Start It Up: Why Running Your Own Business is Easier Than You Think

by Luke Johnson

Overview

Running your own business is nowhere near as tough as you might think. So what are you waiting for? Luke Johnson is Britain's busiest tycoon, with a personal fortune estimated at £120 million. From Pizza Express and Channel 4 to his incisive Financial Times column, Johnson has spent two decades on the business frontline. In Start It Up, Johnson sets out to inspire—and guide—every budding entrepreneur. He tackles the issues that really matter: finding the right idea, sourcing funds, and getting the best from the people you meet on the way—chiefly yourself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780670920471
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/20/2013
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Luke Johnson is one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs with an estimated personal fortune of £120 million. He is chairman of Risk Capital Partners and The Royal Society of Arts, and a former chairman of Channel 4 Television. He writes columns for the Financial Times and Management Today. In the 1990s he was Chairman of PizzaExpress, which he grew from 12 restaurants to over 250; he also founded the Strada pizzeria chain and owns Giraffe and Patisserie Valerie.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Part 1 Beginnings

A few failures first 3

Ambition-the stuff of life 9

Stop making excuses and get started 12

Start-ups with a dash of going concern 14

The correct use of optimism 19

The true value of ideas 22

Saying it v. doing it 26

What's in a name? 27

Is this a good time to start a business? 31

To the recent graduate 34

Part 2 People

Age and the founder 41

Time, energy and ideas 45

Poor children of the rich and successful 49

Joys and perils of a partnership 52

Networking 57

Cliques and clubs-the ties that bind 58

Mentoring 60

The founder's passion 62

Bottom-up management 65

An end to pygmy bosses and grey leaders 68

Coping with talent 72

Trouble within 74

Private-life drama 77

The necessary evil of H R 79

Parts 3 Points of Style

Bring back the Renaissance men 85

There always will be blood 87

Fatherhood and the entrepreneur 90

Some day my prince will come (home early) 92

The delights of the portfolio career 95

The mythical entrepreneur 98

Ritualism in business 101

Made not born 103

The brogue element 107

Part 4 The Capital Pursuit

Tales of the Money Riverbank 113

Moonlighting: the best launch for a start-up 114

Summoning an angel 119

Venture capitalists: on another wavelength 125

Banks 126

Secondary sources of money 127

A word about dumb money 129

Part 5 Formulas

The trouble with trying to spot a winner 135

Five questions I ask myself before investing 138

Business plans 142

A list of don'ts 145

A spell in service 149

By the staff, for the staff 154

Independents will always have their day 157

Franchises-the worst of all worlds 160

Part 6 The Cycle

Turnaround and creative destruction 165

The cycle as told by restaurants 168

Managing in a downturn 172

Faustian pact of a guarantee 177

A sense of dread ails the opinion-makers 180

The consumer's new mantra is value 183

X&Y in a downturn 187

Dishonest dealings 190

Watch out for an epidemic of petty fraud 193

Time to go on the offensive 194

Hard times reveal the true opportunists 196

Losing your reputation 199

Getting fired 202

Part 7 The Entrepreneur at Large

Inventors are heroes 213

Women inventors 216

Innovation and reality 218

All part of a good education 227

The reputation of business 229

What's so terrible about making money? 232

Stress and risk: the secrets of happiness 234

A parlour game for the highly motivated 236

Satisfying the soul 239

Acknowledgements 242