own Barbie doll as role model of the year
Through the Business, but Better initiative, West hopes to tackle these barriers, helping entrepreneurs to learn from “the ‘many’ mistakes made while Ethique was in its startup phase”.
“Learning from these experiences and many others, I wanted to create a resource and sounding board for other entrepreneurs to learn from the misadventures I experienced during the start-up phase,” says West.
The Business, but Better initiative will provide entrepreneurs with video resources, group mentoring and one-on-one mentoring that will cover topics from branding, funding and exporting.
Just three weeks after launching the initiative, West says it has generated large-scale attention from founders in the UK, the US, Australia and more.
“The level of demand has caught us by surprise; however, we believe it is a reflection of the unmet need for greater support for social start-ups both locally and abroad,” says West.
“We know that social enterprises are much more likely to be led by women than traditional start-ups, and they are often headed by young entrepreneurs.”
She adds that for these young entrepreneurs, there is little support for them and is a significant contributor for their high failure rate.
“The objective of the programme is to remove some of the common pitfalls associated with launching a business and help these fledging ventures make it to maturity,” she says.
