Member Article

High-profile entrepreneurs talk at Rockliffe event

The spotlight shone on entrepreneurship at a major annual business conference held, for the first time, in the Tees Valley.

More than 150 entrepreneurs descended on Rockliffe Hall for the Entrepreneurs’ Forum’s Fortune Favours the Brave event, held during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Explaining the Forum’s unique role to newcomers, chairman Nigel Mills said its events, where acclaimed entrepreneurs share their stories, and its mentoring programme allowed local business owners to learn from others’ success and failure, and use the knowledge to grow their organisations.

He said: “The culture of ‘I’m waiting for some help’ has gone; nobody is going to come and help us.

“We have got to help ourselves, so let’s share, let’s learn together and let’s get on with it.”

The conference was in partnership with Tees Valley Unlimited, whose chief executive Stephen Catchpole explained about the mission to create 25,000 new private sector jobs in the area in the decade from 2014.

“The vast majority will come from entrepreneurs and small businesses,” he said.

“The amount that will come from large scale inward investment will be much less than in the past. It’s for us to stimulate entrepreneurship and small businesses,” he said.

Digital entrepreneur Chris van der Kuyl, founder of 4J Studios which co-developed Minecraft, the most played Xbox game in history, is also chairman of the Forum’s equivalent in Scotland, the Entrepreneurial Exchange.

“Without the Exchange there’s no way I would be where I am today,” he said.

“Through dark and tough times it was Exchange members who were a beacon of hope.

“It’s the single best tool any entrepreneur can have and having it in your own community is priceless.

“I advise people to listen to the stories, get the inspiration and go on your own journey.”

Kevin Dorren built Orbital Software into a business valued at £70m but dramatically lost value in the dot com crash.

Of his “great failure”, he said: “It’s hard to pick yourself back up but in business there are always things that go really well and others that go badly.”

His new business, Diet Chef, was established with the help of its first manufacturer County Durham-based Tanfield food company, and now has 100,000 customers who subscribe to its home delivered, nutritional meal service.

“I obsess about product. I think about it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and how we can improve it,” he added.

International coach and mentor to Newcastle United, Sunderland and Fulham and to rugby player Jonny Wilkinson, Steve Black said everyone needed purpose and had to strive to improve individually and as a team.

“Treat people as they wanted to be treated not as you would like to be treated yourself,” he said.

“You need honesty, integrity and trust. You need to know what is expected of you and need to be dependable. But you have to keep delivering on a daily basis.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Martin Walker .