{"id":70076,"date":"2022-07-01T10:45:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T08:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-za\/blog\/?p=70076"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:54:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:54:37","slug":"covid-19-businesses-the-age-of-the-new-entrepreneur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-za\/blog\/covid-19-businesses-the-age-of-the-new-entrepreneur\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 businesses: The age of the new entrepreneur"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tCOVID-19 businesses: The age of the new entrepreneur\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

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When you learn to drive an automatically transmitted vehicle, you\u2019re more likely to struggle to operate a manual one. But, if you learn the hard way first, you can easily drive both.<\/p>\n

What does this have to do with entrepreneurship?<\/p>\n

Well, businesses founded pre-pandemic operated in a world of predictability. They were mostly set in their ways and, in turn, were hit hard when lockdown changed everything. However, businesses founded during the pandemic learned how to operate during hard times, giving them a better chance of adapting to change.<\/p>\n

In other words, pre-pandemic businesses needed to learn how to go from the metaphorical automated transmission to manual transmission, whereas pandemic businesses started \u201cdriving a manual\u201d and could adapt to both easily.<\/p>\n

So, does this mean the COVID-19 business generation is more likely to succeed? It\u2019s too soon to tell, but they are certainly more confident and adaptable, according to new research from Sage.<\/p>\n

Learning to swim in the deep end<\/h2>\n

Despite facing more challenges related to staffing, recruiting talent, productivity, and general lack of government funding, 57% of the COVID-19 generation businesses are confident in their revenue growth for the next six months \u2013 versus 48% of pre-pandemic business confidence.<\/p>\n

Moreover, many COVID-19 businesses started using tech from the get-go, minimising the need for the digital transformation that many pre-pandemic SMEs had to navigate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe way we make money has changed, and so has the way we manage it. Making money online used to be rare; now, it\u2019s normal. The same goes for how we manage our money. We used to have to do our accounting manually, but now we use cloud accounting,\u201d says Thandolwethu Ndlovu from Small Steps to Freedom.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Confidence in numbers<\/h2>\n

In the 2022 global Small Business, Big <\/em><\/strong>Opportunity<\/strong><\/a> survey, Sage interviewed over 13,000 SMEs in 11 countries on how they are faring two years into the pandemic. Our research included more than 1,000 South African SMEs to get insight into how they\u2019re currently doing and how they feel about the future.<\/p>\n

The results revealed that COVID-19 businesses are, on average, more confident than pre-pandemic SMEs:<\/p>\n