Doug Richard is a successful and well known entrepreneur with 20 years’ experience in the development and leadership of technology and software ventures, Doug featured in the first two TV series of Dragon’s Den. He is the Founder and Vice-Chairman of the Cambridge Angels and Chairman of the Conservative Party Small Business Task Force.
He has always been a champion for start-ups and small businesses. In 2008, after teaching a one-day class in entrepreneurship, Doug decided to develop an enterprise dedicated to helping people start better, more profitable, businesses. Since starting in 2008 he has taught thousands in face to face and online classes across the UK.
His wry, candid, practical and ultimately upbeat courses in how to start a business quickly, with a minimum of outside investment and how to grow and market a business efficiently make him a very sought after speaker. (We know from experience how good he is).
As Doug says, “Entrepreneurship can be taught and must be learned.” A statement very true to this site.
If want help starting a new business, or making your current enterprise more profitable, Doug invites you to attend a School for Startups or S4Stv event.
In this current economy (and the future economy), do you agree that it is more important than ever that students start to learn to become more entrepreneurial? And the only way that you are really going to learn is by starting something?
I absolutely agree that young people, both those in school and those out, benefit greatly from starting businesses. Any passion can be made entrepreneurial and the most successful entrepreneurs are quite passionate.
To refine that reply . . . {AF template=round_quotes} I believe passionate, hardworking young people benefit most when they receive instruction in how to evaluate business opportunities and how to grow businesses from entrepreneurs who have successfully done those things in the past. Once these young people have a good grounding in what has worked for others, and once they have explored the flexible opportunistic mindset of working entrepreneurs, they are well prepared to give their first business a whirl. {/AF}
In a perfect world, how could the government support young people to take a stab at starting something?
I think the best answer comes from my declaration of rights:
“We must stop paying people to be un‐employed and begin to share the cost of them being taught to be employed. Apprenticeship is not solely for the trades; it is for any job in any company. We face a lost generation of students and young graduates with no hope for jobs whilst employers have no means to underwrite the period they need to make those students into productive employees.”
Currently the government pays for people who are unemployed to be on the dole. But why not make it an option for the government to offer that money to business so they can apprentice that person?
Initially a young person is of no significant use to the company. However the money is of use, and that funding can buy the apprentice access to a profession he does want to undertake and mentors who know how to get where he’s trying to go.
The great value of a prince is that they train their whole lives to be kings.
Initially the value of an apprentice to a business is very low, but with time and training a good apprentice will become a very successful business professional working the industry of his choice. That kind of apprentice is an asset to any company. Everyone wins.
Is there anything else you want to say about the government?
I’ve said a great deal about government directly to government in my Entrepreneur’s Manifesto. You can find it on my site at Schoolforstartups. As I mentioned above, I am not anti-government. But I’m very alarmed at the strange relationship between government and big business as it has developed over the last several years.
Small and medium sized enterprises employ more than half of the people in the UK, and they generate more than 50% of the GDP. So why are so many tax breaks, subsidies and direct benefits going to the large multinationals that can, at a whim, move money and jobs out of the UK? I feel like we spend way too many of our resources wooing these enterprises.
More failures in business equals more success, right? If we had a vast increase of people getting an entrepreneurial education or having a go a starting a business (at a younger age) then even if these people went back to 9 to 5 work, it would dramatically help the wider economy?
Absolutely. Confronting the mechanics of the market directly helps people have more insight into what works and what doesn’t. If you have always worked a 9 to 5 job, always had a paycheck, it can be pretty baffling when a small change in bank interest rates has a huge impact on the economy.
{AF template=round_quotes} I think entrepreneurship should be taught in schools and am working to see that it is. {/AF}
Those who have owned a small business immediately understand that higher interest rates on loans means less money to spend on new business development. It means customers have less money to spend because their credit card rates are higher.
Can you offer us a little insight to the mindset of successful business people (and how they differ from the rest)…
Entrepreneurs literally see problems as opportunities. Entrepreneurs get to the beach on a rainy day and think “Man, I wish I had some umbrella’s to sell. Where can I get some?” They look for the upside in everything. And the best of them are fairly altruistic. They have to be.
{AF template=round_quotes} Because to understand what makes people want to buy something, you have to understand people. You have to identify with them. And you have to want to help them. {/AF}
This is why you see folks like Branson and Gates, and even Donald Trump who has a reputation for being quite opportunistic, making some of the biggest philanthropic donations in the world.
And your top tips to our UK students who want to be successful in whatever they choose be?
Sometimes young people get a notion in their head about what is achievable based on the people they happen to see around them. They say, “People like me can’t . . . .”
Well, people like you can.
{AF template=round_quotes} Here’s my only advice. Your worst mistake is not following your heart. {/AF}
What you need to do is decide what you want more than anything else in the world. You must then spend all your time working to achieve that goal. If you care about your objective, you will be willing to invest the 10-14 hours a day required to achieve success. You will find it easy to network with people who share your determination. You will recognize mentors who can help you, and they will recognize themselves and their aspirations in you.
Your job is to choose an important goal and then to be determined, passionate, resilient enough to achieve it.
Never forget the world needs you. We, as a planet, have a lot of things we must do in the years ahead . . . We can’t do it without you. So get to work.