Best of Season 1 - Entrepreneurship & Innovation

If I was just thinking, reflecting on our conversation, I'm going to try and think what my takeaways are.

But I think you've said so many interesting points.

Just wanted to come back to a couple on the female entrepreneurs.

So we did another episode with a female founder, Irene McLeese, on a data-driven company, Intelligent CycleLights.

And she actually said there's only 2% of entrepreneurs that are women around the world.

So that's quite an interesting fact, actually, that I was a little bit unaware of until she's actually said that.

And then I'm reflecting on your 90% of ideas or knowledge coming from other people.

And I just wonder where mine is.

Certainly my ideas definitely come when I'm sitting with other people.

My mind sometimes in conferences will drift off and I'll come up with loads of ideas that have nothing to do with what's there.

But people are central.

So whether it's coming directly from them, it's certainly interaction is facilitating some thinking that it could be divergent and stimulated from that.

But in terms of reflections of takeaways, I've taken quite a few.

I'll try and make them three.

So one is a very clear ecosystem that you laid out, and it seems like a very similar ecosystem for entrepreneurs.

irrespective of where they are, where you've got the entrepreneurs, and they could be coming from different places, academia, what we call intrapreneurs, so coming out of companies, coming out of the, and from any ex-entrepreneurs, you call them, the third category.

And that's- And the one bit of that entrepreneurship, what resonates with me, when I was a student in Cambridge, I attended the talk of Lord Karen Bill Moray.

I don't know if you know him.

He's the founder of Cobra Bear.

And he actually... started his company, Cobra, Fulham Palace Road, very close to where we are in Hammersmith and Fulham, which I didn't know, but I read that.

But he showed how he started many different companies before.

One was on golf clubs, and I can't remember all the others that failed as such before he moved here.

So that failure being important to an experience is the other bit I've learned.

Then the second takeaway was to have a clear plan.

And even if it deviates from the plan, being willingness to understand how you adjust it and why it's failed and having reflection in there.