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Do you feel that there are particular personal qualities that make a successful entrepreneur? Most entrepreneurs share some similar personality traits, specifically a willingness to disregard the fact that most new business ventures fail. Entrepreneurs enjoy battling against those odds, so you could call entrepreneurs overly confident, or simply foolish. Speaking from experience, Id suggest its a bit of both, but Ive found the chase can be just as fun (if not more fun) than the end result. Do you think entrepreneurship can be taught? While entrepreneurs may share some similar traits, I do think that most entrepreneurs benefit tremendously from support, both technical and personal. Its hard to go it alone. Having a network of friends and mentors to provide specific advice and a sounding board is key for success (and the maintenance of sanity), and having the baseline set of skills an MBA provides is useful, especially as a business grows beyond the idea stage. What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Go for it, but, develop a plan. With a plan, youll realise when youre taking a detour. Without a plan, youll simply be wandering.
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Do you think entrepreneurship can be taught? I dont know if entrepreneurship can be taught. I think the technicalities of running a business can be taught but becoming an entrepreneur is really a path of self-awareness. I took an elective whilst on exchange at Columbia called Creativity and Personal Mastery, which can now be studied at London Business School. Courses like this facilitate the thought process and should be combined more with the business subjects to give a complete picture. What do you plan to be doing in 5 & 10 years time? Where do you see your business at these points in time? In 5 years I would like to see my current business grow internationally. I would like to work with multiple entrepreneurial ventures in the field of clean energy and social entrepreneurship in Africa and other Asian countries. I have already started an initiative called The Brightest Young Climate Leaders which I ran in India this year. The aim is to find young entrepreneurs and leaders working on ideas or businesses in the field of clean energy, climate change mitigation, eco-rural projects, and I am now working with the winners to scale up their businesses. I would like to do this on a bigger scale and be an active investor and mentor in these businesses, taking them to the next stage of growth.
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Has the research and experience of London Business Schools faculty been a useful resource? Entrepreneurial advice from London Business School is structured in such a way that you can take your idea from the first year, develop it in the second year and then launch it at the end of the programme. As I had already had an offer to go back to investment banking, it was critical for me to launch within the first year. I didnt go through the standard channels, although I was given advice and help from John Bates. Do you feel that there are particular personal qualities that make a successful entrepreneur? I think perseverance is important, particularly when you start up. Youll have lots of doubts and youll have to work in the face of lots of difficulties. For instance, my family was not entirely supportive of me starting Gelato Mio as I had quite a successful career in investment banking and starting a business was a shot in the dark. I also had to accept the fact that, in the short term, I would be worse off financially. It was a much riskier decision than staying in a big institution. Perseverance is essential and, of course, you have to be hard working. Do you think that entrepreneurship can be taught? I think entrepreneurship can be taught. A lot of the time entrepreneurs are a bit like lonely wolves. If you go to business school, you have the opportunity to talk to people who have started businesses and you have access to trade fairs. If you dont have the business school community, there are limited moments when you can talk and share with other entrepreneurs. Classes in entrepreneurship also give you inspiration. I certainly avoided many mistakes thanks to the classes and I wish Id spent more time in class before starting up because I would have avoided some of the pitfalls I fell into. My time at London Business School certainly helped. What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? I would tell them to just do it. It will take more time and more money than you will expect, and you should plan for that. As they teach you in business school, 9 out of 10 new businesses will fail within the first 24 months because the time or the money was wrong. Dont give up. Its a great experience and if you have a good idea, you should pursue it.
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Do you think that entrepreneurship can be taught? I definitely think that it can. There are lots of discussions about nature vs. nurture and I think there are certainly personality traits that enable people to succeed as entrepreneurs. The practical and academic lessons I learned at London Business School have helped me to deal with situations and interact with people. I think that has helped me to become a better entrepreneur. I disagree that you are either born an entrepreneur or not. Thanks to my time at London Business School, I knew that I wanted to be in a position where I could craft my own future and work on the things that were interesting to me. In that sense I felt that the MBA equipped me with the skills and the confidence to pursue what I wanted. What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? I would tell them not to give up. If you have a good idea, opinions will be polarised. There are going to be people who support you and there are going to be people who think the idea is crazy. But there is a difference between having a bad idea and having a good idea and not being in a position to execute it. Never take no for an answer. Secondly, look for a great cofounder. I am incredibly lucky to work with someone like Tom and I think finding a partner is the most important thing you can do, more important than the idea itself. Because you will spend so much time with that person, you will need to have complimentary skill sets and be able to support one another. You will serve as each others sounding boards and if you find the right person it can be a potential partnership for life. The average business may last for around 5-10 years, but if you find the right business partner, that can last for a lifetime.
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Chantelle Ludski, MBA2000 South African Founder and CEO, fresh! naturally organic www.freshnaturallyorganic.co.uk
fresh! naturally organic supplies organic sandwiches and snacks to supermarkets, cafs and shops across the UK.
Did you apply for your MBA with the idea that you would start your own business? Absolutely not! Im an accidental entrepreneur. fresh! started on the back of a total lack of a decent cappuccino on campus. I decided to open a little coffee bar on campus to satisfy the demand. It became a coffee/juice/salad/soup/sandwich bar. In what way has your MBA at London Business School contributed to your entrepreneurial success? Which specific courses, people and experiences stood out? The energy at the school and the top class talent I was able to draw on whilst writing the business plan during the first phase of starting the business were invaluable, not to mention the fantastic network of people that you have access to. Operations Management and Marketing, along with the entrepreneurship courses were the best. Increasingly I find myself referring back to Growing the Entrepreneurial Business and finally understanding what the case studies were on about! Do you feel that there are particular personal qualities that make a successful entrepreneur? I think that determination, resilience and self-belief are essential character traits for starting a business. What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Research your concept, fine tune the original idea once youve had the benefit of some research, peer review, feedback and then step off the cliff and just do it. Dont be afraid to try and dont be afraid to make mistakes, but learn from your mistakes. What do you plan to be doing in 5 & 10 years time? Where do you see your business at these points in time? Selling loads more of our fabulous, fresh! naturally organic food and being a well established, well recognised and well loved brand in the UK, with aspirations to expand beyond the UK a 25m per annum business!
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Queen Mary University on the chemistry elements of the product and the focus was to do enough development to file a patent which we did in September 2005. The next step was to put the bare bones of the business plan together, which I finished in January 2006. I couldnt fund the project myself so I had to decide how I could make the business appealing to investors. I came back to London Business School, did lots of market research and data monitoring and managed to flesh out the business plan. Then I started to look for funding. I was fortunate enough to be able to come back to London Business School again and present at Enterprise 100 (E100), where 40-50 investors came to watch our presentations. After presenting at E100, I had around 20 people interested, which whittled itself down to four/five and I was able to secure investment and agreement. I had money in the bank in January 2007 and that was when we formed the business. Has the research and experience of London Business Schools faculty been a useful resource? Yes. Its been eight years since I left and I still come back. I keep in fairly close contact with the entrepreneurship faculty and I still have discussions with John Mullins and Keith Willey about what Im doing. Sometimes I go back for an update and other times I ask for their opinions or ask for contacts. Theyre willing to give me that free advice. What business advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs? Its a balancing act. Its all about balance and communication. Although people are precious about their ideas, entrepreneurs have to test their ideas and assumptions, because the best test is other people. When I started, I would speak to parents that I knew and Id accost mums in supermarkets, Id talk to investors and Id try to understand what they wanted. You have very little information and while you do have to be careful not to give the idea away, you need data that is not sat in a written environment, which means talking to your potential customers. I took prototype mock-ups to independent nursery shops and would say, Ive got this idea what do you think? They thought I was slightly mad initially but when I explained the idea, what it would look like, who I would look to sell to and asked them for their thoughts, they were really helpful. People are happy to give the benefit of their knowledge; you just have to ask for it!
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