Entrepreneurs Forum conference discusses importance of collaboration

Hundreds of the North East’s best business minds gathered to discuss wealth and job creation at this year’s Entrepreneurs Forum.

The annual business conference, entitled ‘Together We Can Take on the World’ took the powerful force of collaboration between entrepreneurs as a major theme.

Delegates at the annual business conference heard how sharing and exploiting knowledge and experience would benefit the whole region in terms of job and wealth creation.

Two hundred entrepreneurs and leaders of entrepreneurial organisations packed into the Hilton Hotel, Gateshead, to hear from speakers at the conference.

James Averdieck, founder of Gu chocolate puds, who was born in the North East, told the audience of his entrepreneurial journey.

His eureka moment came when he was selling margarine to the Belgians but decided to brighten a bad day with a trip to the local patisserie in Brussels.

Jame said: “They are the one per cent of your time when you really have to nail it. Whether it’s pitches, dates, big meetings, conferences, they are the key moments where you have to get it right.”

“I stopped thinking about margarine and started thinking about beautiful chocolate desserts. They looked beautiful, they tasted beautiful and I thought if I can find a way of wrapping this experience into a brand, no one else was doing it - that was my genesis.”

A year later, when asked what he did for a living, he recalled: “I couldn’t say I sold margarine, so I said I had a chocolate pudding business and was developing mousse and soufflés.

“Having spun that story I realised I had to do it.”

After teaming up with a Jewish father of 15 who was running a chocolate patisserie in London, they came up with the Gu brand which James then sneaked onto the shelves of a local supermarket giving it ten minutes to sell.

Ten years later the business is now worth £80m, though James has sold his interests and is now working as a consultant.

Delegates were also invited to share their challenges by posting messages on a ‘mentoring wall’, which other delegates were encouraged to view and offer help where they could.

Paul Callaghan CBE, founder of Leighton Group, told the audience of the value of giving something back as a mentor.

He was joined by a Dominic Edmunds, an entrepreneur he mentors, who has built Sunderland-based SaleCycle into a global business in less than three years.

Dominic said: “I would have done it but, having never started a business before, at best we would be 18 months behind where we are now.”.

The speakers showed how even the most unlikely candidate can become an entrepreneur - and have lessons to share.

The conference also heard from Bavarian Glaswegian Petra Wetzel, a single mum and lawyer, now runs a hugely successful micro-brewery.

The 32-year-old played delegates a 2004 television clip where she and her then husband were humiliated on the BBC’s Dragons Den.

Their brewery, West at Templeton, ended up in financial difficulties and after parting company with her husband Petra borrowed the money from her parents to buy the business out of administration.

After taking control the business expanded at the rate of 150 per cent a year and she is now working on developing a secondary brewery at the cost of £9m to meet global demand.

She said: “I have been royally bust and it isn’t a nice experience.

“So I am surrounding myself with people who really know business while I have the passion for brewing high quality beer.

“You have to listen to the people who really know what they are talking about - that has been the success of West.”

Three time entrepreneur of the year Lara Morgan, founder of hotel amenities company Pacific Direct which she later sold for £20m, spoke about sales and the importance and pleasure of export.

She said: “If you go away with one thing from me it’s that you’ve got to sell more.

“I urge you to overcome lack of confidence and be bold because if an idiot like me can do it I assure you that you can.

“We have a massive privilege and headstart in speaking English and in our tradition and history.

“The joy of working with different nationalities, the different flavours and cultures and the learning experiences are irreplaceable.”