of making mistakes so firstly did you
know that the average human makes about
35,000 decisions every single day by
extraordinary and those decisions can
roughly be categorized around these six
categories in terms of how we deal with
those decisions so whether it’s for
clients based on the need to make a
decision based on some law or regulation
for whether it’s deflection we’ve been
playing something you’re passing on a
decision or banner or is a balanced
decision so you wait up the pros and
cons of make a decision roughly
decisions are made there are only six
categories that’s obviously a lot of
decisions that have been made and
obviously the potential for a huge
number of mistakes and obviously it’s
the mistakes that I want to really focus
on today um so people are obviously
making lots of mistakes but why are they
making these positive decisions well
people when they make decisions they are
usually making those decisions based on
the need for a positive outcome so that
really got me thinking and I’m pulled
together a very very scientific graph
which basically shows positive outcomes
over time or age actually in this matter
so actually as people start to make more
more decisions as they progress through
their life actually what happens is
people tend to make more positive
decisions because that’s what they learn
from the positive outcomes but the
problem for me being an entrepreneur is
that we all know that innovation is
driven through making mistakes so
actually I think it’s fairly obvious the
same as we get older we tend to make
less mistakes which tends to be why
entrepreneurs tend to be just generalize
it tends to be slightly younger because
maybe they haven’t yet learned that fear
the fear of making mistakes and
obviously mistakes are absolutely
essential to being an entrepreneur and
in my space of digital startups when you
continuously make mistakes so that begs
the question which is why are people so
afraid of
six well it’s obviously a very good
question I don’t want to tell you a
little story and this story is a little
bit about me as a very true story so in
1987 I received my first computer now
i’m not sure if anyone knows what this
is handy trs-80 the sizes not that’s
very good at least was magical for me
absolutely magical because it opened my
eyes to the ward of program and video
games the stacking days of the ZX
Spectrum in the Commodore 64 spent all
of my time in my bedroom as a rubber
raft just coding video games and sending
these game designs to companies and my
head was burst in the wardens ideas but
ultimately I failed didn’t get any
responses and he really went nowhere and
you know I guess the thing with failure
is that you just learn from those
mistakes I learned a lot and it’s
obviously disappointing at a young age
not to get any responses back what feel
like the dream my I guess the dream my
career it just didn’t really materialize
but I moved on and what happened when I
was correct 12 years old but the
secondary school I was a very very
interesting time for me because I found
conquers Congress were amazing everybody
in my school was playing conkers and
that gave me an idea a really really big
idea I fought to myself just what if
what if i could sell congress now it’s
quite big things quite audacious but
before I get on to that I just wanted a
little bit about PPC now I’m sure you’re
all familiar with PPC is anyone know or
PPC that’s one lick well I’m glad
somebody said that yes it usually starts
with pay-per-click but actually for me
it was priced program this nice
honker was my key metric in terms of
track in the market when there’s send
conquers it put in in high school I will
track the the price of these mantras
over time and just so you know the price
of a conqueror was about 10 pounds her
and it was quite quite interested why I
saw happen because the interest infinity
of my high school so we have a single
source of supply we had a single conquer
tree and that gave me a be hug now i’m
not sure if anyone is familiar with
behalf but it stands for a big hairy
audacious goal and probably more aptly
probably big spiky audacious go in this
instance but IV hag nonetheless and my
big idea and my dream was if i could
control supply of this single tree I
could control and dominate the entire
compa supplied in my school so I built
barriers to entry and those barriers to
entry was me and all my friends we
regard the tree possible and control the
sea so that’s what we did quite genuine
and what we saw was i interested we
could you ride in the price of these
conquerors and almost overnight actually
three times the price they were now
we’re 30 or 40 pence a conker was quite
extraordinary but we realized that
Ashley are supplying was becoming hugely
constrained and actually what happened
was and this was quite genuine quite
scary time for us because less
conquerors were falling from the tree
and you very quickly we wouldn’t have a
business and we were entering a very
very dangerous time in the business of
selling conquerors and that I call peak
conquer
and Pete conquer was honest are we knew
it’d come in but not only that will also
fight in off low price import standings
for barbecue we couldn’t believe that
other children were bringing their own
conquers in from home and this had a
huge detriment or perhaps more a PPC on
post / conquer so come aboard me and our
board meeting like all other great board
meetings were around back in the vinings
in the school how do you need max make
some decisions and decisive decisions
for our business and that decision was
we needed to diversify so what we
decided to do was to bring into the
market has any brand new product lines
and those product lines were the jumbo
conquer so the jumbo conquer obviously
is super-sized conquer and my favorite
the super conquer now the super conquer
was very very special pre-drilled pre
strong but one very very important
secret it was baked there’s men that we
could give a guarantee the money back
guarantee line is honker so we want
these Congress into the market and
something extraordinary happened even
though we weren’t selling many of them
actually the past was 20 or 30 times
more than the other conquerors was quite
extraordinary we would have a very good
money but something else that happened
which we didn’t plan for and that was
seasonality and unfortunately three and
four days later we had no market and we
have no business so we failed but
obviously we learn from those mistakes
and we moved on the next business like
here and there were a string of failures
in between the next big idea okay just a
few years later this was around the time
that our school was on a major health
and shiv so gone was the chocolate and
the fizzy drinks and sweets and in came
the vegetables and the fruits instance
into the school canteen and you know
where this is going right
that gave me a big idea the big idea I
was going to put the sweets right back
into the civil there’s clearly a market
for this the macro conditions have
changed and we saw there was not tuning
and we had to take it so we did so
extensive market research which involved
me walking to my little corner shop and
trying to find out where they will buy
their sweet and we actually found not
this macro because this one’s in
Thailand but you actually have some
uh-huh we actually found the
caching Harry would they they were
supplying their sweets and I know up on
camera so I have to apologize to my
father who doesn’t actually know I used
his business card to up in the county
I’m sorry dad but we opened up an impact
with the caching carries quite
extraordinary and we took the business
idea to our headmaster now apologies if
my headmaster is watch it because we
were slightly economic with the truth he
was going to what we were going to sell
but if you said yes to the idea which
was incredible so we opened up shop and
we traded from the classroom window
every grade and every lunchtime I was
amazing so we opened up our shop and we
waited and we waited waited a very long
time and actually the truth is nothing
much really happened one or two
customers every day we were very very
disappointed and we couldn’t just work
out what was going wrong so this is when
we make the next incredibly valuable
lesson we only believe I guess we
learned about the power of marketing and
the power of advertising basically what
we did and this is genuinely true it’s
quite innovative even today we put in
place a refer-a-friend process and this
was to try and just encourage word of
mouth in the school now but you’re
interested my school had about a
thousand students so it’s a very large
school and what we did was that we
entered implemented
said this character to everybody that
would be referred would get time said
this time and the person who did the
referral would also get ten cent
discount and this was quite
extraordinary what we also did was we
put our prices up temperature so at any
point yeah that was the that was the
secret there so anybody that wasn’t
referring to making attempts at the
different margin which was which was the
genius part but something quite magical
happened because those 10 people became
20 that came forward he became 80 and
before he knew it we were certainly
reckon serving hundreds and hundreds of
students every single they’re quite
quite genuinely and we did it we
absolutely cracked it I was absolutely
incredible and we moved to a new
Pacifica apprentice to windows which was
which is extraordinary of a much much
better location in the school as well so
good natural footfall etc and was
incredible we were absolutely rock stars
in national woman was unbelievable and
quite genuinely the business was turning
over about hundred fifty miles a day
which firm which fifteen-year-old I can
tell you as was good money still good
money but unfortunately with all of that
success and being a rock star in our
school I’m paying with some challenges
and he and some big learnings we had to
recruit and hire people that we trusted
fellow students we had to give with
security we leave not their storage
universe ends so much busy drinkin
sweets we had to store it somewhere but
two other big learnings for us people
talk about the work-life balance we have
the work school balance every single day
we were consumed by this business and
how we were going to make more and more
money and often in business people talk
about a share of walnuts we have to
share a pocket money and we weren’t
hired based on genuine market research
that every child will come free the game
it’s bringing about 150 into the score
so we knew that there is a maximum cap
in terms of where our business could go
but I guess the biggest thing of
everything was we were changing consumer
habit and when I say changing consumer
habit i need the canteen was started the
official canteen was starting to suck
and actually the end of the business
came when actually the school put sweets
and chocolate fizzy drinks back on the
menu which obviously isn’t such a good
thing these days but for us it was
obviously a huge disappointment because
we now have no business but actually you
know them in just a short few weeks you
know just some kids with an idea
actually managed to disrupt an incumbent
within our school namely our school
canteen it was quite extraordinary the
big success for us so during my time at
school and this is quite genuine story
lots and lots of Vernon’s you know
whether it’s how to market products
manufactured products how to diversify
your business how to pivot your business
model the product market fit how to
market your products margins and P now a
little big things and I call this the
playground NBA and you know we we were
doing an MBA in the playground but there
was something more valuable than that
that we were and that was absolutely
everything is it is possible but
everything is absolutely possible in
life and his children setting up a
number of businesses you know we proved
it because we just let go of our fear of
failure you know once we let go our fear
of failure everything is absolutely
possible and the point about making
mistakes actually making mistakes just
increase our potential but being
successful in the future and every time
we’ve got knocked down we were right
back up with the next business idea or
the next business model and coming back
to the graph very quickly where we met
to have positive outcomes against age or
time what I then learned and realized
recently is that actually children make
the very very best entrepreneurs the
very best entrepreneurs and the reason
as they haven’t yet learned the fear of
failure and also on the flip side they
haven’t yet learned the i guess the
impact but positive impact of making
decisions so this is quite extraordinary
and this is what i think probably links
entrepreneurs your children in terms of
fact that particular mindset because
ultimately just slightly broader
everything we’ve ever wanted to achieve
because adults or children is just in
the other side of fear we could just get
over my career it is fear in my business
being an entrepreneur is the number one
enemy of entrepreneurs across the world
and as children as i said already where
the children are just utterly utterly
fearless and fear is just driven as we
get older free making decisions based on
positive outcomes mark zuckerberg once
said very famous quoting I’ve move fast
and break things which is which is a
very very entrepreneurial
entrepreneurial quote and I completely
agree and you know ultimately the
biggest risky all of our lives is just
basically taking no risks at all and
that’s how I live my life being an
entrepreneur and bringing this back to
startups which we briefly mentioned at
the beginning startups are actually just
like children if you think about it
actually startups just haven’t yet
during the fear and actually in my world
this is exactly how startups and disrupt
entire industries or billion pine
companies this is quite interested or my
instance the school canteen which was
the equivalent of the vineyard the
billion-pound industry um sometimes as
adults you just need to jump off the
cliff don’t overthink things just take
that leap and just build that parachute
just on the way down and I guess my
story ends in spring 1998 that lesser
didn’t land on door man and i was
offered my dream job working a gaming
company at quit University a 19
years old I joined the company and
didn’t really look back so I guess if
you only remember one thing from my
presentation today slightly chunky tell
me cheap presentation I just want you to
remember this one very very important
thing that from small conquers grown very very mighty trees thank you