理查德·布兰森爵士的创业建议

 

 　指导创业贷款，帮助修改商业议案：理查德·布兰森爵士揭露了创办公司的所有秘密。

　　理查德·布兰森爵士的名字与公司和财富紧紧联系在一起，但他仍旧像以往一样对创业充满热情。在维珍集团中管理超过200家公司，他能很快回想起从他早期在音乐行业经营维京唱片的经历，一直到最高层的太空旅行公司维珍银河的经历，每个经历都曾经是当时最大的事。

　　然而就像大多数创业公司，布兰森在创业初期也没什么名气。在16岁辍学后用200英镑创立了他的第一家公司，他知道怎样从零开始。

　　在最近维珍媒体先锋向富人推销的比赛中，布兰森和他的评审小组在寻找一家马上就可以比得上维珍的一些成功的公司。

　　在这次发言中，布兰森分享了他对创业贷款、税金、指导的重要性的看法，并回答了Startups的问题，揭露了他选择的下一家世界上最好的创业公司（除了比赛的获胜者）。

　　布兰森的第一次创业

　　“英国大多数工作都是在新公司中产生的，而不是大公司。我第一次创业用了200英镑。我母亲捡到一条项链并交到警察局，三个月以后没人来认领所以她把项链卖了并把钱给了我，我用那些钱打电话卖广告以维持我的杂志的继续运营。”

　　“很少的资金能够对像维珍一样的公司的创立有帮助。有一些新想法出现，并创造了成千上万的工作岗位。”

　　布兰森对你推销的修改

　　“我记得我十几岁时向IPC报纸推销的经历，我刚刚创立了我的学生杂志，我们一起吃午饭。他们对参与杂志的经营很感兴趣。但之后我开始跟他们说有关学生旅馆、学生飞机、学生这个、学生那个……然后他们就把我赶出来了——他们认为我疯了。”

　　“IPC的帕翠莎·兰伯特大约10年前给我写了一封信，信中写到‘我们错了’，总之我最近在说我的未来。所以我猜我已经在展望未来中迷失了，就像我经常和曾经做过的那样。”

　　布兰森关于自由市场和首先关注产品的观点

　　“我想我可能会做一个紧缩的预算来提高产品，确保你使用的是这个领域最好的产品，接着用我自己来达到自由市场——而不是用广告。”

　　“在刚开始时我没有这样的形象。弗雷迪·雷克尔对我说过‘出去闯荡吧，你会很厉害的，你能上杂志封面而不是背面。’你们已经很有个性了，我确定让记者为你们写文章不是难事。”

　　布兰森关于指导的价值的观点

　　“在我创业时没人指导我，没人帮助我。我遇到的困难始料未及。如果你很幸运那你就能学会游泳，而大多数人会失败。所以维珍媒体先锋的创意是有一大群人在同一个水池里，互相帮助，你得到了指导，他们也从中有所收获，能学到知识的电影、书籍，希望成功率能大大提高。”

　　“我认为找到导师对所有的新创公司提供帮助关键在于所有人。不需要向导师付钱，有成千的人刚刚退休或已经退休，他们可以放弃一个周末或放弃一些事帮助他人。所以我们帮助制定指导计划，帮助导师们找时间帮助这些创业公司。我不确定这是否是政府行为，但这很重要。”

　　布兰森对创业贷款的看法

　　“我们已经建议政府设立创业贷款，所以如果有人不想上大学并且他们有创业的想法——除了背负债务去学习，他们还可以背负债务建立公司。希望他们用自己的公司还钱能有更好的机会。”

　　不管多大年龄都能创业

　　“无论任何人有好的想法能够有所作为并改变别人的生活都应该受到鼓励进行尝试，这很重要。与年龄大小完全没有关系。但在大学里，在学校里，我们可以在鼓励创业上比到目前为止做的更好。有人想要上大学学习有关创业的知识，如果他们能同时创立一家小公司就更好了，因为我认为那是学习如何经营公司的好方法，哪怕只是尝试。”

　　布兰森对避税的看法

　　“经营公司的传统方式是公司竭尽所能缴纳最少的税款——他们会聘请税务筹划在政府规定下操作。修改规定完全取决于政府。这是传统方式，但存在着道德争论，公司是否违背道德或只是从公共关系角度有损害，决定权在总经理。”

　　伦敦周围大城市的发展

　　“在我经商开始的过去40年中，我看到了曼彻斯特、纽卡斯尔、爱丁堡、格拉斯哥、利兹、利物浦与40年前相比的兴旺发展，我认为这些地方更好的火车服务意味着更多人愿意在此居住。”

　　“如果这种现象开始倒退那就太遗憾了。我不了解这些统计数据（四个工作机会中有一个在首都）但我认为我们要竭尽所能确保工作机会分布的平均。”

　　“世界上人有很多——我的宇宙飞船公司已经有从另一个创业者发射一整列卫星的方法了，他将转移无线电通讯、wifi和互联网接入路径。创业者的优点在于他们永远在思考，永远提出新想法来为人们的生活造福，并创造工作机会和财富。”

　　布兰森在创业界要干的下一件大事

　　“新西兰有一家小公司叫Lanzitech。这家公司很小，是由一个英国人经营的，他开创了难以置信的独特道路：从炼铁厂或炼铝厂回收报废产品，之后把它们加工成航空飞机燃料。之前这些燃料只能经燃烧变成烟雾并散落在天空中。他把这些废旧金属经过过滤并变成航空燃油。”

　　“维珍大西洋航空公司已经做出保证把我们所有从航线上赚到的利润用到开发清洁航空燃油上，我们已经首次使用了Lanzitech的燃油。他们已经在上海和其他中国城市设立了工厂，如果他们在世界上每个炼铁厂和炼铝厂旁边设一个小工厂——航空业将会从污染最大的行业变为最清洁的行业。他只是一个年轻的英国创业者。”

　　布兰森从旅行和无糖机会中得到启示

　　“我觉得那些能在出门旅行的同时考察其他成功的地方并借鉴他们的想法的人可以发现怎样才能成功，这很有道理。即使你可以重新发明更好的轮胎但如果你不能看到轮胎在别的国家运行如何呢？”

　　“同时我认为糖是除了香烟之外最大的杀手，所以如果你可以制造出好吃的无糖产品就太好了。”

　　布兰森想为英国创业公司建立一家维珍加速器

　　“我们在英国维京群岛拉里·佩奇做了一些事，我自己已经建立了一个基金，向那些从银行借不到钱的创业公司提供资金。在英国维京群岛的玻璃船刚刚还清债务，他从银行借不到钱。有人想建一个海螺农场，我们也帮助了他们。”

　　“在全球有一些新事物在发展，我们在约翰内斯堡创办了布兰森创业学校，帮助从小镇来的人，给他们指导和训练，我们找到了英国的商人们加入，他们可以现场帮助他们融资等其他事务。至于英国，我不知道我们做了多少，但如果我们没有做很多，那就应该做更多事情。”

Sir Richard Branson's start-up tips and insights

　　Mentoring, start-up loans and honing your business pitch: Sir Richard Branson reveals all about starting a business

　　Sir Richard Branson is a man synonymous with business and wealth, but remains as passionate about start-ups as ever. Possessing more than 200 companies in the Virgin Group, he's quick to recall his early business life in the music industry with Virgin Records, all the way to the stratosphere with space-tourism venture Virgin Galactic – each of which was once the next big thing.

　　However like most start-ups, Branson’s beginnings were humble. After dropping out of school at 16 and starting his first business with just ￡200, he knows what it takes to work from the ground up.

　　At the latest Virgin Media Pioneers’ Pitch to Rich event, Branson and his panel of judges were looking out for a start-up that could one day emulate some of his success.

　　Speaking at the event, Branson shared his thoughts on start-up loans, tax, the importance of mentoring and, responding to questioning from Startups, revealed (aside from the event winners) his pick for the world's next great start-up…

　　Branson on his first business 

　　"Most of the jobs in Britain will be created from new businesses, not from big established businesses. I literally started with ￡200 from a necklace that my mum found and handed in to a police station. Three months later nobody claimed it so she sold it and gave me the money and I used that for my telephone calls to sell my advertising to get my magazine going.

　　"Very, very, small amounts of money can result in companies like Virgin being created. Some ideas break through and tens of thousands of jobs get created."

　　Branson on honing your pitch for the audience 

　　"I remember pitching as a teenager to IPC newspapers, I’d just started my student magazine and we were having lunch with them and they were quite interested about getting involved in the magazine. But then I started talking to them about student hotels, student airlines, student this, student that, and after a while they just showed me to the door – they thought I was completely off my head.

　　"Patricia Lambert from IPC wrote me a letter about 10 years ago saying “uh – we were wrong” so anyway I was talking ahead of myself in those days. So I suspect I would have lost by talking ahead of myself, which I often do and did!"

　　Branson on free marketing and focusing on product first 

　　"I think I would spend a tight budget on improving the product, making sure you’ve got the best product in the field and then use myself to try to get free marketing – rather than spending on advertising.

　　"I didn’t have this profile when I started out. Freddie Laker said to me 'Get out there and make an arse of yourself, get on the front page of the papers rather than the back.' You’ve obviously got personality, I’m sure you’d have no problems in getting journalists to write about you."

　　Branson on the value of mentoring 

　　"When I started as an entrepreneur there were no mentors, no-one to get help from. You were literally thrown in the deep end. If you were very lucky you learnt to swim. Most people tend to fail. So the idea of Virgin Media Pioneers is that you have a large group of people who are in the same water together, helping each other and you’ve got mentors that they can feed off, films they can learn from, books they can learn from and hopefully the success rate will be that much bigger than it used to be.

　　"I think it’s up to all of us to find mentors to help all these new start-up businesses. Not paid mentors, there are thousands of people who’ve just retired or who maybe haven’t retired but can give up a weekend or something to help people. So helping mentorship schemes, helping mentors find the time to help these start-up businesses. I’m not sure if it’s a government thing but it’s important."

　　Branson on loans for start-ups 

　　"We’ve encouraged the government to set up entrepreneurial loans, so if people don’t want to go to university and they have a business idea – instead of saddling themselves with debt going to study they can saddle themselves with debt by setting up a business. Hopefully they’ll have a better chance of paying it off with business."

　　Branson on starting a business irrespective of age 

　　"It’s important to encourage anybody who has a good idea that’s going to make a difference to other people’s lives to give it a go. It doesn’t really matter if they’re young or old. But in college, in school, we could do a lot better than we’ve done up until now in encouraging entrepreneurialism and if people want to go to college to learn entrepreneurship it would be great if while they’re there they could start a little business because I think that’s a really good way of learning how to run a business – just give it a go!"

　　Branson on businesses avoiding tax 

　　"I think the traditional way of running a business is that businesses find every way to pay the least amount of tax – and they’ll get tax advisors to do that and they’ll play within the rules and government will set the rules. It’s quite within the power of government to change the rules. That’s the traditional way, but then there’s moral arguments – it’s up to the chief executive to decide if that might be morally damaging for the company or just damaging from a public relations point of view."

　　Branson on the rise of major cities outside London 

　　"Well, I like to think that – in the last 40 years since I’ve been in business I’ve seen places like Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool thrive compared to what it was 40 years ago and I think better train services going out to these places have meant more people are willing to live out there and so on.

　　"It would be a great pity if that started reversing. I didn’t know about those statistics [one in four jobs will be created in the capital] but I think we’ve got to do everything we can to make sure there’s an equal spread of job creation.

　　"So there are people all over the world – I’ve had approaches with our spaceship company to launch a whole array of satellites from another entrepreneur which will transform telecommunications, wifi, and internet access. The great thing about entrepreneurs is that they’re always thinking, always coming up with new ideas to benefit people’s lives and that process creates jobs and creates wealth."

　　Branson on the next big thing in the start-up world 

　　"Well, there’s a little company in New Zealand called Lanzitech. Lanzitech is tiny, it’s run by a British guy and he’s come up with this fantastically unique way of taking the waste product from steel plants and aluminium plants and turning it into jet aviation fuel. It’s what was going up the chimney pipes before and just cluttering up the skies. He puts it through a whole filter programme and turns it into aviation fuel.

　　"Virgin Atlantic has pledged to put all the profits we make from our airline into developing clean aviation fuel and we’ve got the first use of Lanzitech’s fuel. They’ve set up plants in Shanghai and in a number of cities in China and if they set up a little plant alongside every steel plant and aluminium plant in the world – the airline industry could go from being one of the dirtiest industries to one of the cleanest. And that’s just a young-ish British entrepreneur."

　　Branson on being inspired by travel and the sugar-free opportunity 

　　"I think those people that can get out and travel and monitor what’s been successful elsewhere and then borrow the ideas – they can see what’s been successful – it makes a lot of sense. If you can reinvent the wheel even better but if not see what works overseas.

　　"And I think sugar, apart from cigarettes, is the biggest killer there is, so if you can make products that are sugar-free and taste good then that’s great."

　　Branson on launching a Virgin Accelerator for UK start-ups 

　　"Well, we do some, in the British Virgin Islands Larry Page and myself have set up a fund where we’re lending monies to start-up businesses that can’t get funding from banks. The glass bottom boat in the British Virgin Islands has just paid off his loans and he couldn’t get money from the bank, and someone wanted to build a conch farm and we’ve helped.

　　"There’s different things going on in the world, we’ve got Branson School of Entrepreneurship in Johannesburg which helps people from the townships get mentors and training and we’re marrying up business people from the UK who go there and help with funding and the like. In terms of the UK I don’t know how much we do, but if we don’t do a lot we should do more…"

　　By Lucy Smith