Ex-Dragon teaches students lesson in entrepreneurship

Ex-Dragons' Den panellist Doug Richard was on hand to give business advice to entrepreneurial University students on Friday. The event was held at the University’s Great Hall and was facilitated by Unite, their entrepreneur support unit.

During the workshop, which ran all-day from 9.30am until 5.30pm, Doug gave a series of talks which aimed to build up a ten-question-toolkit that students can use to help turn a brilliant idea into a success. To Richard, success is just about doing ‘a series of actions in a certain order’. He believes ‘entrepreneurship is learnable’ and wants to share his knowledge with as many students as possible. He will visit around a dozen universities over the course of his current UK tour.

Richard’s focus on students comes from his belief that ‘being young is the one time in your life when it’s cheap to take risks’. Despite the current economic climate, he believes that students can afford to be optimistic ‘because even if things don’t work out… you won’t be dead’.

He also believes that students and young people have a unique perspective on the changing world, referring to them as the ‘Facebook generation, where everything is so global and everyone is so much more aware’. He even suggested that British youths might have the edge, over their American counterparts: ‘People of a certain age have more in common than apart…but British kids tend to be more aware and more outward looking than American kids’, he said.

Over the course of the day, Richard encouraged the students present to discuss their business ideas with the group. Small clothing companies were a popular idea, with one student wanting to sell clothing with unique photographic imagery to a popular high-street retailer. Another student wanted to set up an online market-place for producers to sell their tracks to vocalists. Richard said the most intriguing idea he’d heard was of ‘an exciting iPhone app’, the nature of which he couldn't reveal due to its current involvement in a business competition. According to Richard, once the product is in place, ‘all you need is a little shoe-leather and a lot of nerve’.

One student, Alex Shammas, said "It was really interesting to see how he reacted to different ideas. It was really useful to hear how everyone was going wrong. He’s straight-talking, but really charismatic". Another student, Tom Charman, said that his "advice on putting stuff into department stores, distribution and marketplace was invaluable".

California-born entrepreneur Doug Richard is best-known for his involvement with the first two series of BBC’s Dragons' Den. He says it was "great fun at first, but it became boring". If nothing else, it proved that even the most successful tycoons have their off days. Richard said "I didn't believe a guy who claimed he’d found a better way to grow truffles. He’s done very well for himself". He even lost money because of the show, when he invested "in a women’s made-to-measure suit company that sold suits that didn't fit. It was a complete nightmare".