Entrepreneurs are people like you

For some people, the word ‘entrepreneur’ automatically brings to mind Peter Jones and his ilk – those high fl yers who set up and run more successful businesses than most of us could manage in several lifetimes. But in reality, an entrepreneur is anyone who chooses to go it alone and make the most of a business opportunity for themselves,
no matter how big or small.
Nowadays, being an entrepreneur is becoming a legitimate career
choice for more and more people. Gone are the days when you had
to have years of business experience under your belt before you might
even consider taking the plunge with a startup of your own. Before
getting down to the nuts and bolts of how to start a business, here’s a
brief insight into why a selection of successful entrepreneurs decided
to start their own business.
People choose to become entrepreneurs for a variety of reasons.
For some it’s an opportunity to escape their mundane nine-to-fi ve
existence and to commit their working life to something that is a lot
closer to their heart. For the ‘lifestyle’ entrepreneurs, the important
part of the deal is not how much their business grows, but the effect
it has on their life.
David Creswell, the 27-year-old founder of the comics website
ComicDomain.co.uk falls into this category. ‘I don’t care if I’m a comic
geek, it’s my hobby and I’ve turned that into a small business,’ he
says. ‘I’m proud of the service we provide and our customers are
also happy.’ For others, the motivation for starting up will come from
spotting a gap in a market they know well. Self-confessed ‘ski bums’
Tim Slade and Jules Leaver spotted an opportunity for ‘been there
done that’ T-shirts to sell to skiing holidaymakers, and started the
highly successful high-street chain Fat Face.
And for Dee Edwards, 29, the same kind of insight helped her to
launch internet company Habbo. ‘I really believed internet business
could be made successful by using technology to run a company
effectively, and leveraging the different way people were changing
their communication,’ she says. Whether it’s T-shirts or technology,
the world is littered with those who’ve been able to see a business
opportunity others simply can’t. In fact, a lack of business experience
could well give you the kind of perspective those with a blue-chip
curriculum vitae would struggle to attain. Nowhere is this better

illustrated than by Lena Bjorck. Arriving in the UK from Sweden with
no qualifi cations she landed a job as a kitchen porter, but quickly
realised the country’s service industry was just not up to scratch. So
without a pound in her pocket or even the most basic equipment,
she quit. She now runs one of the country’s most successful catering
companies, Inn or Out.
To help inspire you, here are profi les of four companies, started by
entrepreneurs with quite different backgrounds and ideas, who took
the decision to launch a business for the fi rst time and succeeded.