 Ac e'n deall, mae'n ddweud y byddai cyngor o'r dweud yng nghymru inclusionaiddio global, mae'n bwysig cyd-wyr i'r ffordd o'r ddweud eich ddweud o'r ddweud yng Nghymru ifanc yng Nghymru, ac mae'n ddweud eich ddweud y cwestiynau'r ddweud, mae'n meddwl i'r ddweud yng nghymru Andrew Devanport. Ddodd y byddai gweithio argymau, Matthew, mae'n ddweud eich ddweud eich ddweud i'r ddweud o ddweud yn gwirio i'r ddweud i'r ddweud. Cup co ent garantosio yma chi eisiau elffin fel casgliad suggestions fel as ferch ifancunaeth ac mae gennyn nhw'n de rydd Da i heel�m cymaint pa chi price nogadol i'i perfuddag yw trafnod ac yn gwneud unig Therefore er bod dyna cais ei ddlaen canwig o'r w buns that y generation It's been a fantastic year so far, and I'm delighted to be able to announce that this year's campaign will see a record-breaking 3,000 events around the country, which will involve 300,000 people, so roughly 1,000 times this auditorium, I think, which is 30% more than last year. Now, hosting GEW, we get a unique view of the different kinds of organisations working to support enterprise around the UK. From schools and colleges, regional organisations, incubators, business parks, voluntary groups, socially-minded business, and apparently even the odd exceptional library. One hears a lot about the entrepreneurial ecosystem with good reason. A flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem provides efficient and effective support to business creators wherever they are on their journey. For enterprise supporters and promoters like myself, that has to be our goal. In a world of very finite resources, the government, the private sector, the individual and organisations like YBI can do more to collaborate. Building an entrepreneurial culture, providing educational support and access, promoting networks, is the job of enterprise supporters. GEW does these things, brings them into focus, and it's only worth it if it makes a meaningful difference to its beneficiaries. So we're here tonight to limit the number of times people feel compelled to reinvent the wheel. And the best way to do so is to learn from those who have experience. The vast majority of businesses, new businesses in the world, are started up with family capital in family with family know-how. In the YBI network, we replicate these conditions for young people who don't have such opportunities. It means that mentoring is a critical component of support. It means that we're constantly nagging the government and banks to recognise the risk-reducing qualities of non-financial support. An entrepreneur with a good mentor is an entrepreneur with collateral. Recently, YBI held its annual Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition. Competitors were drawn from our 35 countries of our network and the winner was a fellow named Naibu Yu from China. An Naibu Yu has an amazing business in educational software. His business enables teachers to provide real-time customised curriculums to each student that they teach so that you spend your time learning what you don't know or find difficult. Sounds great for the teacher, great for the parent and possibly a nightmare for the child. But he founded this business with nothing but an idea and a small loan and a mentor in 2008. It now employs 200 people with revenues of $20 million and an annual growth rate off the charts. So I asked Naibu how he was going to continue to grow and he responded by slowing down. He explained that in the rush to continuously grow, entrepreneurs sometimes forget to take time to consolidate their business before focusing on where they go next. So, if I may, to kick off tonight's debate and in the spirit of passing on theme of this year's GEW, my question to our esteemed panel tonight is about dealing with growth. What were the key growth-related challenges you have faced in your business and how have you addressed them? Thank you. Thank you very much, Andrew. Great stuff. And just to let you know that we're sure you mentioned China and we've had a tweet in from a message in from... We are celebrating Global Entrepreneurship Week in Pakistan says Telsif Zaman. Interesting ideas are popping up. How can we collaborate? So the word is spreading. Well done, Andrew. Thank you. Great stuff. OK. Who would like to tackle Andrew's question about what's been the most challenging moments of growth in your journey so far? Maybe Stephen, you can talk about that for a moment. Yeah, OK. I think growth is always what we're all looking for. You know, you start a business with an idea that you're going to survive initially and then grow after that. It's interesting to note just a point that at the British Library we have an amazing success rate at mentoring businesses and helping businesses succeed. Our failure rate is something like one in ten, which is an almost exact reversal of the national failure rate. So we've got a very high success rate here of mentoring businesses, so it's important. With regards to growth, I think the big challenge I think initially for businesses is to focus on putting your money back into your business. I mean, I don't know whether Charlie and other people here have thought about, you know, have the same experience, but for us the concentration is to make sure that you grow your business by reinvesting back in initially. Because if what you do is you start off, you can't grow that business if you suddenly go out and spend money on non-essential things. Maybe you don't necessarily need to go and spend the money you've just made last week on a whole new Apple complete integrated system in the office. Maybe you can make do without and invest that money back in growth. Don't go out and rent that flash car, invest it in machinery. Don't go on holiday. Everyone needs a break, but don't go and spend the money. Spend the money on your business and go on holiday when your business is working. So to fund growth organically, because going out and borrowing money at the moment isn't easy. And getting investors involved, investors ask questions, we ask questions, people come to us. And I want to see when people come to us and they're talking about would we be interested. I want to see people that are saying, we're going to put this money into what, into something that's going to help generate sales. Because you generate growth by generating sales. Make no mistake about that. With no sales, you have no business. Charlie, what's been the most difficult transition that you've had to make in the business as you've grown it and the bit that's challenged you personally the most? Yeah, well as Steve said there, we certainly put the money back in the business to keep it running in that. And my answer to it was to employ more sort of charlies if you think, to get more of myself out there doing the job. So employing more people obviously meant more sales, more growth. For me, you know, we can't be a success there business without, you know, the more people we employ, the more trades persons on the road. You know, it's where we bring in obviously our income. And you know, as I said, we have 200 people on board now and still growing. And for me, the artist challenge in certainly my business is, you know, who you employ, you know, staff. And it's probably something that, you know, a lot of people agree with and have had the same problem. And a good news is, you know, there is some good people out there. There is people that want to succeed in life and do well. And, you know, if you can get them on board with you, then it's a winner. Gentleman, was there a moment, or indeed you all, when you felt that this was going to develop from being a, you know, beautiful but small business into one that really needed much more professionalising, much more, you know, systems and the like within it? I think we always, at least I did always think big but acted small. You know, for example, we ran our business from our flat and onesworth for two years. We didn't pay rent, you know. When the goods were delivered for House of Fraser, I remember, they used to be delivered at 11. If I didn't turn that around by five, there was no sitting room. There was no television that night. And that was keeping costs under control, fixed costs under control was paramount in the beginning. But the one thing I really thought about was the answer to this question is really partnerships. And who do you form your partnerships with? And the first big challenge to us was to find a factory that we could work with. That a factory that would actually work with us. And at the time they were doing Burberry, they had a massive Burberry line. And somehow we persuaded this man up in Norwich to make our handbags. And then from there we learned all the skill and the 30, 40 years of experience from his people, which we were able to take into our DNA and into our business. And that was a major, major break at that particular stage. But it's about the partnerships with your customers, partnerships with your suppliers. And then ultimately finance is always going to be a problem. So you've got to have a partnership with the person who's giving you finance, which is your bank manager. And we went through four banks to get to where we are now. But we got there and that's very, very important as well. Great. Thank you very much, all of you. I think it's time to get the audience. We've got loads of questions online, but we mustn't forget the people in front of us. So who'd like to kick off with questions? And I believe there are some mics around. Are there some mics around? There's a lady at the front. You may have to speak loudly. Right. That's a great question. And also it relates to one that we've had online as well about in the early days, what are the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make? So any setbacks so far, Sam? Anything that you've tried out and thought, oops, you've pushed through? The mistakes probably are the things that I haven't done and thought maybe that I should have done. And it's just really being too scared or too nervous to make the mistakes. For me it was definitely I lived at home, lived with my parents. And at a young age it's an excellent time to make mistakes because it's not going to be life changing for you. If you get to sort of 40, 50 years old when you've got a mortgage, you've got people to care for and you actually have to do things in life which if you don't have money come in it's a real issue. Whereas for me it was sort of I was living at home with my parents so I could make mistakes. I knew that I was always going to come home to a warm country house and always have food on the table and I could make those mistakes and know that they're always going to be their support for me. So I have definitely made mistakes along the way and if anyone's sort of worried about making mistakes, don't because it's the things that you learn from and it's the mistakes that I've learned from to make my business what it is today. Let's have a quick whiz on that. Something quick. We nearly went bust in the last recession I think in sort of 1990 and the mistake really was, I don't think I was serious enough about the business. We never had no structure in place and I felt I could do everything myself so I don't know really any successful businesses that have not made mistakes to get where you are today. The good news about it is that if you do survive the mistakes you come out a lot stronger for it and certainly you don't make the mistakes again. Any particular ones that you reflect on Stephen that you thought actually it was terrible at the time but I learnt a lot from it? Yeah loads. Well one is keeping your eye on your own business, this is my succinct answer to it. You have to watch your own business regardless of who you employ because if you don't watch it eventually someone else will and that person will be an administrator. My point of this is that we had a business, a property business at the time, where we were building a large block of flats and we employed the wrong person to do the job. We didn't watch it, I was focused, we've got over 70, I don't know how many it is, 60 or 70 projects worldwide and I didn't watch it closely enough and the people around me didn't watch it closely enough and we let one guy go rampant with running a business not being closely watched. And what he succeeded in doing was losing a 7 million quid in about four and a half months. We survived and that business survived but the point is if you don't focus and you don't watch your business you will end up in trouble, ultimately you will end up in trouble. Can I just finish this point? There's one real point about focus and it's what I call you've got to have a leopard moment and a leopard moment is this. In the jungle a female leopard watches her prey, focuses on it with her cubs in the bush. She watches that prey totally with no blinking. When the moths realise the female leopard is hunting they come out the sky and they drink from her eyeball and she doesn't blink and she doesn't flinch. And the reason is she focuses on her prey and she gets the prey and that night the cubs eat. If you don't do that with your business you will fail. You have to focus on your business. In our case with so many projects I take a file out, I focus on it. If the phone rings, much to sometimes some of my colleagues and friends dismay, I don't answer it and the reason I don't do anything till I finish that file and then I put that file to one side and then I take another file and then I deal with that and you have to focus. So my ultimate answer is focus on your business, don't allow someone else to run it for you. Great answer, thank you all, thank you for those. I'd like to turn to a couple of questions online related to entering new markets and two for you actually all at once. Have you ever thought about expanding your brand into a different market for example children's wear or men's wear and the other one related. How does a brand like yours enter a new market in the current economic climate but all together entering new markets and whether you've thought about expanding it beyond where you are now to those degrees? Well we've, I mean in the past five years we've entered quite a few new markets and I suppose the one thing I would say is it takes time to kind of plan and develop the product for a new market. So you know you have to kind of plan a year in advance really to get product out there and you know to sell it. You know we've just launched a home wear which we started talking about I suppose about a year ago but you know you really have to I suppose have everything kind of set up. You have to know where you're going to make it, you have to know who you're going to sell it to. You know you have to really establish that there is a market for it. But knowing I mean that particular question about children's wear and men's wear I mean that yeah I can see your reaction from it. There are some markets that for you feel comfortable and some that feel less so. Children's wear is one we have spoken about and we probably at some point will do it. You can't do everything at the same time so you know we're currently you know working on so many different things at the moment. I only really want to want to do something when I'm absolutely ready. But we have we've started in a way we've done children's books and you know we're talking about how maybe that can probably develop into something a bit more. We worked to a five year plan and the big decision was men's wear versus home wear and it came down and home wear was more logical. The one we did and that's what we focused on. Yeah. Great. Who's next with a question in the audience and we do have some mics so. Right. There's a gentleman here. If you could wait for the mic that'll make sure that it gets broadcast properly. Thank you very much. My question is about finances. Basically when you are growing started your business most of the entrepreneur has facing problem to reach money to found the plan. I mean you need to invest a lot of money and promotion and adverts. So how do you do that even just you don't have sale record to show to the to the bank that you are a successful business. How do you convince the financial side that you are the right guy to have the money. Yeah. Well it's it's the big one isn't it and there is questions online about this about and actually developing it on questions about. What if your business requires quite a lot of funding at the start. A number of you have talked about self funding at the start. But some businesses do require major up front investment in the early stages. So let's let's each of you have a shot at this about persuading and working on getting finances as an early stage entrepreneur. I'd say plan plan plan again and make sure that every plan you do has at least three scenarios. You know good best better and also plan for when things go wrong. The key thing for me is margin and to make sure that the margin is flowing through the business plan and that you're actually spending that money correctly. So it's I'm lucky in that I spent time in working for GKN and it was just ingrained in us that everything had to get a 40% margin absolute minimum. I wasn't looked at and we've always had that rule and you'd apply those rule that rule even to an early stage business trying to get its self off the ground. You know you have to show that kind of data in the plan. You've got to be profitable. You know and even if you're going to make a loss in year one you've got to show why you're making that loss and why you're going to make a profit in year two. And you've got to sort of follow it through and you can't be over ambitious to you've got to take a really really conservative view on your business plan because the bankers are going to be unbelievably conservative particularly in the present climate. Stephen. Yeah I'll give some what I consider real time answers to this. I agree totally with everything you said there. My real time answer to this is if you're a small business and you're looking to raise money and you need 20,000, 30,000 quid basically that's what a lot of people starting out. You know that's the sort of money we're not talking millions necessarily. There are various ways you can go about raising that money. And I'll just list a couple. One is because it might give practical help to the people listening. One is cloud funding. The cloud funding is excellent. Sorry crowd funding I meant. I've got iPhones on my mind sorry about that. Start again. Crowd funding. Crowd funding the way it operates basically is that you go out to a crowd predominantly on the internet and you are going to ask that crowd to invest in your project or your business deal. It has its problems. One is plagiarism, people copying your idea because by nature you're going out to the general public and you can't get them all to sign an NDA and on disclosure agreement for those that don't know what that is. It's just not practical so it has its dangers but it has its good side because if you've got say a particular business it might appeal to a large amount of people you might be able to access through the net. There is a possibility you could raise your money that way. So that's one thing you can do. Secondly you can come to an investor who might just put the money into your business for a share of the action. This is the sort of thing we look at. And I agree entirely with what Dylan said. The problem you're going to have to give them a proper plan. They're not going to be very happy about funding your business if you don't know your business. I don't want people coming to me and asking me how they should run their business. I want them to tell me how they're going to run it first and then I can maybe help them enhance that. But they have to have an idea themselves. If they want to have a plumbing business being a plumber is a good start. Let's be honest about it because Charlie understands his business totally. Good example of someone that's focused on something throughout his career made a fantastic success of it. You can go on the BBA website, British Bankers Association website. Just put BBA at the British Bankers Association into the Google Strap Line. And there are quite a lot of grants available around the UK. Where you'd be surprised how you can raise money that you don't necessarily have to pay back. Providing you can provide a case to them which goes back to making sure that you've got your act together. So there are various ways. Thirdly you can go along to your bank and ask them. But they will be much more likely to lend to you if you have someone with you that has experience and knows the way it's going. So you do need to do your research. You need to know your business. You need to produce that business plan. None of us that might be investors are expecting a young person to come forward with a wonderfully written. Business plan that's been put together in every because the problem with business plans they're maps. They're a roadmap. You plan to go from here to Watford and you're going to take a certain road. Unfortunately there's an accident so you divert business is just like that. You create a business plan along that road. You will find diversions and you have to follow those diversions. So a business plan is merely a map so you don't need to be too detailed about some of it. But you will need to prove to the investor whether they're a bank. Even the crowd if you go out to crowdfunding that you have something that's viable. So that's practical. Thank you very much Stephen. And just to the point Sam. How have you found it in terms of the credibility that you're required to have? I mean your track record speaks for itself. But still you might have been going to get finance. And you're a young man with a big hopes and dreams. What have you found that's been most effective? Originally prior to actually coming to starting up and actually getting the gadgets myself in the UK. I thought well maybe I might need actually a loan from the bank to buy more stock from the US and actually be able to buy it in that way. The bank even with the best business studies plan and my teacher said so herself. It still doesn't get your funding unfortunately because they still look at you as a risk. So as you're saying someone with the knowledge and experience actually to be behind you and actually say I can back this and I can vouch this that this is a good idea. That is always worth having something. But being turned down knocking on the door I could have said okay it was worth a try and then just giving up them. But the drive of an entrepreneur and the determination to say well actually no it's not the only place to get the funding of there must be another way around it. And there's lots of ways to be able to get on to the ladder. You just got to find the way around it. And before I come to you Charlie on this one I mean it is you make a very important point both of you I think that there is a lot more options in the marketplace right now. I mean up until a few years ago there were a couple of routes that you would have needed to go as an early stage business. Digital technology is providing the kind of crowdfunding peer to peer lending all of these options. Absolutely I think an important thing for people to remember and it's an observation is that you know when you're going to borrow or you're going to get investors to put money into your business or an investor I would if it were me I would look for the investor that not only is wanting to maybe back you but is also willing to work with you. Not necessarily a passive investor in the early stages because if you're not experienced necessarily in every aspect of business life having someone that's going to put his or her money into your business and be there for the business is more valuable I would rather have as a young person starting out I'd rather have 20, 30,000 quid doing that than 50,000 from someone that's just going to give me the money because those contacts and that advice can be worth half a million quid not 20 you know for a start going along to a bank and the bank thinking well yeah okay this is going to work because this person's got a track record and they're going to work with this young person or not so young person you know entrepreneurs come in all ages, colours, sexes, sizes, everything so I met a fantastic entrepreneur in New York not that long ago who was a dwarf and he was a wonderful true and he was a fantastic guy we were just checking into a hotel and the family of dwarfs came in and they were really they were just fantastic I know but they were just brilliant people and they were entrepreneurial fantastically entrepreneurial I went out for dinner with them and they were just great right so there's one off the wall for you okay right we're going to we're going to race through after this we're going to race through a set of questions about and I'd like you to think about between you about when what do you do when clients don't pay invoices I'd like you to think your thoughts Sam on why you pick those countries Greece and Albania don't sound like obvious choices says one of our friends watches online Charlie though to the point to give you your answer on our friends question here about raising finance with a business that doesn't necessarily have a track record and a climate where you know many financial institutions are understandably risk averse what advice would you give to entrepreneurs advice well if you go to banks at the moment evidently for businesses out of 10 of being turned down for business loans so you know very very difficult with banks at the moment the I honestly believe if you are going to go to a bank you've got to go that you already as I've said making profit and showing that you know proving that you're on a winner because a bit of paper means nothing to a bank you know you know other than look at this great idea the other I think also a good way of doing it is if you can put some of your own money in or friend family or someone that you know quite closely and I think if they see you talking with your money not your mouth then there's a much better chance of doing it and rightly as Steve said there's other places other than banks you know there's outside investors there's family there's friends there's people that are close to you and I think to start off a business you're wasting your time going to a bank to start off I think you know because you know it's a bit like you know they lend you an umbrella as long as it ain't raining okay let's take another question from the audience and then we'll come to the online one so who's got next lady here the microphone there thank you thank you my question to Orla I'm in a process as you started I started the same from house from attic has a stalk and everything I'm now trying I find out that my product is very popular in Middle East in rich Arabic countries do you have any connection with them and how you started with them because I'm really scared to be honest by Wikipedia so are you you want me to talk about the Middle East particularly yes if you have any connection what is your product handbags lovely yeah very nice actually made of carpet I mean in the beginning when we were when we were starting to develop our exports we I mean really how we started was showing a trade fairs so you know we we at the time did London Fashion Week we did Premier Class in Paris yes are you going to show it who's next I think that is the way to to start and you and then I think in advance in ahead of that you need to invite as many people as you can to come and visit your stand and to find out who those people are I would suggest that you join UK fashion exports the very very reasonable product and yeah they keep changing the names all the time and the DTI will do reports for you on the Middle East which are very very reasonable and they'll focus in on some customers they think would be appropriate for you it's a massive market it's a growing market the Middle East market always get paid upfront when you're working for yourself because don't you don't take big risks you know so and they do pay upfront in the Middle East which is great I when we went in in the beginning we got paid upfront every time for that particularly 100% also the Russian market was very similar you get paid upfront and so don't you say if that's 100% upfront before you deliver the goods yes yes so you don't ship the goods until you get paid but don't let them down either you know if you take someone's money make sure you deliver and just on this one point I mean Stephens mentioned Stephens mentioned the BBA British Bankers Association there's a source of information on finance Dermott's mentioned UKTI as a source of information on overseas markets actually but if you want to funnel through to all of those different sources we must mention the business and IP centre because the advisors will always be able to point you in the right direction of which agency can help you but so a good point thank you very much Good luck with who's next, it's good I'll give you a card afterwards I'll link you up with someone Just on this one when we're talking overseas markets a question from online for you from Twitter for you Sam how did you decide which countries to expand into Greece and Albania don't sound like obvious choices They definitely don't and the reason for the way how our business works is we actually look to provide cash injections back into people to be able to have their old gadgets stop depreciating value so the countries at the moment especially Greece is in real big trouble with their finance and we really sort of want to help when put the money back into the market and it's great for us as well because it's actually bringing the money for the gadgets they're all coming back into the UK and we're actually really taking advantage of that to actually say their currency isn't worth as much sort of as their gadgets and they're depreciating as well so while we take those gadgets at a price it may not be worth that for them tomorrow and then also as well we're able to captivate or actually getting it at such a price but the reason why we're going into the countries is not just because of its one I've looked at a map and just randomly pointed at when I'm at home at night it's actually because of the connections I make and sort of the people you meet if you meet someone with connections to that country and you've already got interest it's very interesting so one company that I met it was a finance company who were in Greece and he said about how he just launched his service over there completely unrelated to our business but then he said how well it was doing and it's learning from other people's success and watching the news, watching TV and sort of seeing how people are doing and how well they're doing in countries where you can actually say well it's completely different but I can actually try my business in that country myself and so it goes so that's how I kind of pick and choose where we're going to go just on other people's success and if I hear the success over there then it could be an opportunity for me as well. Great stuff. Thank you very much Sam. Okay who's got our next question? I feel as if I've been a bit unfair to the back of the room so if there's anyone in the back of the room oh yeah there's a lady there in the middle with her hand up there. Hi and so the question mainly for Sam but if other people can answer it too that's great. I was just curious how you managed to get the word out to so many customers so quickly to make a million pounds in the first year. It's a great question because of course it brings us on to the whole subject of social media and the power of such like. It was really the service that I was providing. It was something unique, it was something very different and it was just word of mouth. I provided excellent service every single time so I actually would phone up the customers personally and make sure everything was okay and adding that personal touch to it and we try and keep that personal touch even when the company is so big calling people up and checking that everything's okay with how it went and that really that sort of extra touch that added value that you add to the customer service. That was on top of presumably a lot of thought about using Twitter using Facebook and the like. Just share some of what's worked best for you in the social media arena. Social media it was definitely well fallen up on customers but then it was as well being sort of the age of where I'm using social media websites I knew exactly how to communicate with friends so I tried those techniques of actually communicating with customers as well on promotions of what I was offering. One promotion that we've run before is a Facebook competition where if you join the application and you could have a chance to win an iPhone 4 and that was when it was first released. We sent this competition, I thought nothing of it came back the next day and we had 8,000 people who had signed up through our website just because we're giving away an iPhone 4 because it's amazing especially uni students what they'll do just to get like a free iPhone. That was really what I used to my volunteers so for me it was really asking friends and family especially friends as well for them being the cheap people they are at uni looking to get things at the best deal. To ask them say what do you think of this idea and they are very very blunt with me. I could say to my friends what do you think of this idea if they think it's rubbish they will throw it back in my face but not just throw it back in my face they will push it back in my face with time. So it's people like that who are supporting you and people like that who motivate me to sort of say yeah let's get this going. You would say on specifically competitions can work really well. Competitions can work extremely well from past experience. Excellent, thank you very much. Question down here at the front. Sorry Claire making you run up and down. Thank you very much. What would you say if the benefits, the outcomes of your business was more of a social enterprise and wasn't quantifiable in pounds and pence and you're looking at the social benefits of communities, behaviour, education, creating employment. How do you quantify that to an investor to get them on board without having a financial sort of return? Yeah it's a big issue. Anybody got any? I mean you know you're all running commercial businesses not necessarily social enterprises but anybody got any? I know where you're coming from with this question. I actually think that most well run, well thought out businesses along the John Lewis model and I'm going to say that again are actually social enterprises anyway. They create massive opportunities for employees. They create massive opportunities for the you are able to buy good products, rely on the company and all of that. So I do think that a well run commercial enterprise is a social enterprise but I know where you're coming from with the specific question and that's what you want answered so that's what I'll try to answer now and that is where you don't see it as a vision of anyone making any profit and so why would an investor invest? Well if I were trying to focus on that particular line I would be looking for an investor or a group of investors that had a similar vision to me. So let's say as an example that I don't know I wanted to make the planet completely green I would look for people that have those similar that are in a better financial position than I am that have those similar views. There are quite a few around the world, individuals. And there are, again to go back to referencing the British Library here as well, there are sources of funding specifically and there are funds for social enterprises and those would to Stephen's points those would look at a business proposal which was one which had social outcomes rather than commercial outcomes and would assess the viability of that and probably give you just as tough a time as a commercial lender but with questions about the social outcomes. But if you have the same beliefs it's not like anything in life if you have similar beliefs you have more chance of moving it forward I actually think business itself is a social enterprise when ran properly so that's where I am with it. Great, great. Let's keep the questions flying. Anybody else there has a question down here in the second row please. Thank you. I'm just wondering is there anything over the last 20 years or so obviously not including some but you'd change about your business in terms of something you would have done looking back and everyone's got 20-20 vision in hindsight as the saying goes but is there anything explicitly that you would change? Because obviously there's a lot of want-to-be and would-be entrepreneurs so is there anything you'd change explicitly? Like a decision that had an important impact on the business? In terms of possible buyouts or anything decision you made years ago if you went back you would think I wish I'd done that differently anyway. I suspect that we won't get much regret around the panel but let's have a Charlie. For myself I think if I sort of would have realised that you can be successful at a degree and without sort of a great education as has been mentioned and as much as you can with them I would have sort of if I sort of could see if we all had a crystal ball I suppose we would have all changed things but I sort of felt I could do everything myself and it's probably only in the last 15 years that I've learned to sort of delegate and trust people that people are good at their job so for me I should have delegated earlier and put a better structure in place but I think without a structure in anything you do you can't be successful so that's what I would have we obviously have it in place now but I just wish we would have done it years ago. Is there anything German about the shape of the business and the way that you've organised it over the past years that you look back on and you think you'd like to change? I think there's things that I would say that we're lucky we didn't do certain things but for us one of the things in the fashion industry it's a very easy option for people to take on investment early on and I think we were always very mindful of that in the beginning so we're one of the few companies now that are 100% in control of our business and it would have been very easy and I have so many friends and acquaintances in the industry who had taken on investment early on and have lost their businesses they've lost their name they've had to walk away so I think I just think we were very lucky that we kind of stuck to our guns It's a very powerful message Let's move on there's one very specific question which I suspect we might get some robust answers to what happens if your invoices are not being paid what do you do? I'm going to ask you Stephen that and then I'm going to ask you Charlie that It's a good question from early stage businesses that are going to be tight on cash and we all know that the tricks that can be played For me I think it's this I think you have to not let the bills run away with themselves If you have a customer that's showing signs of paying then don't let them keep running up next month and again they don't pay because if they can't pay the £3,000 bill they're not going to be able to pay the £9,000 bill down the road so make sure you stamp on that very early by gently talking to them you might need to give them some leeway we recently had someone that owed us some money in one of our businesses the immediate feeling was let's get a hold of them they need to pay up but we managed it gently and did ring did follow up and actually four or five days later they got paid by someone else and indeed they did pay this one of this business of ours so I think you do need to put pressure on but you don't need to be nasty about it especially initially you know no one really wants people you don't need to do that if you do it early enough you might be okay let it run on you probably won't be okay so getting early is my answer quick thought on that Charlie well I think you've obviously got to have a plan in place and whatever your terms and conditions are make it clear to the customer and if they don't stick to it then don't do business with them we're fortunate our arrangement is it's payment on completion of works so it's okay on that and we don't work for anybody that can't pay us if the queen rung us to Mora and she can't pay us by check or credit card we don't work for her but that doesn't work for every business she got a checkbook all I'm saying is is lay out your terms before you start and very much as it's been said is stick to what your terms are and if they don't pay then we have a few accounts with people very much on a 30 days and if they don't pay up we stop working immediately for them and for me it works for us but every business is different great stuff okay so from a very that's a very specific question thank you for your answers to a bigger wider one which I might give to one of you now and we might pick up at the end this is from Twitter at Nanny Network have any of the panellist felt that being an entrepreneur is a lonely journey I suspect the answer to that is yes more relevantly if so how did you overcome this there are clearly moments when this is a difficult journey that you set yourselves on who would like to just let's just get one answer to begin with on this and then we'll maybe pick it up at the end Dermot and all that we got nominated for the entrepreneur of the year award with Einstein Young and it actually turned out to be a club of entrepreneurs of people like us and I found that really enjoyable spending time with these guys and just talking to them and realizing that actually you're not on your own that's when you were established and that's when you were able to tap into that network it may be that the person asking this question might not have access to those networks and is pushing and driving a business that he or she wants to succeed in those days when you haven't got that network around you a mentor would make a hell of a difference in the beginning I mean I've got a lonely one when I first started my business when I was let's say 15 because I used the coin box as my office for quite some time and I used to hang an out of order sign on the phone box so no one else could use it and I used to sit in the rain often in the rain because it always seemed to be raining outside the phone box on a wooden seat for hours under an umbrella waiting for the people in the States to ring me and believe you me when you sat there in the rain for four or five hours outside a phone box waiting for somebody in New Jersey who was almost certainly were it, they were multimillionaires and I'm on a cancer state an umbrella, it can get lonely I've got no idea why I never gave up I've got no idea I just didn't I just used to sit there but there were lonely times it was raining, you're cold you're damp and the phone and not only that, fending off people as well that are coming along saying why is that? and you've got to say don't know why are you sitting there in the rain with that umbrella don't say anything you've got to do all those things a lonely day but eventually the phone rings and you move on don't you and suddenly things happen it's like buses they all come in threes and suddenly you're off what do you do? it is, when things when you've setbacks it can be it can be but you know it's always you know you can be kind of most proactive sometimes when you have lonely moments when you have to really start thinking how can you kind of move things on or turn things around and it's interesting that all of you in one way or another have mentioned family and the support of family and being family businesses and the two of you work together and it is something that comes up a lot of these events that it need not be a solitary experience you know you can work with others and make you can have a close team around you and that support at those perhaps bleak times but it's one of the things that Matthew it's very important sorry one of the things it's very important I think to be have passion for your business because when you get lonely and you will get those lonely days you've made that application for a bank loan and you didn't get it you went to the investors and they weren't interested and it's raining and it's miserable and your girlfriend boyfriend, husband why I've left you and you know you're there but if you've got passion because there will come times when you want to get you know in the morning you've got to work at eight o'clock and if you don't like your business you're only in it for the money if you're only in it for the money you think I don't really want to go in but if there's a passion behind that business you'll go in anyway you know I mean I would go into I would someone said to me the other day here tonight you know when are you going to retire so that is I am retired because retirement means you do every day what you want to do and I do every day what I want to do I first time I retired I was 27 and as my son who's here tonight would tell you it lasted three weeks I had everything I wanted I had the house and the car and everything I wanted and I thought I don't need this anymore I was lonely, I was really lonely because after about ten days or a couple of weeks didn't have anyone to talk to who wanted to talk about golf, sorry but I didn't I wanted to talk about business so there you go it's an interesting question who else has got a couple of questions here so the gentleman here and the lady here thank you this is a specific question but it does open up into a wider one about branding just a quick bit of background just playing the question I'm currently involved in a business start-up around sport and it's the concept without giving too much away so we've been exploring the name of the of the business start to give it an actual identity and we had a brainstorming session came up with three or four names, thought fantastic we then went and searched them and found they'd been bought up but weren't in use so we did the usual thing approached the broker whoever the company was and we got quoted silly money £15,000, £100,000 or play £20 and we'll get back to you so it's getting a bit of an issue now the question we wondered is whether in terms of a brand and particularly an online one how important it is to have an identity and the domain name and the company name that suggests that's what you're doing or an inkling or whether you can go pretty much to a random name to get around this situation Yes exactly, I mean zooplar what does that mean but it's made an incredible impact Sam what do you think about this because your name kind of says what it does we're definitely online and we're just £100 online so coming up for my brand name it was just something that came to me it's not something that's anything to do with recycling gadgets for everyone it means nothing to do with recycling really it sounds like you're buying gadgets from us but actually what we've managed to do is actually have the reputation of that brand and now we're known on the internet and actually people are aware of that brand Did you ever think about going for one of those internet names With regards to going into a little technical information with search engine optimization with the name you choose it is extremely important if you get your keyword into your domain name then that's going to really help you market your business online and that is one thing that obviously we don't get the advantage of for example for me I could have had a website called a company name called sell your gadgets that would have been absolutely perfect for us because it's saying exactly what we do the keyword of what people will be searching online so picking your brand name is online compared to retail I think is 10 times more important because you've got to consider the factors of not just what it's called but what that actually does with regards to how you're going to market your website Why didn't you go for sell your gadgets because it was taken and how much would it have cost you to buy thousands of pounds because people are aware they will buy these names up and as you said they are aware of their value so it's up already it's an interesting it's a good question it's a difficult one to answer without looking at the actual specific circumstances of what it might cost and what the market opportunity is et cetera et cetera the brands are never instant they do take time to establish so by the time they're established I suppose it doesn't use zoopla as a good example try the brand fear that's us I mean you ring up people ring up who fear but the reality of it is that is right ICI what did that mean AstraZeneca to most people that don't study Latin what does it mean Apple but I do think there's a merit to doing what it says on the tin I think you need that in a strap line somewhere so if you have ICI you might have something about chemicals immediately under it I think it's a good idea to tell people what you do definitely without any question so don't ask me about fear again I think branding is unbelievably important and rightly as we say if in your company name you can be saying what you do it's a massive advantage and I think a lot of people go wrong with their names because people haven't got a clue what they do so it's very very difficult you can actually be the best company in the world but if people don't know about you or don't recognise you then you know a big deal out there so for me name of a company and branding is unbelievably important in any business I can never understand why the post office changed their name that time what did they change it to Cognitas you got the post office why would you change it to something like that I have a question here How important was licensing in growing your business orla and dermal and how does the process actually work I'd say licensing has been something we started doing about four years ago and I think for us it works and it's a good way to expand without being responsible for all the stock and I think that's really quite important so we are very careful who we work with and I think we have learnt in the very early days we learnt the hard way and now we are absolutely selective about who we work with and we are very careful with contracts and we make sure that we have absolute total approval on everything or else it doesn't go into production but I do think it opens up lots and lots of opportunities in a way for us so far it's been great We also have a very good experience working with other people and bringing a professional design product to them and it's about a marriage it's about finding someone that you can get on with and it's very much a personal chemistry thing if you can work with a company or a team of people and you understand each other it can go very easily and be very successful but very importantly we design everything you know a lot of license agreements are where their company will design the product offer and show it to us we generate everything so in that way we have control manufacturing in China to you it's part of it but it's not our main production you know I mean our homeware is done in Portugal for example recently our production has been moving back to Europe to Portugal and we're actually manufacturing in Britain as well and it's currency related as much as anything else the reason we stopped manufacturing in Britain was when the pound went up and now that it's come back down we can manufacture here we do still manufacture in China and the factories we work with are their quality is amazing thank you very much I think the gentleman just behind do you have a question? no maybe we've answered it there's a gentleman over here just wanted to ask barriers of entry have any of you experienced any barriers of entry and how did you overcome it? barriers to entry into in terms of the industry that you're in were you ever in a position where someone bigger than you is trying to stop you from actually getting in any experience on that? I think the most relevant thing to do with barriers of entry is that if your barrier is too low there will be too many people in the market as an example we're involved with a business that used cladding guttering for buildings downpipes and things and the business was really struggling a friend of mine who's a banker invested in it and he rang me and said what do you think of it and I said well it's rubbish the business model is rubbish it's being ran badly everything about it is bad and the reason is it's knocking on doors so the barrier is low in that case where you've got a business that's being attacked we also had a business at the time was called European Discount and we struggled in competition with that particular business because of the big being queues and people that were selling similar product they just dropped their price locally so that we were uncompetitive and you have to face the fact that if you're a deer and a lion comes into the jungle you better to get out and go to another jungle sometimes you have to move to another jungle the animal stories are flowing thick and fast tonight Stephen I'm a great lover of Africa and the fear ones they go well with the fear ones there was another question near the front yes gentlemen at the front and then there's probably time for one more what's the most important factor in making a successful business it's a great question to answer to end with although I've guaranteed why don't we take the question from the gentlemen two ways behind and we'll see which ones best we'll enter it that's unfair no in your opinion what is an entrepreneur is it's just someone who simply starts a business or is there more to it are there certain characteristics or personality traits that you find as well okay actually they do kind of fit together a bit here don't they there's your point about you know what as you put it what is an entrepreneur is it just the starting up or is it more to it and then yeah I mean a very big but important question about what makes a success in business can I just with this add on to this and this is for your concluding thoughts therefore we have a question online about I support parents to develop their children's entrepreneurial potential what advice would you give parents helping 4 to 14 year olds with regards to this so we've got a question about what makes a success in business characteristics of an entrepreneur and helping parents develop entrepreneurial potential I know that's a lot to wrap into one question which is why I'm wishering on to give you a chance to think about it Charlie do you have any thoughts on this the first one was what makes a successful business was it from this chat sorry again all businesses are different and I'm sure there's different factors but from air business and I believe this also works for a lot of other business it's all about quality of service or quality of product it's all about you know what you're offering you know air good it is people will always pay for quality and that's sort of for my answer I suppose great and what about this other one about getting parents and to the point about the characteristics of an entrepreneur to nurture a bit of entrepreneurial spirit in very young kids what would be your thoughts there Charlie I suppose really just sort of I would say where you're sort of inspiring somebody giving them confidence and letting them believe in their self because I realise now that you know there's no set pattern for an entrepreneur it can be all in anybody and it's really just about someone giving someone confidence and telling them they can succeed and believing in it Stephen I think the important thing especially in young kids and is to help them believe that you can achieve anything if you set your mind to it you really can I mean I started with absolutely nothing I started on a council estate with no contact no knowledge no one, no banker I used a trustee savings account until I was 17 because I didn't know how to open a bank account so when you start in that way it's about supporting and making and helping young people understand that you can really succeed you do not have to accept the mediocrity that is dished out everything is there to do you've got communications, you've got fantastic support there is a lot of free advice out there including at the British Library of course here we give a lot of free advice and try to support people but it's believed, Charlie's right it's about being inspirational and helping that person the young person believe they can do it because if you don't believe you'll never have a go and do you know what if you try hard enough and long enough you will succeed but if you don't believe whoever they are say that's my answer for me I think it's just ambition and drive of exactly where you want to go in life for me I just want to make it as big as possible and it's for me it's kind of the people who say this is the route to go down for example you have to go to university this is the standard route I want to try and break the mould and say well actually for me that's not the way things that are unheard of and it's just that drive and ambition to actually do things that people normally wouldn't be achievable but just because you've set your mind to it and if you're so focused on something you will eventually achieve it do you mind if I just say one thing sorry it's only quickly I think the thing about age and I don't know how old are you 14 I think that's an amazing thing sorry what's your name Jamie that's an amazing thing it's not to do with how old you are it's how good you are if you're a Wayne Rooney and you're 17 you don't not play for England because you're 17 if you're young and if you can do it if you have an idea you can achieve it and that goes for people that have never done it who are 60 they can also do it it is out there to be done and that's a very important point actually isn't it it's at both ends of the spectrum it's important to communicate to young people young people like Jamie here but equally to those whose lives are changing in this time of change if you're 60 years old and never run a business there's still plenty of support for you yeah there is I mean people it doesn't matter about how old you are it's what we said really earlier it doesn't matter how old you are who you are from what background you come no one's interested the market doesn't care about whether you've got nine legs one leg three legs or no it doesn't matter I've got people that come to me from heropreneurs you know the military charity and some of them have been badly damaged by in war zone great entrepreneurs they understand the turning up on time because that's one thing about anyone that's going to be successful as an entrepreneur you have to turn up it's no good being a genius not turning up you've got to turn up you know that's it that would be my message excellent I'm just going to add very simply I think to be alongside belief and passion and all those things I think to be a doer is a really good thing not just somebody who thinks but you know to actually do it and I also think to be a finisher because I think there are so many people who start things but they don't know how to follow through and finish and I think that is really important especially for kids to try and teach children the process where to start and where to finish that's really important brilliant brilliant well it's a fantastic way to close this discussion to close the online webcast and apologies to those of you whose questions we weren't able to get I believe we've covered a lot of them some were very detailed so my apologies but we'll try and address some of those online outside this evening thank you for all your questions Charlie Dermott, Aula, Sam, Stephen thank you very much fantastic occasion