The Serial Entrepreneur
When did your first ever entrepreneurial traits start manifesting themselves?
I never had a lemonade stand outside my house or any very early age money making schemes.
In fact, I only picked up on the word ‘entrepreneur’ when I was about 16 and bought a book called How I Made It by Rachel Bridge, in which successful people were interviewed about their route to success.
The first real buzz came when I was at uni and someone on my course asked if I’d be interested in producing a musical, which sounded like an interesting challenge. Raising money and sponsorship, recruiting the cast, crew and production team, working with set designers and publicity teams and putting on a sell out show, was really enjoyable.
What did you learn from that particular experience?
My first sponsor taught me that if you don’t ask, you don’t get, and to always persist if you don’t get an answer first time. I was fortunate to have some fantastic production managers far more organised than I was - the power of a great team.
The main thrill was to be drawing a picture one month and seeing the set of exactly that picture just a few months later. Subconsciously, I must have learned that if you can paint a picture in your mind, you can achieve it – the dangerous thing is having nothing to aim for.
What did it inspire you to do next?
The people I’d worked on the musical with wanted to change the way students discovered interesting jobs; we thought the careers fair was pretty uninspiring.
So together we founded Amazingyou, which held events in nine cities and had a team of 150 people making them happen. With support from Saatchi and Saatchi, we were able to raise money, get a London office and attract a fantastic range of companies and students.
Talk us through the enterprising ideas you’ve made happen or helped to make happen.
I’ve worked with some really talented people to get their ideas off the ground and taken a shareholding in return for joining the team part-time – so that’s relatively unusual.
Simon Murdoch founded the FriendsAbroad.com language learning exchange which now has almost 300,000 people practising over a hundred languages online. Soflow is a business website where you can meet and interact with like-minded people. SockRush is a simple idea which has really taken off – selling men’s socks on subscription!
Horsemouth is the first charity I’ve worked with – it’s a site where people can connect with others to pass on their life experience – so whatever you’re going through, there will be someone out there who has been there too.
I’m passionate about the web’s ability to put people together and I think we’re only just discovering what that might enable. Three years ago I brought the idea of speed networking to the UK because I found regular business events could be pretty stagnant.
The concept is a bit like speed dating; you talk to the person next to you for three minutes about your business or idea, then move on to someone else when the whistle blows.
It’s a great way to bring people together from a wide range of industries – that’s what you need when you’re starting up a venture. I’ve brought thousands of people together since then and I still love hosting them.
What lessons have you learned along the way?
- Help other people - what goes around comes around.
- Persistence is essential – be polite and don’t be afraid to follow up when you’ve not had an answer. Successful people know how to say ‘no’, so silence does not always mean ‘no’, it means ‘I’m busy’.
- Surround yourself with positive, supportive people who you can bounce ideas off, and who can be constructive about your plans.
- Set clear goals for the short, medium and long term.
- Try to see the difference between someone’s general opinion and their view based on experience. That’s why you need a mentor – they’ve been where you want to go.
- Most opportunities come from people we know slightly. So find smart ways of keeping in touch.
- Nothing will change the pace or path of your life quicker than meeting an amazing person or reading an amazing book – so your mission is to find both!
What would you say are your strengths, as an entrepreneur? And your weak points?
I think I’m good at putting people and ideas together, but I’m not hugely well organised, so I need people working with me who are. I have a good feel for numbers, but don’t ask me to show you round a profit and loss sheet in any intimate detail.
How did you develop the concept of Speed Networking?
A great guy called Mike Grenville let me experiment with it during one of his own events – he’d had a speaker pull out at the last minute.
That gave me the confidence to hold an event of my own, and I invited everyone in my network. Because it was an early week night, I found certain venues would give me a room for free, so the events didn’t cost anything. I collected the positive comments from the first event and added then to the bottom of the second invitation.
Overall the benefits of starting your own event far outweigh the costs. You get to keep in touch with your favourite people and have an excuse to see them - that leads to you attracting loads of opportunities. Finally, you create good will across hundreds of people which can be helpful further in the future. Try it!
What advice would you give to anyone else who wants to make their idea happen?
Draw it on a piece of blank paper. Find someone you think has done something similar and ask to pick their brains. Tell people about it and make it very clear who you are looking for, don’t just pitch them the idea.
Use Google Alerts to keep in touch with your areas of interest. Have some personal cards made even before you have a business. Set some clear goals and timelines, and the biggest better be big.
Get some sleep and keep fit otherwise your energy and creativity will suffer. Don’t be afraid to be playing with several ideas at once and moving them all along, they will fuel each other. Long shots sometimes work, so keep trying them; the more extreme the better.
Finally - start young. Google, Dell, Microsoft, Fedex, Dominos, Nike, Yahoo! and Apple were all founded by students, ‘drop-outs’ or recent graduates.
Next steps:
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