Wales offered his top tips to over 1,000 of Britain’s high-growth businesses, gathered in Liverpool today.
His five tips to making it big:
Fail faster: It’s easy to stick to an idea that’s not working out. You can end up wasting millions that way. Don’t tie your ego to a particular business.
Don’t fear failure: If you’re based in Silicon Valley and your business fails, you get a pat on the back and a great job at Google. If it fails in the UK, it’s perceived as a huge black mark against your name. That attitude has to change.
Don’t wait for the perfect business idea: There’s this mythology that a massive, genius business idea will hit you and you’ll make a billion dollars overnight. That almost never happens. Most entrepreneurs learn through a string of failures.
Have the right people around you: My approach is always: “Everything will be fine”. I’m a pathological optimist so I surround myself with pessimists who tell me all the things that could go wrong.
Ignore all the rules: Be bold enough to change the way things are done.
