little bit of a fraud stood here right
now um I’ve listened to ted talks for
many years and the topics and the people
that tend to talk just amazing I’m and
I’m sorry to say that I’m not going to
tell you about my new underwater town
that I’ve been building in the North Sea
and obviously it’s far too cold and dark
I haven’t saved a baby from a burning
building I just run a company a new
company his greatest achievement so far
is to raise millions of pounds from
venture capitalists to spend on lovely
new offices for the dogs obviously on
great technology and over a hundred
amazing people all to try and wear it
all to try and change the way that we
rent forever now if you asked a lot of
my friends what they learnt for me over
the past few years they would say
Richard he really knows where to get a
good drink from look I think well I hope
I’ve got something to add here but
there’s a number of people from my
childhood that would see me standing
here saying well he’s the last minute
replacement or it’s just a really
rubbish of em you see from a very early
age at school when I was younger I
struggled and people used to talk about
me like you know that goes Richard bless
him he’s in his own little world loves a
Trier but like this balloon here
I was best left to sit the bottom the
class and give up on i will save that
balloon say leg I’m Dyslexic which
doesn’t help but big labeled at such an
early age as a struggler creat its own
momentum you hear it so often you begin
to believe it and then you begin to act
I think the thing that I’m trying to say
is it’s been tough it was tough growing
up and it was tough um being in the
bottom set I mean I remember being put
into a class with a bunch of kids with
differing needs and I remember looking
around just thinking wow yeah these kids
do you need help and I probably the best
way I could do that is to help this
teacher that’s supposed to be helping
them because this teachers got no clue
um and look I never felt like I had was
bottom set material I never felt like I
was a struggler but it became to rub off
and when a system is so intense and
taking your confidence away it’s really
hard so it didn’t even if it didn’t just
affect me though it started to affect my
family but I think back to my more kind
of early entrepreneurial days I remember
people in my family being like house the
house the later scam going now it’s
because look they were really supportive
it wasn’t that they meant any harm at
all quite the opposite but when it came
to it and trying to give advice the
easiest thing was just to make a joke
about it so but look things start to
change I’m not here looking for pity
really there’s not a bucket here but if
there was you can put some money might
leave my shoe um I’m not here looking
for pity things did change thanks to the
incredible generosity of my parents and
what money they did have they put into
trying to give me a better education and
121 help and and it was and it was it
was needed I began to to thrive you know
there was some series of highs one
highways I got some GCSEs actually been
really good for me I was I was over the
moon and there was some series of blows
as well I think one of the lowest was
when I went for my selection to become
an army officer I always thought that I
was going to get into the army so I
passed all the physical tests then it
just came to their academic ones i
remember sat in a semi-circle you’re all
wearing colored bibs with numbers on I
was number five this guy opposite was
just firing questions at me and I just
remember SAT there thinking I’m not good
enough to be here and I felt that same
feeling I felt when I was young sat in
the bottom the class like the balloon
and I just thought I can’t do this look
he was asking me the simplest things he
was going like five plus five it turned
into a bit of a joke he thought it was a
joke because I just he asked me this I
made 11 honestly I just couldn’t my the
ability to answer straightforward
questions had gone out the window I was
panicky I was just panicking um so it
felt like was at school again but never
at school and I quo I was sent away um
with the words he’s medically fine but
academically lacking go away for two
years and get more intelligent that’s
quite the challenge imagine that going
through your letterbox and opening that
and showing your parents the same
parents that had spent that money on
your education it was a bit of a
disaster really look I talked about my
family they were massively supportive
they tried everything to kind of find
the right direction
direction for me in life and look when i
was 12 i wasn’t normal twelve-year-old
when most 12 year olds were doing our
homework and playing video games and
having sleepovers I was out running a
mobile disco company I was doing events
in the local pub in the sick for me and
a friend got really fed up with these
yearbooks that were just annoying and
bits of light we just thought that
there’s got to be something better so we
created a digital yearbook this was on a
cd-rom um so he created that and it was
it was amazing people loved it like
everyone in the school bought it um and
although we didn’t commercialize it this
was like a taste of what life could be
like um so look then I let i went to
leave school and a few years earlier I
rethought Wow school never have to do
that again but after this time it kind
of was secure safe I didn’t want to
leave this structure of of what I had
but i had to you the army wouldn’t take
me and my teacher is saying gosh
university go to university ok so i did
ok gcse’s and a-levels say i got i got
an offer oh i got two offers actually
one was from edinburgh university mm-hmm
and one was from oxford brookes i chose
oxford because oxford brookes because
that’s where all my friends were going
to party and not there Eddie Brer
probably doesn’t have great well they
have great parties but all my friends
were going there so I set set to go into
University remember my first lecture I
was dreading it I was on the bus and I
was just had all these like sickening
fears that you know what if I’m not good
enough what if I can’t do the work in
going into this lecture theatre thinking
wow there’s so many people here I’m used
to kind of classes of 12 13 people
I don’t want to make an idiot of myself
in front of all these people um then the
lecturer said cool today what we’re
gonna be doing is playing with Lego I
should really good at that back in
primary school the relief was amazing
wow they’re not expecting me to do
anything that’s too hard but then that
quickly followed by this discussed it
was like why am I paying for you to play
with Lego with me like there’s a bit
more to it than that but it was just
like you’re surprised that you know
people are charging for that education
set anyway I left left University and
threw myself into the party scene which
I told you about is pretty good um and I
thought I can do these parties better
than anyone else so I got to it I got
myself a venue which turned out to be
from the Russian mafia really did I’ll
tell you some stories about that later
um and got my Flyers printed I think we
called the night white light don’t know
why and I managed to get a a drinks rep
to donate a thousand drinks so so wow
this is set what can go wrong and I
waited really expectant Lee outside the
door and people did alive four of them
five including the rep and it was pretty
it was it was it was a horrible time all
these kind of fears and emotions came
rushing back was I doomed to fail at
everything I put my hand to but
something inside me kept me pushing on I
think the small about the small amount
of positive feedback I had along the way
I held on to and you know what I just
stuck at it I kept on going and it
turned out that i did have an aptitude
for doing this partying this event stuff
quite quickly we turned into event and
turn it into quite a big event we were
attracting i think it was around 1,500
people each week each paying a fiver
it’s quite good
no intention of going back to university
at that point there’s no incentive was
making good money um but what my parents
came to universe you walk came to visit
me at university they realized I wasn’t
at university anymore I couldn’t tell
them how close we were to the University
and when my dad saw my new car that I
bought he was thinking he’s doing
something dodgy so I thought let this is
probably not sustainable and it’s great
while it lasted but you know just too
much so I ended up going home this is
where I came across a quote from Albert
Einstein which I’m sure a lot of you
know if you judge your fish by its
ability to climb a tree that fish will
so with that in my mind I carried on
look what i’m doing here is i’m
hopefully wanting to leave you with some
lessons that i learned from the bottom
the class and the one main one is be
really selective of who you listen to
you know there are voices around you
that are positive and just you remember
to hold on to them and you have to do
everything to fight against all your
insecurities to really make sure that
you listen to them and you build upon
them now after being at home for a
little bit I kind of threw myself into
the rat race and started working in and
around property and at this point I
started to see that businesses could
operate better and had better ideas for
for the way the business should be Ryan
and this didn’t really endear me to my
my bosses especially at foxtons they
really hated me and so I left and then I
joined another company and this company
I started getting twitchy quite quickly
because I didn’t see that as the big
picture i saw the actual cool idea was
there’s lots of people out there they
can’t afford to buy they don’t have the
deposit they can’t get on the ladder so
wouldn’t it be cool if those people that
can’t afford to buy a whole house if
they could club together and put their
money and owned a section of the house
and get onto the property ladder and get
the benefits that way my boss just
didn’t see that he just said now we’re
going to carry on doing this because it
was a lifestyle business then he didn’t
have any vision and that’s what occurred
to me is one of the really strong things
I had was with vision I had three main
attribute it attributes that meant that
I could officially be a struggler but
succeed so look after then I had an idea
for a business and it was a really
simple idea based around my own
experiences on the premise that when you
buy something on amazon and ebay isn’t
easy when you rent a property isn’t it
the highest thing you do it like ever
it’s really hard it’s so different from
1click so the thought that we could
build a company that would just make
renting as easy as buying something on
amazon in ebay it’s amazing it helps so
many people and then we could do so many
things after that so going back to going
back to the company that I was at at the
time when I was coming up with this idea
I remember going to my boss I said look
got this idea for this business called
good lord and his feedback put me back
in that class really really quickly and
he just said stop don’t do it I you have
no idea what you’re doing and that was
that was that was another moment where I
could have just given up and I could
just said you know what but look I built
up my second kind of big quality and
that was a really thick skin so I had
the vision I had the perseverance
and I need to be honest that guy had a
bit of a poem because we we pitched
seven people for investment and we’ve
got seven rejections one after the other
so kind of know what Robert d’bries felt
like but look after a while we got we
got someone who believed in our idea and
our vision his name was John John really
nice guy invested 32 and a half thousand
pounds in Oz it was more money than I
ever saw in a bank account so quickly
ran down to the cash machine took a
picture but anyway good news John sold
is sharing the business quite recently
and he sold it for well two years on a
million pounds so John’s done quite well
but more and more investment came I’m
from four people in Mayfair to Israel to
Silicon Valley more and more people
shared in our vision for what we wanted
to create and it was touching it was it
was great and we started to build this
company so I suppose but I suppose the
kind of I suppose a big point I want to
leave you with is even though all this
has happened you still don’t lose that
label that you’ve got you still don’t
lose those insecurities I’ve still got
them and so you don’t lose the label you
don’t lose the fear because I I’ll tell
you a story about another and other
investor there was a big investor it’s
quite a big brand name and we started
talking to them for for some investment
we met them in there mayfair offices and
it looked promising they flew us out to
island we had some more meetings and
then they passed it was fine but then a
few months later they picked up the face
of like we’re interested again yeah come
on and so we did that whole dance again
but then a rejection k
and you know what I could just go I
don’t care I could just send them a
letter listing the millions that all
their invest all their competitors have
invested in US but still at night I
still before I go to bed I think ah how
can I get these guys to invest in us how
can I get these guys to notice us how
can I do after unfit unfinished business
and how can I get their approval because
you know being bottom of the class does
leave its mark so I’ll close by saying
look if you’re the bottom of the class
like this little balloon like me then
just remember you have got loads of
attributes and great strengths that
actually probably don’t get realized in
the confirm in the structure of
Education and what you know will benefit
you massively outside in the real world
for the people there are the high
achievers at the top of glass well done
you know who you are a bit of advice for
you guys don’t be constrained by your
current success don’t be fearful of
change and don’t always think you have
to take the academic route when you’re
successful it’s incredibly you get a new
type of fear where you don’t want to
lose it you don’t take risks but take
those risks as well and look for anybody
in education just remember or if you’ve
got children just remember that when you
were talking to children and you’re
interacting with them be really careful
on what you say what labels you may pin
on to people you may not mean it but
those labels have a profound effect and
they stay with people for the rest of
their life thinking you