Interview
Jamie Dunn started his first business at the age of 12 selling unwanted items at school. Today, aged 20, he is co-founder of Made By Young People and chair of the A Fund.
Top 3 ideas: Here’s one I think would be a winner; the age-old concept of a crisp sandwich. I’ve always loved having crisps on bread and butter; I know loads of other people who do, yet nobody has thought of releasing a range of ready-made crisp sandwiches.
Where and when: At night; around 9pm I’ll sit down with a beer, some music, and a piece of A3 paper. I think the best ideas emerge when you are fully relaxed and not concentrating too hard.
Top tips: Do something different every day; walk a different way home, or get a different train. Your brain becomes conditioned to routine, so changing that routine will force it to think in new ways. Music helps, too.
Heather Townsend, business coach, networking guru, and author of ‘The FT Guide to Business Networking’
Top 3 ideas: Writing a book on joined up networking; using social media to market my business; and offering folks £250-ish worth of my IP in return for posting a review of my book on Amazon.
Where and when: Often it’s being with other people who spark off a train of thought, however I have to have
Phil Cameron, founder and CEO of airport lounge company No.1 Traveller
Top 3 ideas: My production of Journey’s End, the No.1 Traveller brand, and the decision to put prices up at a seemingly illogical time.
Where and when: You can’t turn creative thinking on and off, so I get struck by ideas at the oddest
times, which is not very handy if you’re running to catch a train or having a swim.
Top tips: To innovate you need to be in a frame of mind that asks, ‘why not?’ You can always reject an idea, but to keep the ideas flowing, initially everything needs to be ‘possible’, because after some thought even some of the most unlikely ideas can find their own route to viability.
Peter Cochrane, former CTO of BT- turned-serial entrepreneur and founder of several technology companies.
Top 3 ideas: eBookers UK, the first EU electronic online travel agent; ConceptLabs California, an incubator, management support and VC fund combo, founded with several ex-Apple employees, but wiped out by the dotcom bust; and PicoSecond Pulse
Labs, producer of electronic test equipment components.
Where and when: Good ideas don’t care about time and place, and they don’t care if you are awake or asleep, working or playing; they just pop to the front of your mind.
Top tips: Understand the
importance of luck. You need a lot of it. And learn to deal with a failure; stand up, brush yourself off, and move on.
capacity to think about these ideas. If I’m stressed or overworked, ideas don’t happen because there’s space for them to happen.
no
Top tips: New ideas need time and space to appear.
Allow your
subconscious to produce them over night by posing a question in your mind and then sleeping on it. An answer may pop out in the morning.
31 entrepreneurcountry
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60