Entrepreneurs and small business owners are often classed as a different breed and research from an accounting software company has revealed some interesting statistics such as nearly 20% of SME owners have been fired from their previous jobs before forming their own business.

The research was commissioned by SME accounting software company KashFlow who spoke to 1146 business owners from across the UK in order to try and get a better understanding of user needs and requirements.

Other interesting statistics from the research revealed;

When it came to the reasons why small business owners formed their own company 44.2% said it was because they were sick of their existing job and thought they could do better themselves, 37% said that they identified a niche idea or gap in an existing market, 7.6% said it was due to redundancy and 5.4% said they had no option as they could not find a job.

When asked which SME support network has most helped their business, Business Link led the way with 37.9% followed by the Federation of Small Business with 18.6%, 16.4% for online business advice forums such as UKSmallBusinessForums.co.uk and 15.5% for the Princes Trust.

Less than 10% of people asked said that the Chamber of Commerce had helped their business.

Duane Jackson is the Managing Director of KashFlow and speaking about the results he said,

"Not only have we got some really useful statistics that will help us to get a better focus on further developing KashFlow but we have also found some interesting facts around the mindset of an entrepreneur".

He continued, "The fact that nearly 20% of small business owners have at some time in their career been fired really made me sit up and wonder if there is a potential culture clash between the SME owner and the typical 9-5 brigade".

Wider research found that small business owners see Virgin as the best example of a large organisation that still has the entrepreneurial spirit and cited Dell as the biggest example of a once entrepreneurial company that has left its small business freedom behind.