00:00Hi, we're here in Walsall at the Digital Skills Hub and with me is Richard Harpin, who's launching his brand new book, How to Make a Billion in Nine Steps.
00:10It's something I'm sure everyone's going to want to read about, so we'll get on and ask Richard what it's all about.
00:16Hi Richard, great to meet you.
00:18You too, though.
00:19Why did you write this book?
00:20Yeah, I look back at my 30-year journey with HomeServe, taking the business from a £50,000 start-up to a £4 billion sale and thought I made loads of mistakes and there are nine things that I know now that I wish I'd known at the start of my entrepreneurial career.
00:39If I had, maybe we could have got there as a team in 15 years rather than 30.
00:44And I thought I want to get those messages out to every other entrepreneur that's running a mid-sized business and help them to create more large companies in the UK.
00:56And why are you launching here at the Digital Skills Hub?
00:59Because all of the profits from my book, plus a further £125,000, I'm putting towards helping entrepreneurship and the journey.
01:10And I think that journey should start with year 10 in secondary schools, 14-year-olds, hearing about the excitement of becoming an entrepreneur, running your own business and doing something that's really worthwhile.
01:25Well, I'm not going to ask you to spill the entire context of the book, but can you just give us a little tip about how to start?
01:33What's perhaps the key tip for people to start, young people especially?
01:36I think it's probably the hard one and that is step one, which is copy and pivot.
01:42And we're here at a school in Warsaw and the teachers here would say copying homework is bad, but in business copying is good.
01:52If somebody's already done it, that means it works.
01:55Take their idea, make it even better and then test it, prove it and then go big.
02:02And I didn't do that and I nearly ran out of money twice.
02:09I set up an emergency plumbing business, the model didn't work.
02:14I put my life savings into it at £50,000 and we ran out of money.
02:20Managed to borrow money from friends and family to keep the business going.
02:24We went around every water company in the UK thinking, isn't there a good link between an emergency plumbing service and water utilities.
02:34We asked all of those 15 water companies, do you want to invest in the business that was originally called Fast Fix?
02:40They all said no, with one small exception and that was South Staffswater here in Warsaw 32 years ago.
02:50And they said, we'll put in half a million pounds, but we want half the business.
02:57And I would never recommend giving away half the business, but we had no option and it did work out in the end.
03:05And how well do you feel your book and your stories have gone down with students today?
03:11I think they've gone down really well and particularly it's the early stories that they can relate to.
03:18My first business was, I launched age six and that was breeding white rabbits and selling them on to my classmates at school.
03:29Then I thought, what do I do after that? I'll run a rabbit kennel.
03:33So when they go on holiday, they bring their rabbit back to me to look after.
03:37That then led to becoming a children's magician.
03:41And I'd run five businesses by the time I joined Procter & Gamble in marketing in Newcastle, age 21.
03:49While I was still looking for that big idea.
03:52And are you surprised at perhaps the lack of financial understanding there is among young people or perhaps in education in the country?
04:01Yeah, because 60% of youngsters would say, I'd really like to run my own business.
04:09Only 16% end up doing that.
04:12And that's because enterprise education of one sort or another is only available in 34% of the 4,200 secondary schools that we have in the UK.
04:25So part of my job today is saying, we need to do more of this.
04:30We need to get an entrepreneur into every one of those 4,200 schools.
04:36Not just here in the West Midlands, but across the whole of the UK.
04:39And the cost of running enterprise education through Young Enterprise, which is one of the organisations that do it, is £3,300 per school.
04:51But I don't think it's impossible to say, let's find those entrepreneurs that may even say, I'll become an entrepreneurial ambassador.
05:03I'll dedicate two days a year of my time to working in a school, and I will fund the £3,300.
05:12So that's what we need to do.
05:15Wow. Well, very best of luck with that and with the book.
05:18Thanks for talking to us.
05:20It's great to be back here in Warsaw.
05:21I'm in Warsaw, and I spent 30 years working here, and I stepped down as chairman of Homeserve at Christmas, but good to be here.
05:33This is where it all started.
05:36Homeserve is still, I think, the largest employer in Warsaw.
05:39And to think that we grew the business from here to become a multinational operating in 10 other countries.
05:48In the end, we conquered America, and it was difficult, but we made the business model work over there.
05:54And we also have a joint venture in Japan, as well as operating across Europe.
06:00So one of the things that I was most excited about was Brookfield buying the business.
06:07We're now a private company, great management team that I've left behind.
06:12And I'm happy that my baby that I started, that I still care dearly about, will continue to go from strength to strength.
