JAMIE DUNN / 21 /
ENTREPRENEUR
Jamie has successfully
built and exited his first business and co-founded a substantial Youth
Investment Fund. He has spoken at events world-wide and on stage with figures
such as, Peter Jones CBE and The US Secretary of State. With this, Jamie is now
recognised as one of the Top 20 Young People of the World 2012, an award
previously won by ex-US President, John F Kennedy.
Hi Jamie. Tell us a
bit about what you do and how you help young entrepreneurs.
My name is Jamie Dunn. I’m pretty much your standard guy really;
apart from the fact that I don’t live a standard 21 year old’s life.
I am a major director shareholder of a company called Spark
Global Business. Spark works with entrepreneurs as they develop and grow their
business by providing mentoring and advice, investment, business tools and
introductions. The company also develops and supports the entrepreneurial
spirit within public and private sectors through a range of workshops and
consultancy services.
At 18, I co-founded the company, Made By Young People, which
delivers informal enterprise workshops in education, one of which engages the
young people and challenges them to design and produce a clothing garment,
which they will then sell and keep the profit.
Made By Young People also offers a professional
printing service that produces goods, and eventually became a supplier to the
likes of Asda, Ikea and Aston Villa.
And we hear you’re a
bit of an investor yourself?
That’s right. I’m also a main sponsor of Arden Forest FC among
other interests and advise individuals on their investment decisions too. I’ve
always got involved with businesses that I enjoy doing as oppose to making my
business life feel like a task or a chore.
So what’s a typical
week look like for you?
My day-to-day schedule really varies and that’s why I love it.
One day I can be addressing the education minister of a specific country and
the next, I can be working with a young entrepreneur on their start up idea. I
also write a weekly column for The Birmingham Mail and Virgin.com. I think that
having an exciting schedule is key to maintaining focus and staying interested.
So how does a 21
year-old become an expert on entrepreneurship?
Well I went to secondary school just like everybody else but as
soon as I started I knew that education wouldn’t be the future for me. I didn’t
like the structured way of doing things, being constantly told what to do,
reacting to a sound of a school bell and that sort of thing.
I started selling CDs and DVDs to friends at school, and then
progressed to car boot sales and markets at the weekend. I was 12 years old
when I started doing the market stalls and by the time I was 15, the stalls
were doing well and I had members of my family running them for me. At 15 I was
making about £500 a week average and it was a good time but it didn’t leave
much time for school or studying.
I then applied to the Pathfinder course of the Peter Jones
Academy. After a rigorous assessment process I was granted a place as one of
only 28 successful finalists from thousands of nationwide applicants. With
this, I moved to London at the age of 16 for six months to complete the
Academy. After finishing the Peter Jones Academy I never went back into
education.
What motivated you to
get into business so young?
The fact that I was young, had nothing to lose but everything to
gain was the main motivation for me. From my upbringing, there was never much
money around and so I simply started to make a bit of extra cash to buy Xbox
games and that sort of thing but when I started to do well, my motivation for
business completely changed.
I realised quickly that I loved the thrill of taking risks,
making decisions, being on that edge of complete failure or total success and
the freedom that comes with it. That buzz gave me so much energy, one that I could
never get if I worked for somebody. I didn’t have a clue about starting out, I
quite simply started. I learned very quickly along the way, made a lot of
mistakes but had lots of fun. I think that you can over-complicate starting a
business by doing lots of planning, lots of wasted time when actually you will
learn much more by throwing yourself in at the deep end and learning as you go.
What do you love most
about what you do?
Freedom. It’s that simple. I love being able to wake up in the
morning and have the ability to decide how I want to spend my time. If I want
to spend my whole day lounging around in bed, I can. If I want to spend my
whole day working and meeting clients then I can. The freedom of running your
own business is the real driver and appeal for me. The ability to make your own
decisions, live by them good or bad and the excitement of the journey are all
the things that I love the most.
Do you ever wish you
had gone to uni?
I have no debt whatsoever and even if I lost everything tomorrow
I could say that I have had a practical four year learning experience in
business, got paid to work around the world and I have met some amazing people,
all for free. I do not think that you can ever substitute the vital part of
practical experience. Getting a degree is fine, as long as you make the degree
work for you. If you expect to leave university with a degree on a piece of
paper and suddenly it opens up doors and gets you that dream job, you are
wrong. A degree is great but you need to network, meet business people, get
yourself out there and most of all, stand out. If everybody has the same degree
as you, when going to an interview what separates you from that person? It is
what extra you have to add to that degree that counts.
What did your friends
and family think about your decision to set up your own business? Were they
supportive, or did they try to change your mind?
My Mum and Dad still don’t know what I do – haha! Nobody in my
family has ever started a business before or ever thought about doing something
enterprising, and so to go against the grain and start a business came as quite
a shock to everybody. My school always told my parents that I had the ability
to get a degree and such things if I applied myself but it never interested me
in the slightest. I remember discussing my options with my family when I left
school and I always remember that they told me that as long as I was happy in
whatever I chose to do then that was enough. I think the fact that my parents
took the pressure and expectations off my shoulders meant that I wasn’t afraid
to fail, or disappoint anybody or get anything wrong. In a sense, I felt like I
couldn’t lose because my parents were happy as long as I was happy.
What advice would you
give a young entrepreneur?
STOP MOANING & BEING SCARED! Too many people complain about
their lives, their financial situation, their lack of success and various other
things but should realise that actually if they wanted to change their life,
they can, but it does require effort and hard work. That is what I think holds
people back, the fear of doing all the hard work and it might eventually lead
to failure, but actually, if you want it that bad, you will find a way to make
it happen, and if it doesn’t happen don’t blame others, you are in control of
your life and the things that happen in it so take some responsibility for
that. I always say that my life will be two extremes; I will either be
massively successful or massively broke and I will be both at some point in my
life but that’s the enjoyment I get, the excitement of the journey, the thrill
of the chase. Different things motivate different people, it’s important to
know which one works for you and use it as fuel to get what you want.
Being young is the best time to try and fail. What have you
lost? You probably live at home with your parents, have no huge financial
outgoings and have no children. So, really, you have nothing to lose. So if
everything all fails and goes wrong? Oh well, you have learnt something and had
some fun. Now get up and do it all again.
What should the
government do to support young people with ambitions that are different to the
‘norm’?
Get Spark Global Business to talk to them! Alright, plugging the
business aside, I think that Gov needs to focus more on encouraging
entrepreneurship at grass roots, but making it practical experience as oppose
to teaching based. I’m sick to death of enterprise workshops that are based on
the Dragon’s Den concept. When enterprise organizations go into schools and say
to a young person “Imagine you have £50,000 to start a business” it is setting
the young person up to fail. How many young people actually have or can get
£50,000 to start a business? Instead, enterprise workshops need to be more
practical. Being an entrepreneur is about making the most of the resources you
have available, so instead of setting imaginary dragons den tasks, give the
young person something practical to do, something physical to work on and
involve real money so that the experience is real. If the experience is real,
in turn, the learning will be real.
We see you have a book
out, what inspired you to write it?
I have met lots of
young people around the world who want to start a business but don’t know what
to start or how to start it. So, I decided to co-author a book that explains it
all and gives ideas on what to start. The book is called “Crack On” and
is co-authored with a fellow international speaker and renowned trainer. The
book contains eight business ideas, examples of over 20 young people worldwide
that have been successful in business, step by step explanations on how to make
money from the ideas and over £6,000 worth of business tools to get the
business started and making money.
No comments:
Post a Comment