Theo Paphitis | Full Q&A | Oxford Union

okay I've walked in with my beard apparently I look just like nicer Faraj according to Robert so there we are I want to about my politics in that case well they can come we're talking about in the air the EU a bit later if you like I have it too whether you tell me you want but get it right this time get it right okay well we start off with it now right okay you know it's uh it's just two weeks in two days until the country goes to the polls what would you advise me get some information I mean where the Cameron said vote with your heart didn't he and one thing I learned in life was out of love with my heart and for everything else that using my head so I think we need to get the information if you would understand why we're doing what we're doing while we got referendum well the facts are what the consequences of leaving are what the consequences of staying armed which are quite interesting and I didn't come up with your own decision but the hardest thing is going to separate the ball from the ship and there's a lot of it out there at the moment and which is which has shaped you know what I thought was thinking on the way down here that if this referendum was a flotation of a public company is anybody doing anything to do with business commerce finance stock exchange you got one oh dear okay the rest of you thespians and scientists okay well if you were flow to your company you have to do prospectus this referendum would fail on the first hurdle because you got verify everything that you say and I'm afraid which is a which is quite concerning bear in mind these are the people that run in this country though they're prepared to say things without being able to verify them one way or another so frightening get as much information under your belt as possible separate the book from the ship assuming everybody's lying to you and gave it to verify what the same and then make a decision and it will be dependent how you want to lead your life and when you've got those facts straight how do you advise people to vote strangely enough if we go my blog Theo Paphitis calm look at my blog I've been running I'm just writing the ninth one now been running for the last eight weeks a blog pissing everyone off pointing out the errors of their ways and what they should be doing I'm not I've got a Theo meter which runs on my blog and at the moment I'm a little bit towards breaks it button a little bit till it breaks it but we've got a few more weeks to go so Wesley anything yeah well you know I think it's going to be the most telling weeks where the Prime Minister out today calling you know the the the second the Secretary of State for or justice a liar how's it gonna work with him afterwards I best is they didn't really call him a liar they usually with a little liar because he wouldn't would he he said he was saying untruths that's our best is incompetent if you're saying untruths so can he work with him afterwards why would you have somebody in your cabinet that tells untruths well will come and still be there leading a cabinet well if he loses if he loses the campaign undoubtedly he'd be gone if he wins he'll be there for a little bit because it'll still have to go because the ways dealt with the whole campaign and how badly he's performed on it so if the referendum were to be tomorrow you'd vote legally willing to be swell no no these the cou almighty is a little bit towards BRICS it at the moment but it's two weeks ago everything to play for and I will make my decision closer time what I'm trying not to do is to tell people to vote the way I want to vote I'm done trying to do is to get people to vote it's a referendum it's to get people to vote the way they feel they need to vote making their own decisions but on the facts not on scare mongering or the fact there's gonna be fire and brimstone and they'll be burning cities in Europe and there'll be white graves and crosses everywhere if we leave the EU alternatively they'll be utopia and everything will be sweetness and light if we leave because that's also utter because there will be the biggest shock this country's has since we left the ERM it sounds like sensible advice of course somewhere else I don't know sensible advice that's not sensible advice HS practical logical advice sensible would be to go with the government and get knighthood or something like that Oh should I say that it's fine it's not being broadcast or another week course a week and try and leave it come if you like of course somewhere else where there's everything to play for is in the den and you you are on Dragon's Den for nine series and did you enjoy being a dragon I loved it it was great fun it was a bit daunting the first series because you're in front of cameras and there's not something that you know I'd had much experience of well it talks about upstairs I did have some experience I was chairing a Millwall so I spent a lot of time after Games talking to BBC news trying to justify well we had so many problems but so that was about my own experience of cameras okay but you weren't on the first series of dragons that no did you ever regret not being around no not really because it was boring the first he's only got interesting when I joined correlation or causation are things your cousin's okay get to hair well you made 45 investments during the all you did according to the competing you did do you actually sorry I'm gonna stop you there okay who believes everything they're reading Wikipedia oh come on guys everything we can feed the I study PvE it's my main source of information academic information but it's true of course people do that now I mean that's got to be true so Wikipedia but some half would put it on there and then somehow the half-wits gonna argue about akan argue about it but for a period of time it's fact say is it not 45 I don't know so might be 45 it could be it could be Emily look one Wikipedia in there this sake well either way you may not know investments I think was around five someone who probably sat there counting them yeah and I have them up myself seriously serious I'm getting life Robert that's two of those of those multitude of investments which one was your favorite oh wow I've had some great ones whatever I'm really good fun in fairness first series was the idea which is serious too well it was a bit nerve-wracking and you know you were looking at everybody and trying to be very professional and in those days the Dragons were really mean their work so cast to be hard and businesslike and they showed you at the beginning of the show the credits a you know in a fast car a big mansion an aeroplane and a parachute on our yacht and that was the whole picture of the Dragons it softened up as the series went on and the BBC realized they were breaking every editorial policy going but so you're quite serious so you were you were choosing investments based on what you consider to be really good business analyses you very quickly worked out actually that a good person with an average idea was a far to investment then an absolute idiot with a brilliant idea especially we've got to work with him so after the first series where we learned that example then it was really a lot of us just invest in people we liked that had an average idea because we thought a really good person with an average idea is going to look better that somebody didn't ever work ethic doesn't repair to their homework or listen with a good idea because otherwise you'd have to run their business for them and surprisingly we didn't have the time so basically from seconds from my second series onwards a part mother was one all of this everybody invested I was really happy with but there was one what your least favorite investment yeah which one was that I thought I'm going to say here actually um yeah nods gonna know are they no no you know what tell you what do you are you but if I name them live that YouTube do you see you go now on yeah not like not like I know it's just fine it's recorded yeah okay so there's this bloke right we did the one of the great thing about BBC that they do try and join all their shows out with this sort of the family the BBC and it was great there might be see they've we did comic relief with Sports relief Pudsey bear and there was a Sports relief year which is basically comic relief everyone other comedy relief is yeah correct right every other year sports relief so we dressed the den up as a sort of football page and we had people pitching tours with products associated with sport and it was a sports relief special just 15 minutes I mean the tall fella Pete Jones and he's taught very very rate or weird but tall we invested in a bloke called Jean Claude he had this there wasn't apps in those day so much I felt they had not even come out by then and it basically it was like a Nokia phone but it had all the peace maps on and it could actually work out if you took it with your skiing and it have all the peace maps it works at your speed where you've traveled you could download it really early stuff visionary stuff and we both saw it we were interested in it are not like gadgets and are we invested in him yeah we invested in I remember the profits were meant to go to charity for this one because it was a for sports release so we thought we did some good social enterprise promise going to charity didn't lose the charity money did you you lost our money as well well I haven't we completed with lawyer's office we did all the bits and pieces and we shook hands and we put all the shareholders agreement in place which means you need another signature on the bank account it couldn't spend money on capital more than five thousand pounds without asking our approval first and everything else all the sensible things you would do in a joint venture and then I left and went home to a fella left and went home and jean-claude went to the bank took the money and off so there was no was there no gadget this invention didn't really exist he just thought he'd spend the money okay which is not a good thing so we found him in the end and he threw him off the mountain no no that was just I wished I know that the long arm the long arm of the law took over okay and he was tried proven guilty and spent some time in majesty her majesty's pleasure and we rename this is jean fraud from that day onwards so yes that was an agreement of a good investment all for the right reasons and actually the product was good I don't know why he did weighted to this day we don't know why everybody just fed false information that wasn't true so we lost our money on that one so it was one more wasn't one of mine and talk fellas Greatest Hits okay do you have a one you have enjoyed with the tall fellow so that is a good question it's a really good warming up now again we are you're getting good at this on you I've got lots with him actually in fairness he's one of my favorite dragons you'll get upset now because I said he's one of my favorite dragon not my favorite dragon he tweeted me the other day he got very upset don't got loads with him we've got quite a few really good ones and actually we've gotten a lot there was much bigger company we got a red letter date which myself and Pete's around 5050 which is really doing well and we bought that from administration and it's grown brilliantly Masek to but just last year over two million quid profit so that was a nice little investment between us so we don't mind that way yeah so we have some good investments work group great mates as well loads of banter so yeah well if he's not your favorite dragon here is your favorite I can't tell you now because you're filming it it's not like if I keep saying yeah it's not like we're going to go out and you'll get you'll get really because he's tall a very manly but he's incredibly sensitive aren't you Peter really really sensitive so if I said for instance that Deborah might be my favorite dress just for instance you'd be very upset Peter with you yep see he's already very upset behind the screen he'd be very upset so I couldn't possibly say he'd better come here to respond yeah we'll have to come and respond bees definitely up there though he's definitely up there good well Deborah of course was here last time and one thing that she said in her event was that a TV show Dragon's Den is about as close as you can possibly get to real business would you agree with that I think it's it's it's it's speed dating that's it now of course you're honest two three or four minutes on TV a can take several hours but it gets netted sit down so even through four hours to invest in the businesses that's mega speed-dating you know it so that's what it is so what you're doing is you're dumbing everything down keeping the the raw ingredients of business which is you know what's the numbers will it make sense is there a market for it we've got enough cash the management all the things that you would ask and if you would look at any other business so you look there's raw parts of business dumbed down in a very short period of time and then afterwards there's some due diligence that goes on as well to make sure that what you've been told is true okay so even after you've said yes I'm going to him back that's not the end of the process no it's not because you could tell me you've got this product's got patent on it exists and then when we'll do my search is it doesn't exist and that'll be foolhardy wouldn't it have with me he'll would so I assume with everything they've told they've told us is correct and of course the investment goes through okay what's the worst pitch you've ever seen in the den how we got some right rubbish ones on me we've had loads of rubbish ones I think that most rubbish one really really really rubbish there's a couple of rubbish ones actually now I'm thinking about it there was one which is really early serious two or three some guy decided to invent a roller skate for your knees because he didn't see why you'd have to put them on your feet why wouldn't you put them on your knees it'd be far more fun to actually have them on your knees and it'll roll around on your knees and well firstly why so it's great I'll go that I'll play with my children I'm at the same height as them really and it was like convinced he was he started crying when we sort of explained to him you know articulately slowly and quite sensitively well summers did some said I'm or I don't understand it or more but the rest of us sensitively explained to him that it was not a gamma this one he got very very upset there was him and then the the saddest wanna war was as lovely middle-aged lady twinset and pearls came up the stairs and pitched very well-spoken articulate odd cause far as saying intelligent and then I'd ask why and she says she'd been on holiday once it's a turkey and she was on a budget so she booked a cheap hotel and then when she went to a room shock horror there was a bath next to her room as she could use so that sounds good but there was just a showerhead off the taps and she couldn't have a proper shower because she'd have to hold a showerhead while she was cleaning herself and she thought that was a real inconvenience and it must be a solution other than to bring for the bellboy to come and hold the showerhead for you which would have been a far better idea if she'd done that by the way and so she decided that this must be a better way so she was you got a home she spoke to her mother there auntie another relative who also said she did hit on a really good idea so they'll issue it's a real issue this bra lovers so she spent two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of her money her mother's money her arms his money boot get into a prototype I'm patenting it all around the world of a piece of plastic which looks like a bar of soap with four stickers at the back of it that you could stick on the wall and then place the shower hose on it so you can it around your suitcase with you wherever you go so if you find that the hotel you've booked is not up to scratch and it all's it has is a hose attachment on the tabs you just pull out your piece of plastic lick the ends stick it on the wall stick the shower head on and you've got an instant shower I think it sounds sensible yep why two hundred fifty thousand quid and then she was devastated when we explained to have been cheaper food to sustain better hotels for the rest of her life and she'd already spent the money but with in have you spend your inheritance on that they asked we all go to Oxford that's why there was another uni down a road they would Brooks or something like that there'd be all of it I would do it I would do it I think that were different Brooks here is a I think I'd have invested maybe that's why I'm not some dragons than her and do you ever sit there in your in your chair did you and think I wish I was up there pitching kids I could do such a better job you know is my worst nightmare you didn't have an idea that you'd want to pitch to the Dragons know what fight with them know and it would be my worst possible nightmare know what coming up against yourself any of them no no no no never possible mind okay not want any better questions well and I was gonna just say you know it sounds like you you clearly had a great time on the show we did without there's 9 series why did you leave in 2013 because I've done it for so long and they would change you know whether the format of the show as well and it just felt right for me and I just bought Robert dies another business that needed turning around we just started a new lingerie business called boo so work workwise heavy commitments to lose for we see a life plus all the ancillary air privation afterwards all the investments and everything else was just you know there's time comes when you think you know what it's been great but I need to move on in life and that was it was the right time for me let's talk a bit about your and your businesses then and how you made your 200 million fortune estimating did you read there that was also a Wikipedia on the face good what is the point of going to the best university in the world and all your information cuz on Wikipedia I asked London for me London yeah well there you go you can on till the clubs with club in it having fun jumping up and down and if you're inviting me I'll come now of course you're here you breathe yeah well anyway of course it all really started with that with Rylands and I with the Topshop when you in school it started with a kiss no one got that who got that yeah another Bob Harry's fan there right gone Ryman let's go take you back you look forward a bit okay well for some it's a I mean diamonds what is it that excites you about station okay come on Carl turn that on its head you can try a guitar and you had the esteemed Sir John Major hmm yeah recently didn't you um he did an interview why way way way back I think it was it was all shortly after it finished being Prime Minister and as part of his leisure activities they did mention EC didn't mention about Parvez leisure activities he said was going into rhyming and browsing stationery so he found it interesting he's an exciting man and I just it was when I bought the business everyone thought because it was an administration everyone thought I was barking because the world of the paperless 20 years ago 21 one years ago the world of the paperless office had arrived and none was gonna buy any more paper which is absolutely nonsense and they missed the point that ramen was a convenience store they didn't do that many might contract stationery office stationery but it was really lastminute.com he bought one thing two things and they're there for what you need them for their convenience and that convinced market my in my view was always going to be be they even when when tourism most difficult recessions and it's proven absolutely right and in fact we've seen the convenience model and supermarkets grow quite tremendously it's been one of their biggest earners and and the race for supermarket supplement convenience stores so it was convenience it just happened to be an especially sector and that was stationary then before one minute that we wouldn't be using paper and in fact as it turned out we use ancient ink huge amount of ink huge amount of paper we still like to print things out we still like to write things and we've seen some of our larger competitors like staples office world who had big sheds and their view of stationery was you would drive with the family on a Sunday afternoon give up four or five hours of your weekend to go on browser and buy some stationery well you're not going to you know popping grab something quickly move on and for me it was it was a calculated gamble one that's paid off you mentioned kiss which I believe stands for keep it simple stupid disaster that yes Wikipedia doesn't know something hey say and you said that it's down to that mantra and just your common sense that you've achieved your success what advice do you have the budding entrepreneurs and business people okay they'll be exceptions to this obviously but the old adage if it was like at that quacks like a duck what do we know it's likely to be a dog so as apps common sense and in fact on the blog about the EU that's the exactly all's I've been I've refused to get into the claim and counterclaim about whether it's very hundred million pounds a week or one hundred and fifty million pounds a week or this is gonna happen or the IMF have said you know we're gonna melt a meltdown or the Treasury says gonna cost every household in the United Kingdom a trillion pounds on their mortgage because it's all nonsense it's about logic the whole EU debate is about logic it's not just oh they're not print arguing about the numbers and business is it's the Emperor's New Clothes sort of syndrome and business is no different start on logic and work from there and over the period logic will always end up ahead you have some reversals but we had up ahead and that's all I've done my education was very limited because I was dyslexic and I went to comprehensive school in North London where you you were just stupid dislikes it wasn't really recognized how bright you were you were just troublesome because you would question excuse me miss doesn't make sense shut up and sit in the corner and you troublesome so for me the logic part was where I couldn't see things and have to work things out and just say if this happens undoubtedly this is the next step and after that step it's this step and it's about keeping things incredibly simple and then you pay other people to the complicated things but keeping it absolutely simple and do you think that entrepreneurship and that ability to use logic keep it simple is that something that can be taught or is it a kind of instinct for you're either born with or not born with an intrapreneur made of born as a question I've heard many times before I think the answer to that is I've seen I've changed my mind by the way to do over the years because I've seen people who are not natural intrapreneurs do really really well so you wonder why and I think the best analogy I can give you is football so you have a really gifted football player and he ends up playing Premiership football and it's hugely gifted you have a workman like football player and he ends up playing in Ligue 1 or Conference both the professional football players both make money from playing football just at different levels so I think there's opportunity for a large section of the population to be entrepreneurs but they won't all be Premiership but they'll make a good living since I mean you have to have some level of natural instinct but then you can train it and develop it I think you can do them definitely train it and develop it I think you can trend for instance you can't be a football player you can't run around the page so that's the clinic out of the window but as long as you can run around the page there's a level of which you can train that's at a very basic level of course but what's amazing that where I come from that's great but what do you make of the all the big kind of business schools like here we have the side business school SBS here at Oxford which charges 50,000 pounds for those taking its courses for for single year and obviously most how many fifty thousand pounds Wow many successful business people dropped out of school didn't go to university do you think there's any point in having these business schools is it just a waste of money okay I'll answer answer that with another question um how much or GPD of the UK comes from small businesses 50% exactly good good you read that Wikipedia it could be their food percent of GDP comes from SMEs and that 50% is a magic figure because it's exactly the same figure give a tip well - I'm a dumbing it down a bit but give or take I'm not asked to do that in this audience but I wondered there anyway just striking through the numbers otherwise it gets too complicated but give me a couple percent leeway when you look at after tomorrow he's lying it's for a person but that 50% is some roughly the figure of businesses that fell in the first two years it's a half of all businesses that started failed in the first two years some restart again and go on to more success some don't and the reason they fail is the lack of understanding of business just the basics of business which is why I'm so keen about entrepreneurialism and business being taught really early on at school just the basics so those are those that are entrepreneurial at least I've got some understanding about what they're gonna be intrapreneurial about and what it's not just about buying something I'm gonna sell it for more money you know that's a good start but there's lots of things on the way if you're gonna be successful that you've also gonna do so I'm more keen about it been taught at schools been taught even in to new schools seen in schools you knees and making sure the people absolutely at different levels get that education because if we if we think about 50% of our GDP come from SMEs if it could be more successful in that failure rate and increase our growth rate but we'd have an amazing effect in the country so even though I didn't go to any formal education as far as business is concerned I went to the University of hard knocks and it's painful and I just wish wish wish wish wish that I could stayed on just a little bit longer than school and had the subjects that I was interested in and learn the basics that I needed and maybe that been enough maybe I would have one progressed and once you learn even more so I think that level of education is to go right across our holes the whole spectrum of education not just at the top end where you've got senior executives coming to be schooled because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how what level you are in business bottom line is is a pop of the logical bit and do the basics that I've talked about is you've got to do your homework you've got to know your products you've got to know your market you've got to know your business you've got to do detail and you got to care and if you're gonna compete with everybody else you better be sure that if you're gonna compete that you've got the car those cards stacked firmly in your favor that's not cheating that is doing your homework know more about what you're doing then the competition if you know more than they know you can advantage you got a better chance of success I suppose that's a nice segue from 1sps the side business school to your own SPS the small business Sunday initiative that you started could you tell us a bit more about that I can the small business Sunday it basically it's when to outside in Twitter someone introduced me to Twitter and I raised her and all of a sudden out of 20,000 followers and like no time other whooping well work this is good I don't know started tweeting sending stupid messages and people were responding to me 20,000 people and then it reminded me about when I started off in business so how hard it wasn't expensive to reach customers and to reach out to people communicate with people you just have to pay for printing Flyers advertising you know posters radio is good I just don't what my phone I just talked to them I could probably sell them something and they were a brilliant idea but then I realized that actually if I it was me back in the early 80s I probably would have about 200 followers so actually I couldn't get the same effect because I've only got kind of hundred followers fact that I had to that twenty thousand in two minutes because I've been on telly I've been on the TV people front of folly so I thought will not be good um why don't I share those followers with all those other businesses and give them an opportunity that I could never have and they could never have and it wasn't a Sunday and Sunday for me when Nast was in business was you know after the kids got bath or put to bed in retire to the study that's for the posh ones here and then have a study who had to study in their home study for my meeting Brazil kitchen table so I'd retire to the kitchen table and prepare for Monday because I didn't want to go to work on Monday morning wondering what I was gonna do I was gonna go to work Monday morning already pre-planned hit the ground running and getting advantage that was always my mind always get an advantage so that's on a Sunday so I thought well one of those other people our Sunday of planning about what they're gonna do small businesses but they're gonna do on Monday and I start send some tweets out and I thought well let's give me a leg up that's a first six that send me a tweet back I'll retweet you to my twenty thousand followers in those days and all of a sudden all these tweets came back so I chose six tweeted those and I thought all about it's in the following week and then people started tweeting me Jed Whedon retweet me those Sunday I said oh yeah so I know there's a tonne one hundred two hundred three hundred it all the time they got silly because like thousands would come through and as my followers went up as well and so we created this community small business Sunday so every Sunday people tweet me with their businesses I don't do it on Sunday anymore because it would take too long so it's thunder Monday I've got somebody doing it on a Monday from the office where we go through all the tweets pick out the interesting ones few criteria and then retweet them on a Monday evening they're not on a Sunday but they're treat on a Sunday between 5:30 and 5 and 7:30 and it's a way of Rees helping small businesses market and that's become a community they've got a website now in fact they've got an SBS shop now as well so all the small businesses are working you know one-man band made a lot lot of women in working from their kitchen tables around their families creating crafts small businesses and we put them all in the shop so there's the air space shops all their products are on there so they've got a market place and the services are going on very soon and we have a get together once a year I know I'm returning that I've forgotten now about a thousand people turn up and we lay on other businesses to present to them services for them advantages and we don't charge a penny it's all free it's amazing this sounds like even in your spare time you're always thinking about that next business venture and what you can do to connect people and generate revenue do you ever find time to just relax take loads of it yeah yeah I like to fish it and really fish here it's you again that's a lot of uncommon yeah fishing and the other the other blob blob Lord bloodsport talk about that I'm fishing and shooting cars much racing spending time with mrs. P ooh no no no I'm here see that was shocked horrified turned up at home sailing so yeah got loads and loads of hobbies I don't sit down I just like to do things it was like wait you bum I always want to be doing something I just don't want to just sit down and vegetate I always need to be doing something excellent I think that'd be a good time to open up to questions from the audience and can we start off with a question from the gentleman in the aisle on the back way hi thanks sir firstly for coming and giving you a talk and my name is Simon Endicott and as a person trying to start up a new business and what I think it touched only slightly as well with your your tweeting and everything what do you find copy is the most effective form of marketing eg do now we've obviously all the social media coming on and everything do you still think the trade shows and stuff like that so you've got the one on one person is the best way to go because as you aware obviously to start up business took an advert seen cost thousands Pam's again to stand I know it's a bit of a broad question it is a broad question I don't know what your business is either and it's causes for courses is the answer but so certainly digital marketing has grown and come of age no question now and we see that in the results the other thing about digital marketing is there's a lot more targeted once upon a time he advertised on television and 90% of the users were wasted because there weren't your client there weren't your customer base so they saw the ad but they were never gonna buy anything from you whereas with digital marketing you can really target which is quite important and as users now become more and more comfortable with receiving digital market every time you go on Facebook you see the bar surprisingly it's something it's a website that you looked at recently yeah you've been retargeted yep you've all been retargeted that's a coincidence I looked at their site last week it's no bloody coincident so you really are focusing your spend to those consumers just like we talked about a trade show when you go to a trade show you know everybody there is there in your market so you know you're not wasting and it is a cost associated to it and that's the thing there's a you've similarly got a cost associated if you go for a niche magazine I suppose really as a question is sometimes I mean only for magazine what's your business do you do not that type of business so you know a develop plan bespoke software for engineering software in the oil and gas industry right so it is very nice that's very much I mean I still find the trade shows I suppose more fun to be honest because you've got that interaction and that depends on the other charges to be there the cost of your time and your availability but the fact is you're the best salesman in the world because if you have passion for your business and you've written it so I its horses for courses and more industry you're in to be honest with you and experiment you know you know nothing stops you experimenting and is spending a small amount of money and seeing what the results are thank you we'll go to the question from the lady on the front row I just wanted to ask about what you think the role of social enterprise is going to be in the future of the business world because obviously it's quite a buzzword I need you to read this conversation it upstairs I need to define social enterprise okay so a business that is set up to solve a social problem a business etcetera well okay then how sustainable is that business so it's not a charity it's not a business that's kind of running on people donating money necessarily so it has to be sustained it has to be sustainable I think that that that's that's the six million dollar question because somebody asked me the question and I went astray and I said no if you have a business I have a commercial business and when you've met a success made loads of money from it donated every year to the charity of your cause to me that's philanthropy at its best but you've got to think commercially what I've seen is so many social enterprises start with all good intentions and actually it's not 50 percent don't fail it's a vast majority that failed we're above the average of a normal commercial business so that tells you something's not right because I'm quick like that I can work it out and I think it's because of those people have the passion for the business but for the cause sorry the passion for the cause they have got the passion for the business and one of my mantras that you probably find on Wikipedia if I'm guessing right the three reasons for going to work and the first one is to make money the second one is to have fun and the third one does anybody know don't forget to make bloody money because if you forget to make the bloody money you're not gonna have the fun because you want to have a business and that's what people forget so the social enterprise even if it's just a sustainable social enterprise its first target should be sustainability no I know it's counterintuitive not the enterprise itself so even though it's a social enterprise it's back to the money because unless it's got sustainability it's never going to deliver if it's not going to deliver it's never going to succeed it's not gonna it's not gonna achieve what it went to achieve so it it's a tough lesson and it's hard to to get and obviously so many times you talk to people and they look at you as if you're some capitalist monster you know no I'm just talking common sense you just won't be here to do the good things that you want to do unless you get this bit right first so all great intentions but it's make another money if it's just a sustainability then it's the sustainability comes first thank you if it's all about making money you've made money both through turning round failing businesses diamonds but latter day but also through investing in startups which is a better way to make money it's always for course I've made money in in so many different ways but I've lost money by the way I've lost absolute bundles anyone who tells you they haven't lost money is lying you invest you lose money you've hoped to get more right than wrong I get a particular buzz with working with people and closely so for me it's always been that the turnaround situation actually gained that on the shop floor talking to everybody getting to everybody understanding the business and the silly decisions that previous management have made with the business and actually all they had to do in vast majority of the time is actually do exactly that good answer shop floor and ask because the answers are normally within it's the business itself but sometimes people go to business schools and they just learn jargon actually haven't learned about business they've learnt jargon it's worth fifty thousand pounds isn't really fifty thousand pounds yeah god I'm in the wrong business but it includes the membership of the Oxford Union oh well every app see if you just said that earlier I wouldn't be so shocked so it's it's about the information is there in most businesses the if you've been it's not finding the solution if there's a problem the biggest problem the biggest difficulty is it's not it's not finding the solution to the problem it's finding what the problem is once you've found what the problem is now I would say 90% of Katies you'll find a solution but you've got to find the real problem if you don't find the real problem you'll find the solutions is something that's not the problem and then you wasted your time and a way to do that it's to talk to be thank you we'll go back to our to the audience question from the gentleman in the pink shirt right yeah I love to know what was going through you and your partner's heads when you're considering buying your first business from my administration and why you thought why you knew you could succeed when the previous owners had not just logic common sense so what Boyd another lie for you what well it looked what it look like for me was building blocks just pure but I see things pretty clearly I might be lazy but then there's great advance have been dyslexic you find workarounds for most things to get you through the day whether you're a kid or whether you're an adult and I see things in very small building blocks I'm broken down in small building blocks and then how those building blocks get put together to make the big block at the end of it and for me it's always a breaking down of a business into component parts and then the reassembly and where they're some of the building blocks actually required at all or whether you need additional building blocks to actually make the whole thing work and I'm just thinking about if that was gonna sage correct or not I think is I don't think when we bought business that I've admin that's and if no none of us felt at all they've all gone on to be successful and it's looking why those businesses identifier to learn about their to find the real problem and not but not hiring a consultant who wants to be a consultant and Olivia yeah you're not brave enough to be your hands are you you know think twice about this most of you would be Rabab to be offered jobs from consulting companies because you've come to the right University and you're obviously hugely bright not all of you I've seen a couple with early ever want to about them I said joke I was on a joke you were gonna say it's all go broke when was it made joke but lots but you know an are called consultants in the pro your watch to tell you the job to tell you the time and that's where they come into your business talk to your staff and then tell you what your staff thinking look if you're flipping ass I'm gonna talk to myself and that'll is it I'm not simply finding but it is that simple you gotta be prepared to do it and I'll tell you once you've identified the problems the real problems that are actually fixing them putting them right is not as hard as you think not saying it's easy but it's not as hard as you think it is so have confidence if you can do that if you can identify what the issues are there's your first challenge then finally the solution is a little bit its proper is easy it's definitely easier do you think buying food administration is an undervalued mechanism of entrepreneurship in society no because I'll start as well but we stuck we've started businesses from scratch as well so I taste exciting it's quite exciting because it's a bit of rough and tumble and it's a little bit dirty and you you know down your elbows with muck so you really need to it's it doesn't last for long I'm gonna say something else I'm not going to that part of it is quite exciting it's the first phase the first stage it is actually it's great great fun and there's always a danger you're gonna I think the excitement is in the danger that you might fail you might get it wrong you can't afford to get it wrong and the adrenalin that flows from it and the period of that normally the whole exercise from buying it would not be longer than a couple of weeks and then the turn round is in the first year so all of that is quite fast so I've been lying if I didn't say they get excited about it and the fact that you get the energy you bed first thing in the morning really excited because you you could see the building blocks you can see what's happening you see the results you see it's happening and you want to do it and you want it quicker and you want to do it quick and you want to go to the next stage quicker so yeah there's a different from a startup thank you thank you go to the question I'm just next to you what do you think of graduates that go into investment banking or consultancy don't win your life but goodness say you have one life we're talking about earlier do only one life that is it very is in the in the other scheme of mankind it doesn't actually even you know you don't you won't show on the radar your life why waste it whether it's something like that go to Lord instead I can do so first thing them when you do that deal in Lord you're gonna gap in the morning you want to go in there do that exciting thing the following day all the things we just spoke about in business listen you'll do what I'll tell you what I said to my kids I'm unchecking with you at the moment by the way is find your passion do what your what excites you what it's gonna make you jump out of bed and it's been a consultant does it for you become a consultant if being it going to mean being a lawyer does it become a lawyer because it's a short lighter do what excites you don't do just what can I pay you the most money you'll regret it you might not early doors but you will regret it do what what your passion is what drives you could if your passion for something and you jump out of bed in the morning for you one of them more of it surprisingly the likelihood is you're gonna be very good and you're gonna be very successful and in a lot cases the financial rewards will come with it but if you're gonna do something just for the money I saved from the screen then unless that really rocks your bow and some people it does by the way so mustard I think if that really rocks your boat then fine do it but otherwise give thought finally thing that rocks your boat they're gonna make you be excited about every single day of your life and it sounds very cliche doesn't it do you believe me so if you had your career again would you go straight into entrepreneurship I did and without realizing it I sort of stumbled into it more than anything else because that's what excited me and the answer is absolutely yes I've done loads of other things that weren't quite tripping oral but probably would have made quite a bit of money and the other things as well but they didn't do it for me didn't excite me didn't really get me going and I need that energy to to keep me going so and I'm with my kids they're all so so different five of them they're also so different I can't tell you and I've got one that works with me it was intrapreneurial the others I've got no interest in be interpreters ago careers in different worlds and as far as I'm concerned if that's what excites and that's what rocks their boat that's what they should be doing irrespective of what academic results they may have or do or it's irrelevant it's basic there's got time for maybe just one or two more quick questions quick question quick question we'll go to the question from the member in the aisle towards the back has dyslexia giving you an advantage in the business world I think it has I'm all the way through school it was it was it was Treasury it was awful my school only because I knew I wasn't stupid and that could verbally reason with anybody but when it came down to the written word then there was an issue so I had a peer group that was academically in totally different classes to me so I was in the bottom they were like in the first and ib3 classes between us but there were my peer group friends not the kids I was in the class with so some that there was a disconnect there so for me to actually try and work through and try and get close to them and keep up with them you know I would have to work ten times as hard so I wouldn't have to prepare a lot more do a lot more homework put a lot more time aside just to keep up I'd have to plan I couldn't wing it pastors used to be everything last minute calm and they'll be up there how did no work and they'll just be there I hated them because I would have want to be with them but at the same time I knew I had to go and prepare and I'd have to find ways of dealing with things working out different ways of remembering things studying so everything was a work round everything was a work round and it took ten hours alone so then you go into the business one you find out a lot lazy bastards out there they've done to the work where's your cold work ethic was prepare prepare prepare prepare prepare work hard hard hard hard hard just to keep up I think if I'd actually didn't keep up anymore you were ahead of the game and I've got to tell you that was a shock I didn't expect that no one told me that those because quite welcome thank you and finally we all gave you the question from gentlemen here in the jacket so let's say you have nothing you have no business connection you have no Twitter followers and you have 100,000 pounds so what would you do a hundred grand yes let's say I mean what kind of business 50 covenant econ ask me I mean you try and recruit even now whose head miss my face I don't know what career to do and I was it to follow your passion there there there there if you don't just make if you ponder something else learn about econ I mean that's the biggest skill shortage at the moment in the United Kingdom when every trying to hire anybody is in that sector because it's such a growing sector that you've got very average people who have got top jobs they won't last for long because a lot of young kids now we were embarrassed in the pants of them they're coming through because because there were early adopters they came normally came out the IT industry as opposed to the marketing selling industry so definitely I would go into eco that for me that's an opportunity that you don't actually the hundred grand for either so if you'd have asked me the same question with saying you haven't got a lot of money in fact you got very little money I would still say the same thing you'll see a whole load of econ businesses for not now on the next a few I thank you my dinner take my dinner I'm afraid that's all we have time for this evening could you please remain in your seats and join me in thanking once again yeah Jesus you

Channel: OxfordUnion

Views: 57,666

Rating: 4.6674156 out of 5

Keywords: Oxford, Union, Oxford Union, Oxford Union Society, debate, debating, The Oxford Union, Oxford University, Theo Paphitis, business, Dragon's Den, Dragons' Den, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial, businessman, advice, talk, q&A

Id: EOWHRDg1Wr4

Length: 61min 12sec (3672 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 12 2016