Richard Branson on Taking Chances | Hacker News Reader

Richard Branson on Taking Chances

entrepreneur.com

36 pointsmeadhikari8 comments

I'm a big fan of his book Losing My Virginity, which shows some of the low risk methods he approached to entrepreneurship.

-When he was young, he started a school magazine and pre-sold advertisements to local businesses, minimizing the risk of loss in the venture.

-When he started Virgin Records, they pre-sold subscriptions to get capital up front and then knew exactly what kind of inventory they needed.

-When he started Virgin Airlines, the planes were initially leased. This created a smaller capital requirement for starting the business which allowed him to test its viability without so much money at risk.

In addition, he regularly licenses the Virgin brand to different products. These are situations where he can earn a bit of money without having to invest in any of the intensive R&D or manufacturing behind the products. Obviously, there is a risk that a poor product could impair the brand, but they seem to have a good vetting process.

Richard Branson loves risk takers:

> Imagine you’re a simple student in the Netherlands. Without making any plans for it, what would you say the chance is that the same afternoon you’d be flying in a private jet with Richard Branson to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama in Washington?

http://beanoriginal.net/the-audacity-of-shamelessly-asking/

This is a great story.

I love having examples like these around. It seems like every other day I get dragged into a conversation with someone (usually someone I care deeply about) about being successful, or just making things. In the end the conversation typically ends when I say something like "the only thing you've tried so far was coming up with excuses not to do something". 95% of times, the conversation itself is inconsequential.

5% of times it results in something big. New jobs, more cash-flow, or just people being happier with themselves and what they do. I guess some people need a small push to start making things happen. (Others, apparently, need a push bigger than I can deliver.)

edit: I realize that I strayed a bit from the topic of your comment, wallflower, apologies :-)

An alternative take on Branson and the Virgin empire:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/dec/12/digitalmedia.bro...

(NB: article is 5 years old)

This reads like the definition of sour grapes. Richard Branson has created multiple billion-dollar companies in different industries, but he's had some failures along the way! And he doesn't talk about them as much as his successes!

I posted the link because I'd guess the international readership of HN know about Branson/Virgin from the airline and music operations - which are clearly successful - whereas his domestic UK initiatives have a rather more mixed track record, but probably aren't as well known.

If the originally posted piece had been about Bill Gates giving advice to entrepreneurs, referring back to his billion-dollar successes with DOS, Windows and Office, then everyone here would be able to put that in context against the likes of MS Bob, Kin, antitrust investigations, etc. I'm not so sure that as many people will have endured the dubious pleasures of Virgin Rail.

Deleted comment

"The sales figures usually proved our point later."

I don't think passion was implied as a rule, more a measure of success.

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