B2B data collection from business owners & founders
Owners, founders and entrepreneurs are among the most commercially valuable B2B audiences and among the hardest to reach at scale. Norstat recruits and verifies business owners and founders across Europe through panel, custom outreach and digital targeting — defined by company ownership, headcount, revenue band and sector so the data reflects genuine owner-operator perspective.
What you can find out from business owners & founders
Owner-operators have direct visibility of their company’s financial position, strategic priorities and buying decisions in a way that employees typically do not. That makes them a uniquely reliable source for several types of B2B data collection.
SME Market Studies
Collect data on business outlook, investment intentions, revenue expectations, hiring plans and sentiment across SME segments by sector, size and country.
Regulatory & Policy Impact
Understand how regulation, administrative burden, tax policy, employment law and cross-border trade requirements affect small business decision-making.
Product & Service Adoption
Measure awareness, trial, usage and satisfaction with products and services among the people who have full control over what their business buys and uses.
Ownership verified, not assumed
Recruiting genuine business owners across company sizes
The term business owner covers a wide range — from a sole trader with no employees to the majority shareholder of a 500-person company. We define the target based on what your study actually requires: ownership stake, headcount band, revenue range, sector and number of employees the owner manages directly.
Screening confirms ownership status and business size before participation. For studies requiring additional confidence, business email and company-domain verification confirms the company exists and the respondent is affiliated with it.
Panel, digital outreach and custom recruitment
How we reach business owners at scale across Europe
Business owners and founders are reachable through a combination of our B2B panel, verified consumer panel screening and targeted digital outreach. For broader SME studies, panel coverage is often sufficient when combined with robust screening on ownership and company size. For narrower definitions — specific sectors, revenue bands or founding-stage companies — targeted outreach and LinkedIn-based recruitment extend reach beyond panel.
Feasibility varies significantly by country, company size and sector and is assessed upfront so fieldwork targets are realistic from the start.
From policy studies to market validation
Use cases that depend on owner-operator perspective
Studies that need to understand actual business decisions — not delegated or departmental ones — often require genuine business owners. This includes policy and regulatory studies assessing the impact of legislation on small businesses, market validation studies testing demand for products with SME buyers, pricing studies where the owner controls the budget, and NPS or satisfaction studies where the owner is the end customer.
We support both large-scale quantitative studies across thousands of SME owners and smaller, targeted samples for specific sectors, founding stages or company sizes.
SME owners recruited across 22 European markets
800+
B2B projects delivered every year across Europe, including large-scale SME barometer studies, regulatory impact studies and market validation programmes involving thousands of verified business owners.
Talk to a B2B data collection expert
Tell us the ownership profile, company size, sector and markets you need, and we will assess feasibility and recommend a recruitment approach.
Frequently asked questions
Can you distinguish between business owners and senior employees in a survey?
What company sizes can you recruit business owners from?
Can you recruit founders at a specific company stage?
Can you support large-scale SME studies across multiple European markets?
What is the difference between recruiting a business owner and an SME decision-maker?
Ready to collect data from business owners across Europe?
Tell us your ownership profile, company size, sector and markets, and we will come back with feasibility, a recruitment approach and recommended verification.
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