20 entrepreneurs
How the sound of music put a former roadie on track to become a multi-millionaire
As a public schoolboy with a mother who was a pioneering doctor and a father who was an Olympic canoeist, Phil Dudderidge might not seem the obvious candidate for a life in the full glare of the rock and roll spotlight. Now 66, his early career in the music industry saw him touring with Led Zeppelin, but today he is better known as the entrepreneur behind High Wycombe-based Focusrite. Since buying the business from the liquidator in 1989, he has built it into a global music and audio products group, supplying hardware and software products to generations of professional and amateur musicians, enabling them to produce high-quality music. When Focusrite was launched on the AIM market last December, it was valued at £80 million. Dudderidge is now executive chairman and Alison Dewar talked to him about his exciting journey
Phil Dudderidge grew up in Radlett, Hertfordshire, and, from the age of 11, attended the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School where his father was a housemaster. As the youngest of four siblings, he describes himself as “never very academic” and left school at 16. It was the mid-60s and he soon gravitated towards London and the underground music scene. Having his own van secured him a delivery job for a music newspaper and an introduction to the wider music industry, but it wasn’t long before he decided a life on the road wasn’t for him. Instead, he launched his first business, Soundcraft, building sound mixing consoles for bands and studios, a venture which made him a millionaire before the age of 40. With a healthy bank balance and nothing exciting on the horizon, he was then tempted back into the industry with the purchase of Focusrite, later adding the Novation brand and building the Focusrite group into a multi-million pound success story.
Joe Boyd, who was manager and producer of Fairport Convention. I started working with them and subsequently various bands as a roadie and at 21 got my first job that didn’t involve driving, when I became Led Zeppelin’s tour sound man. It was a seminal point in my early career. Touring the US with them was a real pinnacle, but it was also very gruelling; we were driving huge mileages between gigs with little sleep and there were some real life-threatening moments. It was more a matter of endurance and I decided that wasn’t what I wanted to do for a career.
What was your next move? Where did your interest in music begin?
My eldest brother was terrifically bright and a natural linguist, but he was also a musician and trumpet player and I used to help out at gigs. That was my first glimpse into the world of music. When I was 16, I didn’t realise that would become my career, but it certainly gave me a taste of what it was like.
What was your first job?
When I left school I joined an industrial microfilm company, ending up as an assistant to the production manager, with more or less the run of the place. About 20 years later, I realised that experience had given me an excellent grounding in how a business runs – my business education. When I was 18 though, I dropped out and went to London, looking for the source of the hippie revolution. I found it at International Times (IT), the underground newspaper, which I delivered all over town.
How did you end up working with Led Zeppelin?
Through IT, I met influential music entrepreneur
www.businessmag.co.uk
I realised that in the UK we didn’t have anything like the American sound systems for arena concerts and, having worked with the equipment, I knew I wanted to be on that side of the industry. I talked to a guy I knew and a year later started my first company with him. He was the speaker designer and I was in charge of promotion and sales. There were enough British bands going to the US and seeing what was happening there, so there was a growing demand for better PA systems than what they were used to.
After about 18 months, the original partnership split up, and I set up a new business called Soundcraft with another colleague who had joined us. Over 15 years in the 1970s and 80s we built up a sizeable business and employed around 300 people. In 1989 we sold it to the famous Harman group of brands in the US and I found myself aged 39 with a couple of million pounds in the bank and nothing to do – a dangerous combination.
Where did Focusrite enter the picture?
I was aware of Focusrite, which had been started by Rupert Neve, who was a legend in the professional audio industry. The business was focused on premium recording equipment for
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – NOVEMBER 2015
use in big studios but the development costs had been very high. I knew it was about to go into administration, but decided the problems were just too great for me to save it. A couple of months later, the liquidator called me and asked if I was still interested. Initially I said no, but he rekindled my interest and by that time I was getting itchy feet. Here was an opportunity to get back into the industry and my ego got the better of me. With a former employee as a colleague, I bought the assets and started a new company under the same name, Focusrite, closer to home in Bourne End. This time though it was different. At Soundcraft we’d had the burden of manufacturing and all the overheads which came with it; this time we kept it simple and outsourced the manufacturing; these days to China.
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