The art of entrepreneurship: Julie Meyer at TEDxSalford

good afternoon good to be here at TEDx Alford I was at TEDx Brussels I think this is bigger I think we're doing a bigger here in Salford I'm going to talk to you a little bit this afternoon about that guy isn't he great I love the face of that guy that's the face of every entrepreneur just in case you didn't know that they may not show it to you but never forget that that's the face that's going on inside of them and so the next time your cousin or your brother or your friend down the street or your work colleague says they're going to do something that are going to set up a business or they are setting up a business and they're doing X and you say not sure it's going to work just remember that inside they've got that that look going on and they're they're going to show it to you now I frequently say follow the entrepreneur I'm going to give you two reasons two good reasons why we should as a nation as a group of people follow the entrepreneur that's really the following they see the inevitable entrepreneurs through dint of being sometimes that off the reservation or a unique experience in their job or some sort of special intelligence or market opportunity they see what's coming down the pike they see the future they see what inevitably is going to come but most importantly they're willing to live abnormal lives you can define abnormal however you want to but I think we all know what we mean I think we all have a friend or or a loved one that's working more than a workaholic they're they're living in abnormal lives a life to bring the future to us and those are two good reasons why I think we need to follow the entrepreneur now if I think about my own industry venture capital and if I kind of go back go back as far as Christopher Columbus go back as far as Michelangelo think about the people who other people besides Deborah who cross the ocean other people who painted the Sistine Chapel we've had that class of people entrepreneurs throughout history we haven't always called them entrepreneurs sometimes we've called them creators sometimes we called them adventurers etc but there's been a dynamic throughout history for a very long time there's a group of people who see the future who work abnormal lives to bring that future to us and there's another group of people who have capital and that capital follows the money and that to me was a major revelation when I was living in Paris in my early 20s obsessed frankly about having no money I thought my god how am I going to break through I know no one I've come to this country and they weren't waiting for me you know my god what am I going to do until my friend at the time said stop worrying about the money if you're good at what you do if you're meant to do it the money will find you and I thought that it was the most ridiculous idea I had ever heard and I told him that until I stopped to think about and said well you know he is older successful wiser etc and I tell you the past 25 years it's been one long example of the the less I focus on the money the more I focus on my unique contribution the more I focus on what I meant to do my unfair advantage play to my strengths the more the money finds me and I really encourage you to think the same way but the bigger issue is is that the financial services industry thinks it's an industry it's not it's a service industry to industry and that's where we got to get everybody understanding that what we're here to do is to back industry I back digital industrialists on a capital provider to digital industrialist and that's the proper order of things and throughout history capital has always followed ideas and the people who are at the front of of purveying those ideas and building structures businesses companies countries etc around the leading ideas of the day Queen Isabella was note nothing more than a woman who put Christopher Columbus on a retainer the Medici family were there to back Michelangelo as he explored and developed the Sistine Chapel so just remember when you're thinking how do I get that money I can't do anything because I don't have any money wrong capital follows ideas always has always will so remember the new the new economy turns out it's only the latest version of new how many of you have heard of Carlota Perez not that many hands going up out there put it on your reading list Carlota Perez theory of disruptive technology and adoption basically what Carlota has done very helpfully has looked at the past couple hundred years and she's pointed out there's a moment of disruptive technology from which 60 to 70 years of technological change emerges and one of the things that's most missing from the narrative that we read in the business papers and the publications and so forth that the the country reads is understanding how technology creates prosperity it's not just a niche industry from some of us who love to hang out with technologists it's actually one of the key drivers and lovers of change and growth and prosperity you can't be a high-growth business unless you're leveraging finance and technology you can be a good business you could be a lifestyle business you can be an honest hardworking managing director of a business but you can't actually be a high-growth business without technology and finance so this this little chart here just shows you those moments of disruptive technology the big bang's of technological change and then what happens is a cycle of it's the installation of new technologies and the deployment of those technologies into big business and what Carlota did is she was a Venezuelan economist she went out to Silicon Valley where I where I grew up in in 1971 she was expecting to study oil and in the the changing of courses that Debra spoke about what she found she found that the Intel microprocessor she went to study oil she ended up studying the microprocessor and she realized that the phenom that she was witnessing was none other than one that comes every 60 or 70 years and then you have a series of installation and deployment of those technologies and here are just a couple of companies and people that you will recognize all that have stemmed out like concentric circles from that Big Bang of disruptive technology so the revolution starts as a small fact with big promise and moves to become a significant force in the market and that's why I never underestimate any entrepreneur that I meet the first time I met Nikola Sundstrom he'd been raising capital for 18 months he didn't look like the guy who was going to sell Skype to eBay less than two years later for 2.5 billion dollars the most important things in life start off as a small fact with huge promise and they can become significant forces in the market and in your life if you believe in them now these big banks attract new investment I was asked earlier what should I go out to Silicon Valley to set up my business I said no there are some of us that are trying to get the capital providers and we are capital providers to back the companies that are built around the technologies most importantly I say a new context is emerging and for those of us who understand that a new common sense is emerging in the world we need to communicate that the future is not going to be like the past the job that you have tomorrow is not going to be like the one that you lost that there's a process of constant change and that while it's difficult it's inevitable and that we have to be the purveyors of saying there's a new expanding pie there's a set of changes that technology is going to bring to our lives and we have to be in control of those changes so that they don't further create more divisions more unfair inequality etc but it is inevitable so what Carlota talks about in her theory of disruptive technology is that you have this economic institutional and technological change which just runs like a circle and keeps on moving throughout history and if we don't introduce this into the country's dialogue about what's happening it's not just about monetary policy it's not about vertical is about how technology creates a new common sense for how the world the world at the end of the 60-year cycle will not be like the world that was existing in 1971 in Silicon Valley when Carlota Perez went out in search of oil and found the microprocessor and the world which emerges with the next big bang whatever that Big Bang of disruptive technology will be will be still different and will create a whole new reality a new common sense as well and we have to be open to that because the winners of the people who get to the other side first and welcome everybody across so what does that mean in simple Juli language when I first came to this country in 1998 a set up a network of entrepreneurs called first Tuesday and everybody who came to first Tuesday events we had him in Manchester as well these were digital revolutionaries Internet entrepreneurs they were David with his slingshot they wanted to kill and assassinate the Goliath of the day and didn't really work out that way a couple of them survived and you know the big internet names that survived and so forth but I would argue that today it's a very different dynamic David and Goliath need to dance remember through the the last 12 years broadband mobile technology just continued to penetrate into our lives we are living our lives more with the benefit of Technology we just don't think of it as technology and so the digital entrepreneurs that come to my office today at Ariadne capital they're looking for our ace fund to invest in them they don't say things like we've got this great piece of disruptive technology and we're going to kill Tesco we're going to take over Barclays they say something completely different they said we've got a great digital application we've got a digital car we're looking for a highway can you help us find the highway for our digital car so consumerization of technology that's what's been going on for the past 15 years when I started out in my career it wasn't the case technology was adopted inside the office and you may have heard of the singularity is near another book for your for your reading list basically Raymond Kurzweil says at a certain point we have to leverage technology just to understand how much how fast it's taking over our lives because the rate of adoption of new technologies is emerging so quickly now this this explains my entire business you've got David David is the digital enabler he's that entrepreneur that's building the digital car Goliath are all the all the different corporates that have distribution they could be tested they could be Barclays they could be a train line they could be Virgin active the biggest thing that corporates have today is distribution audience scale reach and they need to open themselves up to digital entrepreneurs they need to put a big old signpost out there they need to create an ability for those digital entrepreneurs to interact with their customers because no venture capitalist today is going to give 50 million sterling to Egypt Digital David to go acquire customers he or she's going to have to find that Highway and if the corporates don't become the highway if they don't open themselves up and become that enterprise platform they'll go to Amazon a go to Apple they go to Facebook into Google and Salesforce calm and every other American technology firm unless they're highway lots of examples of digital enablers engaging with corporates today this David and Goliath dance is happening all over the market and you'll spot this everywhere you go so many of you heard last August 2011 Marc Andreessen the founder of Netscape running one of those disruptive venture capital firms in the world out in Silicon Valley he was quoted by The Wall Street Journal in an interview he said software is eating the world all businesses are being rebuilt as software firms and I do mean and he meant all businesses every business imagining is going to be rewritten with software and digital business models and if for those of you that are out there that might be watching this that will say we have it not my business then you're basically going to get steamrolled over by a technology firm a software firm that's going to take over your industry your sector your company happened in music it's happened in books it's happened in telcos it's happening in banking it's happening it's just a question of how fast you die or whether you get on to the high-growth highway so given all that what's the investment opportunity where do you go well we have a cunning plan we never forget it Ariadne capital and an entrepreneur country which is one of our four businesses that innovation is about economics people get confused they're wrong they think it's about technology it's not remember technology and finance are service industries to industry they're supporting they give leverage they give growth but they're not the main event so innovation is about economics if it were about technology we'd all be flying the Concorde we're not we're stuffed in jumbo jets so if there's one concept that I really want you to take away from today's talk is that there's a profound Network orientation to business to all of life in fact nothing operates linearly or hierarchically today nothing is about I'm buying you're selling nothing is about I'm bigger you're smaller nothing is about I'm right you're wrong so just do it and get on with it report back we are participating in a transaction we're participating in an ecosystem we're participating in a club in a group in ascend and so forth and as a result of understanding and taking forgiving even if you don't even if you're not sure go with it for a week with this concept there's a network orientation to everything and think therefore about the opportunities because I guarantee you that the people who understand this are the ones who are going to be winning ecosystems ecosystem economics is what we believe predicts the winners the people whether they're in large printing companies or small mom-and-pop shops that people understand who who's in their ecosystem and can and can figure out how they can drive a set of economics to create a growing pie and to create a set of shared economics in the central transaction that could be buying milk at your corner store that could be how ebooks are distributed that could be about how printing reshapes itself in the world of e-books any business operates in an ecosystem where the transaction is the micro representation of the macro ecosystem we're participating in these were not dictating we've moved to a world of carrots not stick let's talk about Google ecosystem economics Google's say that they organize the world's information actually they do a lot more than that don't they they organize the economics of the world's information and I in you as consumers of their search share in no economic or financial upside of the use of our data they aggregate albeit anonymously our data but they don't give us any upside whatsoever now I've argued for a long time that their greatest Achilles heel would be if somebody would offer a different ecosystem economics approach to that and give the individual user a share of the economics and I looked for that entrepreneur I found him his name is John Paleo mellitus he's a British entrepreneur and he ran a business called beet that quote beet that quote was a financial services price comparison and it wasn't even the biggest one wasn't many supermarket and when Google came knocking looking for a company to acquire in that sector they didn't think about many supermarket they looked for the guy who had the business model that threatened them to their core which was offering an economic value for the use of people's data and they said I think we'll have that one and then they acquired beat that quote for a hundred and twenty two times he bit da multiple you don't do that unless you're threatened Google is in the driver seat because they understand ecosystem economics they didn't they may not talk about it but they absolutely do but the opportunities are always to create a more inclusive set of ecosystem economics and that's what Alistair Lucas did Alistair Lucas is one of this country's most phenomenal entrepreneurs he started with his vision of mobile banking and pain the core of monetize a 600 million dollar company has just acquired its largest u.s. competitor backed by Visa now listed on the London Stock Exchange with the simple statement he said if this mobile banking is going to work it has to work for everyone instead of just selling software to the bank's I'm going to create a set of economics for the mobile operator the bank lowering the cost of capital for the individual compared to say Western Union who are going to charge me 22% if I'm poor I'm going to create a set of ecosystem economics which work so just wrapping up monitize has created a global company because ecosystem economics have created that market pool and they have created a huge m-commerce region as well so in 2012 network benefits accrue to those firms who understand their role in their ecosystem and organize the economics for it this in turn leads to exceptional returns for their shareholders thank you very much you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 305,222

Keywords: media, tedx, mediacity, tedx talk, manchester, antrepreneur, ted, bbc, city, ted talk, tedxsalford, salford, tedx talks, den, capital, art, ted x, dragons, entrepreneurship, mediacityuk, dragon, julie, ariadne, meyer, ted talks

Id: ATLUouxwykM

Length: 19min 1sec (1141 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 10 2012