Richard Branson is an internationally renowned entrepreneur, and his Virgin brand is a global phenomenon - we already know this. However we should consider the influence of Virgin's co-founder, Nik Powell, who played a significant role in firing the brand into the business world.
Nik is now a successful film producer and director of the National Film and Television school.
Nik kindly agreed to meet up with the “mycomeup.com” staff to talk about the early years of Virgin, surviving life in the film business, and what his advice would be for up and coming entrepreneurs.
You started the Virgin brand with Richard Branson. Would you advise the aspiring entrepreneur to go into a business with a partner, or go it alone?
It depends on the person; I think it’s enormously helpful when you start a business with a partner, especially if the partner compliments your weaknesses.
With a partner you have someone to talk to when things go wrong, and someone to celebrate with when things go great.
Starting a business can be lonely, but with a partner it can be more enjoyable - and of course one plus one does not equal two; it equals three with a partnership. On the other hand if you have a bad partner, these good things don’t happen.
So if you do want a business partner, make sure they bring something extra to the party.
Were you involved in any other businesses before you started Virgin?
'Student' was our first business: it was a magazine for students across the UK and we published seven or eight editions of it. Afterwards we started Virgin because part of the magazine had a mail order company in it selling cheap records.
In today's generation, many aspiring entrepreneurs would like to start a business but can get easily sidetracked by things like Facebook and Youtube. Were there any major distractions when you started out?
(Laughs): Of course, women were a distraction! Then again, we often used the business to assist us with that side of our lives! Things were exciting at that time, we met interesting people and we went to exciting places.
These days it can be tempting to stay at home and stare into your computer; however I’m not saying don’t do that, because a lot of successful people do start their businesses in that way.
So are you the type of person who believes in face-to-face contact?
The major thing when starting a business is to persuade people to do things they don’t want to do! Whatever you’re selling, you’ve got to persuade people to buy it, even if they don’t really want to buy it. You’ve got to persuade people to give you money when they don’t really want to give you money: you’ve got to be that persuasive. So a lot of business is about person-to-person contact, because achieving this is much harder by e-mail.
Around how many hours a week were you guys working?
Usually 20 hours or so. We were young; at that age you don’t need sleep. We had huge energy. We were doing this from the age of 17 onwards.
We often worked two or three days without sleep, whether we had to get a magazine out, a new shipment of records in - or whatever. In general if you’re starting a business you can’t really have a proper life balance.
One of my students made a documentary about a Chinese millionaire who said they are going to beat the Americans because they don’t believe in life balance.
If you are going to be an entrepreneur, you’ve got to be 100% focused and work all the hours that God gives you, because you are competing with people. If you’re not doing it, they will be doing it and they will beat you.
Did you read any business books in the early stages of your business life?
No, but I did read biographies of great people, not specifically business people, just people who I’d admired.
I’ve always read and loved books, but I did start reading late and talking late - according to my mother I didn't start speaking until the age of three.
What where the main ingredients of Virgin's early success?
Key to our success was the fact that we started in retail. In retail you can fund the business through credit; you don’t need bank loans, and it also gives you a high turnover of cash. If you’re selling directly to the public, they’ll pay you before you pay your suppliers, and that enables you to get more credit and sell more.
If you’re in the wholesale business it is different, but yet again you’ve got to get the customers to pay cash and the supplier to give you credit - that’s part of what I call the persuasion of business. When you’re young and starting a business you don’t have any power like you do when a business gets big; you have to rely on your own wits and powers of persuasion to encourage people to help you.
So one of your main skills has been having the ability to persuade?
I think Richard is naturally a persuasive person; also, a lot of our early success was about judging what the market wants, whether or not the product is already out there. So it’s about combining good judgment, persuasive skills and hard work. I tell my students about 80% hard work, 10% talent and 10% luck.
What is your definition of hard work?
To me hard work is working all the hours that God gives you.
If you had to start all over again what kind of business would you go into?
I would go into areas that are expanding, like the internet for example, but then again we might still start with good old-fashioned retail, because there are lots of empty shops on the high street during the recession. Nowadays a shop could be rented for next to nothing. You could get 12 months rent-free from them. So you might start with a shop because it’s physical and it shows the public what you’re about. Then after, instead of expanding physically by renting many more shops, we could move onto the net and develop the shop's profile and imagery there.
Describe what an average day at was like at Virgin?
We slept in our offices. It was about doing things, so when you got up, you might have been getting articles in for example, and calling advertisers - the most important source of income for a magazine is advertising.
We were responsible for the whole physical distribution: we shipped the magazines to university and we had people selling them in the student campuses, then we would collect the money.
Everyday there were a gazillion tasks to do and you just dived into them and did them.
How did you manage to stay on top of the tasks?
Richard and I were list writers: I write lists of all the things I need to get done that day because you don’t want to forget. We would have long lists of people to call, because telephone was the main business instrument unlike today (where it is e-mail of course), so there was a lot of skill involved getting past the secretaries and getting to talk to the main person.
The telephone was our primary point of contact, so you’d tend to speak from when you woke up until at least the early evening on the phone. Once people left their offices you would spend the rest of the day doing a lot of physical work like lugging magazines around, shipping them places and taking records to the post office.
After leaving Virgin you went on to form your own film company Palace Productions, how did that happen?
I went into partnership with Stephen Woolley, who then was a young man who ran a successful cinema, the Scala. I had a small share holding in the Scala, and after meeting Stephen I decided to go into the film business.
I wanted a partner when I started in the film business, and Stephen had a lot of qualities I don’t have, so we went into partnership together - that lasted for ten years.
Did you always want to become a film producer?
No, filming was a complete mystery to me, until I went into it. I wasn’t a huge film goer when I was a kid; I wasn’t making any short films - I was more interested in rock n roll.
I grew up on the Beatles and Stones, which I found far more interesting than all the directors of the time that I now know and love today, but when I was young they were boring to me.
How did you go about funding Palace Productions?
I had some of my own money (which always helps!). Also, I got investment backing from venture capitalists.
What would you say you contributed to the creation of the Virgin business?
My contribution was that I was well-organised: I would see everything through, leaving no stone unturned, and made sure everything we said we were going to do we did.
How do you think the recession will affect the up and coming entrepreneurs?
Recessions are great times to start businesses, and there are many reasons for that. There’s less competition because a lot of businesses have gone bankrupt, and if you have less start-up costs you can get in there. Secondly, labour is cheap because of the huge unemployment, so you can get people to work for very low wages.
In the recession, you can get credit because businesses suffering in the recession are desperate to do business. Investment money is harder to come by initially, but it becomes easier when all those businesses that the borrowers thought were safe - property for example - suddenly look just as risky as your business start-up idea.
Finally you get a lot of bright people coming out of university, and also those from other walks of life who are fantastic, but have been made redundant. So now you’ve got people around you with great skills, intelligence and energy, who are bursting to do stuff. So you can employ them in a recession and pay them half as much money for twice as much skill.
What would be your final piece of advice to anyone looking to becoming an entrepreneur?
Don’t take no for an answer.
What do you aim to achieve by being the Director of the National Film School?
In the simplest terms, I want it to be the best film and television school in the world.
What qualifications do you need to have to enrol in the film school?
You don’t need any qualifications. We would like people to have a degree, but you don’t absolutely need to have a degree. Having experience in the industry is a bonus, but our main criterion is the quality of work that you submit to the school: this work would mainly determine whether you get a placement. You need to be 23 years old or more.
Click Here: NFTS
