I had been lobbying for entrepreneurial loans and more support for young entrepreneurs for years, writing letters to various governments and bringing it up in one meeting after another. But now our research put down in hard data a hunch I’d had for decades: young people need more access to finance at the most important point in their business careers—the start. Here was the solution down on paper: the British government happily grants £30,000 loans to put students through university. Why not give loans to young people who want to start their own business rather than enter higher education, or after they’ve entered it? As Virgin Media Pioneer Abdul Khan put it: “I could get a loan to do a two-year degree in enterprise—but not a loan to start my own business.” I empathized with this, having struggled to raise the small amount needed to start my own first business. Banks would never have supported a magazine for students with a fifteen-year-old founder, and the idea of the government helping new businesses was unheard of.
But, as with the necklace my mother had found on the street, it doesn’t always take big investments. In March 2012, I was speaking in Liverpool at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress when sixteen-year-old Aaron Booth stood up and told me how he felt there was a big gap between large businesses and the young generation. I agreed and asked about his own entrepreneurial idea—he had a dream to start his own baking company. Within five minutes of hearing his vision, I made a £200 investment to kick-start his business.
Moments like these really got me interested in microfinance, and how just giving people a little bit of a leg up can make a huge difference. I have long admired Dr. Muhammad Yunus, my fellow B Team member who created the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which offers small loans to impoverished people without the need for collateral. Since it started in 1979, it has been the ultimate example of business changing people’s lives for good, and has helped to raise millions of Bangladeshis out of poverty. Dr. Yunus is a spritely, energetic man who always has a glint in his eye and a brainwave at the ready. Inspired by his example, we began exploring what models could work elsewhere. The Branson Centres of Entrepreneurship, based in South Africa, the Caribbean, and online, are a great example. We give entrepreneurs guidance, connections and opportunities through our peer and partnership network and have helped thousands of entrepreneurs to become a force for good and stand on their own feet.
Another example was on my doorstep in the British Virgin Islands. I was kitesurfing between Necker and Moskito Island with Larry Page when we got talking about the young entrepreneurs we knew and how shocking the rate of failure is.
“It was the same for us before Google got off the ground,” he said. “We had this exciting idea we thought could make the internet so much more valuable, but were scraping around to get enough money to rent a garage.”
After drying off, we sat at the bar discussing what we could do to help more young entrepreneurs get a foot on the ladder in the British Virgin Islands.
“I’ve been lobbying British MPs for years to give start-up loans to young entrepreneurs,” I said. “Why don’t we just do it ourselves here?”
We agreed there was a role for small, targeted start-up loans for BVI entrepreneurs with exciting ideas and sound business models and set about creating a joint fund between us.
“If anybody manages to pay their loan back, all that money will go to another entrepreneur,” I suggested. “The pressure for them to pay it back is that they are depriving another entrepreneur of the opportunity.”
The chance to put this idea into action came one Friday night when the team was heading over to Jumbies, a beach bar in nearby Leverick Bay where the music is loud, the food is good and the characters are as colorful as the cocktails. Eager for a dance to let off some steam, I hopped into the driver’s seat of the speedboat and drove us over. While tucking into dinner, a local Rastafarian guy called Gumption chattered away in my ear. Gumption was the regular life and soul of the party, winning the limbo contest and dancing with anyone and everyone nearby. But it turned out he had a serious side, too, and a smart business head on his shoulders.
“I want to start a glass-bottom-boat business,” he said. “I just need the boat.”
He explained to me how he wanted to share his local knowledge of the surrounding ocean and its magnificent species, while giving tourists a taste of the true personality of the BVI. Importantly, he also understood the need for purpose within his business, and was keen to support the conservation of sea turtles in the area as part of his business plan.
“There’s definitely a market for tourists who love nature here. If you’re serious,” I told him, “we’ll look into it.”
I went back and talked it over with Larry and Lucy. We all agreed it sounded like a fine investment. The concept involved modest financial support—all Gumption needed was a few thousand dollars to buy a boat—with lots of mentoring and access to support. Quickly, Gumption became our first BVI start-up loan recipient. Within six months, he had paid back his loan in full. Mind you, with a name like Gumption there was no way he was going to fail!
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Over in the UK the moment seemed right to launch a similar scheme: the economy was floundering and young people were struggling to pay university fees, let alone start new businesses while the Virgin companies in the UK were in a strong position to make a difference on the issue. I sent out letters to scores of MPs hammering home the idea for start-up loans.
I mentioned our ideas in a letter to David Cameron. “With more than one million 16–24-year-olds out of work and the numbers rising, I am sure you are looking for every way to tackle this problem and prevent the creation of a jobless generation,” I wrote. “Too many young entrepreneurs struggle to get small amounts of money to start a business, and yet young people can access loans to study a degree in Business Studies.
“Together with Virgin Media Pioneers, I think Government should re-purpose part of the Student Loans as the Youth Investment Fund, and make lower rate loans available as start-up capital for young entrepreneurs. It does not need to be big amounts to kick-start an idea; but Government could also look to banks and businesses to provide matching capital, discounted services and help assess the viability of the business plans. My team has more information on the ideas in this letter and would be happy to follow up with your office.”
While we built up a real groundswell of support behind the scenes quite quickly, the press continued to ignore the issue. I was determined to get it in front of the public and in January 2012 had the ideal opportunity. I was in Parliament for a Home Affairs Committee debate on drugs policy, so brought along three of the Virgin Media Pioneers, Zoe Jackson, Abdul Khan and Ronke Ige, to lobby the politicians. As we handed out the Control: Shift report outside the House of Commons, we were immediately surrounded by several dozen MPs, seeing an opportunity to support young entrepreneurs (and get their faces in the papers!). Before they knew it, journalists were reporting that the MPs were backing drug reform, too. That was fine with me—it was a win-win. Plus, I’m convinced that in a few years’ time those same MPs will be brave enough to admit their true views and support drug policy changes as well.
Despite this breakthrough, we still needed the backing of the government top brass to really get things moving for start-up loans. We got Zoe, Ronke and Abdul into the crowd for a PM-Direct session in Maidenhead and I urged them to question David Cameron about the idea. Political debates can be very intimidating places, so full of bellowing and bellyaching that it is hard to get a word in. Thankfully, Ernestina Hall from our comms team kept digging Zoe in the ribs until she plucked up the courage to ask her question about start-up loans. The Prime Minister’s response was perfect: “Oh, yes, I have read Richard Branson’s letter. It’s very sensible, a brilliant idea,” he said. The clip ran on the BBC news that evening and start-up loans moved one step closer to reality.
The team went in for a meeting with Mr. Cameron’s office the next day and pulled our ind
ustry-wide working group back together. The result was the development of the nonprofit StartUp Loans Company, which began with a pilot in Cumbria and the North East of England. Lord Young, whom the government put in charge of the scheme, estimated that it could help create 900,000 more jobs across the country by stimulating entrepreneurship, a figure I thought was achievable. I started casting around the Virgin Group trying to work out how best we could help. After Virgin Media had done lots of the groundwork with the initial research, Virgin Unite and Virgin Money now partnered with the Northern Rock Foundation and Project North East to form a consortium in the delivery of StartUp Loans. As a Delivery Partner for the scheme, we began handing out loans to young entrepreneurs in sectors ranging from tech to textiles.
In August 2013, I headed to Virgin Money’s Gosforth headquarters to meet some of the first entrepreneurs who had been given loans. I met Andy Stephenson, who typified the new entrepreneurs the scheme could help. He used a start-up loan to launch Weekend Box, which delivers brilliant activity boxes to parents’ doors. Within five months the company was growing fast and Andy was on his way to Downing Street to tell the Prime Minister his story. Andy reminded me of my younger self, starting a company in response to a problem he came across in his day-to-day life and thought he could solve: “The inspiration for starting Weekend Box was both personal ambition and necessity: it began when I was buying gifts for my niece and nephew who are both five years old. I wanted to buy something educational yet fun. I couldn’t find anything, so I quit my job and started developing Weekend Box.”
The trial was going well with more than a hundred talented businesspersons like Andy signing up, but not enough new entrepreneurs were being attracted. In its first six months, the scheme had only loaned £1.5 million and the government, understandably, wanted to make a big splash with some headline-making numbers to justify making the trial more permanent and expanding it nationally. We realized, however, that it would take time to build partnerships, nurture talents and spread the word. I needed to make sure David Cameron wasn’t about to pull the plug on a project that could massively boost the economy, as well as thousands of people’s lives and aspirations.
I got my chance when I was in London to speak about entrepreneurship and innovation at the G8 Innovation Conference. Onstage, I commended the government on their continuing support of start-up loans: backstage, I grabbed five minutes to discuss it with the Prime Minister. We sat down in a little room in the bowels of the Excel Center, and over a cup of tea I reiterated my vision for supporting new entrepreneurs. He didn’t really have much choice but to agree, but thankfully he was courteous, listened intently and remained firmly behind the idea. The Prime Minister explained how he saw start-up loans as a key legacy that could grow into a landmark policy in years to come, and also clearly understood why partnerships between business and government in these early days are needed to make a difference.
We treated the whole project exactly as if it was any other start-up company. As a nonprofit, budgets were minimal but we had plenty of imagination. The energy and enthusiasm surrounding the idea reminded me of the early days of Virgin Records. We knew that by thinking big, while not forgetting the little details, we could find a winning formula. For example, to come up with a nationally successful model we needed to think regionally. What specific gaps in the market were there in Norwich? What new opportunities did young people in London want? Was there a shortage of tech firms in Newcastle? Whenever you are setting up a new project, the most important thing is to surround yourself with people who are better than yourself, have different skills and a healthy combination of enthusiasm and experience. For this business, we found Sir Tom Shebbeare as chairman and Mei Shui as managing director. I told them I wanted to see a full plan within the next few months—and I’d be back over in October to launch the company.
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The development of Virgin StartUp Loans wasn’t my only attempt to help budding entrepreneurs. The previous year, we had set up Pitch To Rich, our annual competition to find the best and most innovative entrepreneurs in the UK. Thousands of people sent in one-minute video pitches, the best became finalists and were invited to my children’s home in Oxford. Sam and Holly set up a big tent full of foldaway chairs in the back garden, where they also hosted the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 awards, bringing together the year’s fastest-growing British businesses. There’s a real entrepreneurial spirit to the day, with everyone mingling on the lawn and discussing their ideas.
In Pitch To Rich, entrants have the chance to win investment from us, plus mentoring, legal, branding, networking and marketing advice. It was born out of Virgin Media Pioneers, which helped to kick-start, among others, Jamal Edwards’ career. Jamal’s mum gave him a video camera for Christmas when he was fifteen and he began posting clips of his musician friends in London. By the age of sixteen, his YouTube channel SB.TV had become a phenomenon, helping to launch artists including Ed Sheeran. I’m happy to give Jamal the odd tip when we meet up at Virgin events and he gives me plenty of fashion advice back! I saw SB.TV as a digital cross between Student magazine and Virgin Records, so it’s wonderful how Jamal uses his voice to highlight important youth issues like voting and drug reform, too.
At Pitch To Rich 2012, I offered the finalists some advice: “If it can’t fit onto the back of an envelope, it’s probably a bad idea. Keep it short, sharp and picture-perfect.” Dan Watson won with his potentially revolutionary SafetyNet invention. It supports sustainable fishing by allowing unmarketable fish to escape fishermen’s nets. Since then, Dan has gone on to win the annual James Dyson Award for inventors. By 2016, Pitch To Rich had morphed into VOOM, the UK and Ireland’s biggest and most valuable pitch competition, with more than £1 million of prizes on offer. As the posters said: “I’ve got 99 problems but a pitch ain’t one!”
When I’m traveling I get about three to five serious pitches a day. In the past twenty years I would estimate I have heard 25,000 pitches. As Doctor Yes, people do have an expectation when they pitch to me that I will always say yes. Of course, many of these ideas are not up to scratch. One technique I use if that’s the case is to politely not respond and change the subject. Likewise, in a business meeting, if somebody is saying something I completely disagree with, I will keep quiet. If people don’t respond to me as I suggest something, I know immediately they disagree. When this happens, I say, “I can tell by the fact you haven’t responded that you see it differently. What do you think?”
Too many people presume they are right and don’t listen to other points of view. They speak categorically and then close their ears. I consider myself a good listener and apportion a good deal of my success—not to mention my marriage—to this. Some entrepreneurs surround themselves with brilliant people and then ignore them. Most people who behave in this autocratic way get their comeuppance. You need to be a genius, like Steve Jobs, for that to work. I know I am not better than anyone else, so I take a different road.
I try to keep up with the entrepreneur community’s exploits online, usually bump into them a few times a year and send personal letters of encouragement. There are many, many positives about the rise of social media, but I am also an old-fashioned believer in the humble written letter. Making the extra effort to say thanks in a genuine, personal manner is pleasurable and goes a long way. In an age where most of us are staring at screens for much of the day, putting a pen to paper and really thinking about what you have to be thankful for can be therapeutic, too. From Princess Diana to Elton John to Barack Obama, each has taken the trouble to send me handwritten letters (which I’ve obviously responded to by hand)—they mean so much more than emails.
I was reminded of the difference a letter can make when I was giving a talk to hundreds of students in Ukraine—a country that at the time was in a continuing state of political turmoil—in 2014. A young girl stood up and said: “You were in Kiev four years ago and you met my friend. She was really struggling and you said y
ou would help her get back on her feet . . .” My heart jumped into my mouth; I didn’t remember the girl and couldn’t be certain I’d followed through with my promise. Standing here in front of these wide-eyed students, eager for some positivity and hope in a country suffering after months of painful conflict, I had been talking about the need for collaboration and kindness. If I hadn’t helped this girl’s friend, they would have been empty words.
“I just wanted to thank you for sending my friend a letter and helping her,” the girl continued. “She’s now in college and starting her own business. You walk the walk as well as talk the talk.” I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a good example of the value of sending personal letters. However small a difference my letter made, it had been worth writing.
Another good example came from Olivia Hill, a twelve-year-old schoolgirl who sent me a wonderful note about her own entrepreneurial dreams. In 2014 she was a year-eight student at Aylsham High School in Norfolk, which specializes in business and enterprise. She was beginning her first GCSE in Business Studies and wrote to me asking about the key skills I used when first starting out. I swiftly replied. The advice might be useful for other young business students, too, so here it is:
Dear Olivia,
Many thanks for getting in touch. I’m honored you have chosen yours truly as the subject of your business studies project. As somebody who did not particularly enjoy school, I hope you have some fun finding out about Virgin’s adventures! As you pointed out, my life in business started with Student magazine when I was a few years older than you are now. We set up Student to give a voice to people like me who wanted to protest against the Vietnam War and the establishment. I didn’t have a career in business in mind, we just wanted to make a positive difference to people’s lives. I soon learned one of the best ways to do that is to become an entrepreneur. The key enterprising skills I used when first starting out are the very same ones I use today: the art of delegation, risk-taking, surrounding yourself with a great team and working on projects you really believe in.
Finding My Virginity: The New Autobiography Page 30