Virgin founder Richard Branson chats with moderator Mimi Jung of KING5 during the “Business is an Adventure” forum for entrepreneurs in Seattle.
On Tuesday, Seattle’s business leaders and VIPs eagerly gathered at the Axis Pioneer Square to get business tips from one of the most successful and flashiest moguls in the world, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson.
With Branson headlining the “Business is an Adventure” panel that also showcased local startup virtuosos such as Hointer’s Nadia Shouraboura, PicMonkey’s Jonathan Sposato, and Chase Jarvis of CreativeLive, the topic of entrepreneurship dominated the conversation.
For those who missed the panel, here are our key takeaways from Branson’s talk:
Embrace that first failure as a learning opportunity
“There’s a very thin dividing line between success and failure, especially when you start a business without any financial backing. For most of us, you’re battling just to stay on the right side of that dividing line. Of course, some people don’t manage to stay on the right side, and their companies fail.
“The key is to pick yourself up, brush yourself down, and start again. … The next time around, you will be that much stronger. You would’ve had the best education anyone could’ve given you in your first pursuit of success.”
Surround yourself with great people
“Have great people around you. That’s all a business is: Having wonderful, motivated people who believe 100 percent in what you’re doing, and what the mission is.
“Giving them the freedom to make mistakes, the freedom to make good things. Not second-guessing them. Making sure they’re the kind of people who treat the people who work for them the same way. … If you get that right, you can have 300 companies, because you’ve got these wonderful people around the world doing wonderful things.”
Delegate your business to the qualified
“You must be willing to delegate yourself. I’m a great believer that entrepreneurs should very early on in their business, put themselves out of business. Basically, what you should be doing is having the time to find somebody better than you to run the day-to-day running of your business.
“And then that person should be getting the people who work in the various divisions of your company to find people who are better than them to run the day-to-day running of all their divisions, so you’re freed up to think about the bigger picture, to be a true entrepreneur and push forward into new areas, knowing that if you get run over tomorrow, the day-to-day running is working fine. ”
“You can spend more time looking up yourself , your family, your body. Everybody will be happier as a result”
You can watch the whole event here:
