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roundtable: entrepreneurship
This Roundtable was hosted by global financial services provider UBS, with support from The Business Magazine. We invited some successful entrepreneurs and experienced business advisers to express their views and reveal . . .
What drives entrepreneurs? Participants
Martyn Begbour: Executive director, UBS south and south west region
Paul Chapman: Founder and MD, Portmore Insurance Group
Laura Davis: Managing director, Reality HR
David Griffiths: CEO, Fiscal Technologies, forensic software
James Hawkeswood: Partner, lawyers Blake Morgan
Andy Hunt: Commercial director (SME division), BCMS
Josh Williams: Founder Bizpedia, business networking club
David Murray: Managing editor and publisher of The Business Magazine, chaired the discussion
Lined up to debate: our roundtable team Journalist John Burbedge reports the roundtable highlights
Now, how did you become an entrepreneur?
This simple question revealed some interestingly eclectic stories, yet arguably each had the common theme of wanting to control one’s own destiny.
Insurance company founder Paul Chapman started his entrepreneurial career in his mid- 20s, after spending too many days travelling three hours each way to an unfulfilling brokerage job in the City. “I am someone who has to be doing something different all the time, with a project or two on the go.“
He convinced his employers to open an office in Southampton, then persuaded them to loan him the money to buy an insurance business in Lyndhurst. It grew to more than 65 staff, but an incumbent former owner-manager who was set to retire was finding it difficult to let go of the reins. (“That can be quite a common trait of entrepreneurs,“ Andy Hunt added later.)
“The straw that broke the camel’s back was when we wanted to change our credit provider – an old friend of the former owner.“ Chapman returned from holiday to discover a new contract had been signed with the provider.
Chapman got out of the corporate world and with a college friend, decided to start afresh. “We re-mortgaged our houses, then sat in our
www.businessmag.co.uk
bedroom office asking ourselves ’What have we done?’“ Fortunately, some previous clients did like what they had done, and the rest is history. “As it’s turned out, starting up on our own was the best thing for us.“
David Griffiths saw immediate parallels with his own entrepreneurial story. “I have always had business things on the go since the age of 16, whether it was selling sandwiches on the beach in Los Angeles or hiring out cars. Then, I got with a Nasdaq-quoted company for five years, working really hard, putting in 12-hour days; even knew the cleaners by name.“ Griffiths was head of marketing when “... one day I had this meeting with the CEO and realised he didn’t share the global vision for the company that I did.“
He left the company in order to run his own business in Crowthorne, eventually buying a small accounts-payable software company in April 2007. “As it turned out with the recession it was probably the worst time ever to start a business. I had mortgaged my house, borrowed from family and friends and sold everything to buy this business. I inherited one guy, 20 customers and some rudimentary looking software.“
Griffiths has since taken the business from “... two people losing £35,000 in its first year to 40 staff producing a £3-4 million turnover, with 50% organic growth every year.“
Entrepreneurs don’t always start their own businesses Griffiths pointed out. “You don’t have to start from scratch. You can buy into
a business, take over part of a business; there are a lot of other ways to do your own thing. I still feel like a founder, because though the business had been going for five years, it was nothing when I bought it.“
Laura Davis founded her HR business in 2004. “I was a corporate girl for more than 20 years, but discovered my heart really wasn’t in it.“ Corporate restructuring by Tesco’s while she was with its HR team enabled her to make the break and set up her own business. “I had options to go to Asia or sit alongside the key head office team, but I decided to ’take the money and run’.“
Davis had no idea what she wanted to do, but a supportive Tesco’s executive outsourcing programme helped her discover her desire to be her own boss. “People say ’keep contact with your contacts’ when you set up in business, but I began working with SMEs and all my contacts were corporate. But, people know people, so I started from my back bedroom for a year with a desk and laptop – which I have still got as a dusty reminder of where I’ve come from. People shouldn’t forget what it was like in those early days.
“I didn’t start in HR. I have got an operations background and I think that has helped me as a business owner.
“I always planned to grow organically, and have managed to do that with no debts, and we now have a team of 15. We’ve had 20% year-on-year annual growth in the past three years, have taken on three new people this year, and are in the process of recruiting two more. Times are good at present.“
Josh Williams began his business after graduating from Bournemouth University in 2011.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – OCTOBER 2014
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