Outsourcery Co-CEO and TV Dragons' Den investor Piers Linney needs no introduction. Not so well known however are some of the key determining factors that have influenced his career and personal development. Here, we reveal the life experiences and character forming lessons that helped make the man.
Linney has thundered about the onset of cloud supremacy for many years, so much so that the channel's ears continue to ring with his fervent conviction. Here, he reveals the lessons learnt from various aspects of life that helped to put him on the road to absolute conviction, ambition and success...
Parents
I inherited a work ethic and an entrepreneurial attitude from both my parents. My dad was a working class lad from Manchester who won a scholarship to Cambridge. My mum always had an entrepreneurial approach to her work. She was a nurse and a health visitor and established various programmes within the local community.
After retiring she set up a business selling flowers and accessories for weddings, which she ran until very recently. My own work ethic and entrepreneurial streak were definitely influenced by her. She taught me to get stuff done and make the best use of the resources you've got.
Childhood
I learnt how to stand up for myself and not be afraid in the process. I also learnt to work hard for the material things that I wanted. I started my own business at the age of 13 in order to buy myself a new (and expensive) BMX. I didn't think of it as a business at the time. It was about wealth creation on a small scale. At the age of 16, I sold that business making a profit for the first time. Through that process, I learnt that in business the outputs are directly aligned with your efforts and inputs.
Friends/personal relationships
One thing I've learnt is that when you're starting a business, available well-meaning friends and acquaintances may not always be the best people to bring on board or issue shares to. Starting a business from scratch with friends, acquaintances, or even friends of friends just because they happen to have some free time or be looking for work isn't usually going to end well.
As a business progresses, you begin to realise that you need people on your team who are specialists in that particular area, so you need to think about hiring well from the beginning, not just choosing people because they are available. You can quickly realise that members of your founding team, however invested or enthusiastic, can't cut it and you will be faced with the difficult task of asking them to leave. Ensuring that any equity issued is structured in such a way that they can't take it with them is key. As the founder, you can't leave.
School/education
Education is critical. I'm a big supporter of learning, whether that's through traditional academic learning, training or apprenticeships. I trained to become a lawyer and didn't actually qualify until I was 26. I messed up my exams on a couple of occasions, but at the end of the day it was still critical to getting on in life and broadening my career options. Most entrepreneurs are not people who leave school at the age of 16 to set up their own business and become billionaires. They are people who have worked for many years in a particular industry, acquired certain skills and know-how and either applied this elsewhere or bought out their boss in a management buyout in order to build the business the way they think it should be built.
Business relationships
In terms of my professional career I have a broad legal and financial skill set which I can leverage in any business. Having this professional background is very useful because it equips me with all the basic skills I need to run my company. In terms of business relationships, it's about making sure that those relationships are mutually beneficial and that you're both putting in sufficient commitment and resource to make it work, otherwise you're wasting your time.
When you're starting out, there's the temptation to jump on any potential new business opportunity or relationship that presents itself, whereas when you've only got finite resources you really need to allocate them carefully. Pick your battles, your business partners and your suppliers carefully.
Hobbies and pastimes
Keep doing the things you love. It's very important to build time for those things into your diary, otherwise life will quickly become all work and no play, as there will always be something that seems more of a priority, especially when you are building a business. One of the upsides of running your own business is that, despite the hours and queue of issues to overcome, you can get to that early morning event at your child's school to see them perform if you really want to. I love mountain biking and spending time riding around the middle of nowhere with friends, so I build this into my schedule. I enjoy cycling generally and commute to work on my bike most days.
It's all about organising it into your routine so it becomes part of daily life. I work hard and take risks in order to look after my family, friends and the causes I'm involved with. Make sure you find time to do the things you love doing, otherwise what is the point?
Failure and success
There's a fine line between the two and in business you tend to hear more about the success stories. There are so many times when you look at yourself or your business partner and think 'how on earth are we going to get through this one?'. You do though, and that is what being an entrepreneur is all about because the alternative is simply an unacceptable outcome.
Having been an investor, adviser and entrepreneur, I know that entrepreneurs are eternal optimists. When you start out, you tend to cling on to things for too long, even when you know deep down that they're not going to end well. Over time, you learn to cut your losses and move on. You learn to live to fight another day. Unlike in the US, there is still a stigma attached to business failure in the UK which will take a generation to change. The vast majority of entrepreneurs I know had a few businesses that didn't work out, or which just didn't scale beyond being lifestyle businesses before they found real commercial success.
Biggest lesson learnt
Know when to cut your losses at the right time, whether it's a potential new business opportunity or you've hired the wrong person for the job. In business (and in life) I've found that as you progress, you learn to focus less on the small things and see the bigger picture.
Comms industry bugbear
There's a sense of denial about the systemic shift to cloud-based solutions and the convergence of telecoms and IT into Unified Communications. The market is going to be disruptive and the channel is going to evolve. Research from a number of sources, combined with our own anecdotal experiences, forecasts that only a small minority of the existing communications channel will embrace the shift to cloud services and survive in the long-term. Now is the time to decide whether you want to become a winner or a loser. Just get out or manage that decline gracefully.
What drives you?
Friends and family. Having fun, creating wealth and the development of innovative and scalable social businesses.
Favourite maxim
I have borrowed it from our company Chairman - 'Do well. Do good'.