Years ago, when some of today’s most famous entrepreneurs started out, the world was a very different place. There were no mobile phones, internet or digital and satellite communications. Getting the capital to start up your own company was also far more difficult to come by, and there was no global marketplace on the scale there is today. But then again, becoming a successful entrepreneur is not just about securing the money you need… to buy the technology… to develop an idea… to deliver to market. It’s about inspiration and intuition. Using your senses to know when it’s the perfect moment to launch a particular concept that will fire the magination of an unsuspecting public.
“It’s all about being in the right place at the right time, and then taking advantage of the opportunities available,” says Gregory Ericksen, global head of strategic growth markets at Ernst & Young, and former director of the organisation’s Entrepreneur of the Year programme, which he rolled out internationally.
Take the founder of the hugely successful global Virgin empire, Richard Branson, for example. The first signs of his entrepreneurial potential appeared at the tender age of 16, when he launched Student Magazine in 1966. Seven years later he had set up his own music recording label and had released his first record – Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells – which went on to sell five million copies. Later he launched the famous airline and various other businesses. But Branson wasn’t an intellectual. Nor did he have huge financial backing. He simply had a vision and the inspiration to follow it through.
“It’s no secret that Branson’s dyslexic,” says Ian Wallis, editor of Growing Business, the UK magazine for entrepreneurs, “but he’s been self-aware and astute enough to surround himself with top managers to deliver his vision. The brand messages of customer service and reasonable prices remain consistent through all his businesses and he’s perfected a disarmingly down-toearth charm that clinched deals with the likes of punk band The Sex Pistols in the late 1970s and most recently communications company NTL. That same charisma has enabled him to override failures and keep staff and the public on-side at all times.”
These values are as important today as they were 30 years ago. You don’t need to go to the Harvard Business School to be a successful entrepreneur. In fact, if you’re inspired and intuitive, it’s arguably easier than ever to excel in business.
“Today the whole world is your market,” says Ericksen. “With the internet and mobile phones, young people literally have the world at their fingertips. In practical terms, this means lower operating costs and overheads than ever before. You don’t even need an office anymore.” Wallis agrees, adding: “I think the current economic climate is more conducive to young entrepreneurial success simply because there is greater consumer demand and channels of easy access to deliver products and services.”
This environment of increasing opportunities, coupled with changes in lifestyle and the lack of job security – long gone is the career for life – has encouraged young people to consider an entrepreneurial career and think more creatively in a business sense. In fact, many colleges now have entrepreneurial clubs, such as the Collegiate Entrepreneur’s Organisation, a network of student groups on 500 college campuses across the US. This is driving up the number of young entrepreneurs – and not just in technology and finance, but in the creative industries too, as revealed by the box opposite. What’s more, this is not just a phenomenon that’s peculiar to the developed world. Young entrepreneurs are also springing to life in the emerging economies of Asia, Eastern Europe and South America. “I read in the Financial Times recently of a Ukranian entrepreneur who had become a millionaire in just five years,” reports Ericksen.
However, despite the extra creative freedom, greater access to capital, a global economy and better communications, Wallis offers a word of warning that suggests, although there may be more young entrepreneurs than ever before, becoming an inspirational icon may be harder. “Retaining control and competing with industry behemoths in the way Branson did may be more of a challenge now,” he says, “particularly with moves towards greater convergence and a thirst for acquisitions.
”So although it may look easier in principle, in the face of intense competition and with global giants ready to snap up successful ideas and businesses, it looks like today’s young hopefuls will have to use all their senses to even greater effect to hit the highs of the world’s entrepreneurial veterans like Richard Branson and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.