Cover Interview
BY KELLY DOLAN, EDITOR
Serial entrepreneur, business mentor, public speaker and creator of 3 billion pound iconic brands are just a few terms used to describe Mike Harris. Beginning his career in IT at Midland Bank (now HSBC), Mike went on to revolutionise the world of banking by founding the first telephone bank (Firstdirect) and internet bank (Egg). Mike’s ability to dream up the impossible and deliver on his visions has allowed him to disrupt and innovate age-old traditional industries, making his story one that is littered with lessons for us all. This month, in light of the theme of innovation, I sit down with Mike to dig a little deeper into understanding his meteorological rise to entrepreneurial success. Where did his journey begin and how could others emulate his business achievements? I begin by asking about his family upbringing, at which he offers an explanation into his early determination.
“My grandfather left school at the age of 12 to launch his first business” says Mike. “By 19 he was repairing farming equipment and built up the business during the 1930s recession. It was a motor business with a team of around 100 people. He sold cars, ran coaches, taxis, repairs, everything.
“My mother, father and I lived with my grandparents until I was 9 or 10. My parents worked for him and I learnt a lot from that early exposure.
“Looking back I suppose I spoke to my granddad about business a lot, even though I wanted to be a scientist and didn’t really listen to him. Yet, even now I can still hear his voice in my head and three things in particular have stuck with him throughout the years.
“He used to show me cash in a bedroom safe and told me ‘as long as you’ve got enough of this the business will be fine – and make sure you always pay your people before you pay yourself.’ As a result, a mantra for me now is ‘Don’t run out of cash.’ Another great one is ‘Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.’
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“He also taught me to always be on a relentless search for perfection. He had this vision of how his business should operate – he was obsessive about it and always looked for areas in the business that didn’t work perfectly. That is something I have come to recognise in successful entrepreneurs and I see it in myself.”
Aside from the indirect tutillage of his grandparent, Mike received his education at Dudley grammar school, which he describes as ‘the best sort and academically excellent.’ Mike then studied chemistry at UCL before beginning a career in IT that he describes as ‘really boring to describe to others, but I still enjoyed it!’ When did Mike’s career really start to get exciting?
“I was bored out of my mind running systems development at Midland Bank, so I left in 1986 and joined a small tech company called Space-Time and became their technical director. Life was never boring after that – in fact it was completely chaotic! It was the mid 80s and I went from a stable and predictable life to utterly crazy.
“Space-Time had built a theatre box office system that was installed in many major theatres around the world. We linked them all together in a network called Interbocs – and that was one of the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The idea was that you could sell tickets from any theatre that had our technology for every other theatre. It seemed like a commercial flop at first but when the internet came along it turned out it was a move of accidental genius, as the company had access
9 entrepreneurcountry
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