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| Date post: | 12-May-2015 |
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Business |
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The Champion Entrepreneur ?
Spanked by his teachers for bad grades and poor attitude He dropped out of school and started his first business at
the age of 16 He owns more than 250 companies, from gyms, gambling
houses and bridal boutiques to planes, trains and limousines.
He employs approximately 50,000 people, in 29 countries with revenues exceeding £10 billion (approx. US$20 billion)
He ballooned across the Atlantic, floated down the Thames with the Sex Pistols, and been knighted by the Queen
He even owns his own island His autobiography is entitled “Losing My Virginity”.
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Richard Branson
Born in 1950 “My mother was determined to make us
independent. When I was 4 she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way across the fields. I was hopelessly lost.“
1’st venture at the age of 16 - Student magazine
1’st charity at the age of 17 - Student Advisory Centre, to help young people.
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Virgin Records & Virgin Atlantic Virgin Records
1970 - founded Virgin as a “cut-out” mail order record retailer
Virgin record shop in Oxford Street, London. He called it Virgin as they were all virgins to business. 1972 - first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, >5M copies! One of the top record companies in the world. To keep his airline company afloat, Branson sold
Virgin Records to EMI in 1992 for $1billion. Virgin Atlantic
1984 - Virgin Atlantic took to the air Leased a second-hand 747 with sell-back option and
created the airline within 3 months. “To grow a profitable airline, that people love to fly
and where people love to work” Second largest long-haul airline in the UK, third
largest European carrier over the North Atlantic
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More Ventures
Virgin has developed a business method that Branson calls "branded venture capital," whereby he starts and manages all manner of new companies under the Virgin name while partners provide most of the investment.
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Adventures
1986 - "Virgin Atlantic Challenger II“ boat crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest ever recorded time.
1991 - Branson in a Balloon crossed the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Arctic Canada, 6,700 miles, 245 miles -per hour
2004 - , Gibbs Aquada, from Dover to Calais, 1H:40m:6s, amphibious vehicle record
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What makes a Champion?
Attempt the impossible “When Virgin was told that it couldn’t create and operate a
profitable trans-Atlantic airline from scratch, it motivated me to get the airline up and running in just six months – and we haven’t looked back since”
Unafraid of failure “My interest in life comes from setting myself huge,
apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them – an interest that was, perhaps, fuelled by my grandmother telling me at the age of 99: `You’ve got one go in life, so make the most of it`.”
Understand my limitations “surround myself with talented and brilliant people that
can pick up where I leave off.” Have fun on the journey
"A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.“
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* Based on a speech by Sir Richard Branson to the Centre for the Mind, University of Sydney, 10 December, 2003
See the Video …
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/richard_branson_s_life_at_30_000_feet.html
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BRANSON'S QUOTES
The Begining21
The Entrepreneur
“Fortunately we're not a public company - we're a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.”
“I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.”
“I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn't really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.”
"Three months of running a business or trying to set up a business and you will learn, I suspect, as much as you can learn in three years at a business school."
“I have always lived my life by thriving on opportunity and adventure. Some of the best ideas come out of the blue, and you have to keep an open mind to see their virtue.”
“Right now I'm just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.”
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The Business
“Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.”
“I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It's done on gut feeling.”
“You never know with these things when you're trying something new what can happen. This is all experimental.”
“With the casino and the beds, our passengers will have at least two ways to get lucky on one of our flights.”
"A lot of chairmen of a lot of companies are terrified of the press. Our attitude is if CNN wants an interview you never say no, you always say yes, because we want to become the most respected brand in the world and we have to get out there and talk about what we are doing."
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Facing Challenges
“Like getting into a bleeding competition with a blood bank.”
“The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.”
“Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested”
“The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went.”
“The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically guarantee hit records.”
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