Qualityworld
Lifelines: Nick Wheeler
I started Charles Tyrwhitt back in 1986 while I was reading geography at university. I always wanted to have my own business, and from a young age I had all sorts of projects going on. I sold Christmas trees, started a photography business and then sold shoes imported from India.
The shoe business was a complete disaster because they were handmade with made-to-measure designs. The idea was to draw around the customer's feet then fax the drawings off to the shoemaker in Northern India. However, fax machines weren't very good back then and Indian phone lines were even worse, so a drawing would go in my end at size nine and come out their end either a size 15 or size six.
I remember getting the first shipment and none of them fitted at all so I thought, 'well, what can I do instead of shoes?' and decided on something I did know a lot about: shirts. The whole plan wasn't very well thought out.
I ran the company from my room in Bristol and it was all pretty impulsive. I wanted a business I could understand, and, as I said, I understood shirts. I had no experience in clothing at all, but it only took a bit of common sense: get better fabric than anybody else, get a better factory than anybody else and make great shirts.
I think there is probably too much emphasis on training and qualifications rather than actually getting on with practical business. You know, there's nothing like just doing it.
When it comes to starting a business, a lot of people will just put it off because there's always something else they can do that people around them will tell them is a good idea: endless courses, endless training – all just diversions.
So if you keep putting it off you get further and further along in your career and take on more responsibilities and start to make more money doing a job, until the idea of going into your own business and starting from scratch becomes rather unattractive.
I think entrepreneurialism is a specific character trait. I don't think things like the internet create entrepreneurs – for every Ebay and Amazon there are countless people who haven't made it. It's just one more channel of business.
When I was about 11 or 12, I remember reading about Richard Branson who was, at that point, in the very early stages of building his business empire. He has a fantastic attitude to business and still think he's a real entrepreneur. It sounds clichéd but I think he's inspired an awful lot of people.
I've always hated taking advice. When I left school I worked for a short period in Harrods, the London-based luxury department store. I remember on the first day they put me in golf wear, which I didn't know anything about, but by the end of the day I was telling the guy who had worked there for 20 years how he should be doing things. He didn't like that. On the second day I was placed in the luggage department and did exactly the same thing. By the third day, I was in the basement.
I decided to write a book about my experiences to demystify entrepreneurialism and I hope I motivate people to get out and achieve what they want in business. People think there's some sort of magic to starting a successful business – but there's not. You just have to trust your instinct. If you're going to do something, and your love doing it and believe in it, you'll be a success at it. I think if you love what you're doing, you're already pretty successful.
Nick Wheeler is speaking at the Leaders in London International Leadership Summit. For more information please visit www.leadersinlondon.com. His book, The Charles Tyrwhitt Story, published by Crimson Publishing, will be available from October.
