Entrepreneurs are born or may be raised, but are an essential part of UK retail activity

What makes a good entrepreneur and are they essential for the wellbeing of UK retailing? Luke Johnson, chairman of Risk Capital Partners led a discussion at the Retail Week Conference this afternoon examining the place of the entrepreneur and how risk can be balanced with potential success. “Without entrepreneurs we’re all sunk. Our best hope is for an army of entrepreneurs,” he said, adding however that, “the point about equity risk is that you may not just not make money, you may actually lose money.”

Johnson characterised the entrepreneur as being possessed of a different mindset, something akin to a “disease” that needs to be treated on a regular basis if it is to find an outlet for its restless nature. Asked whether it was nature, rather than nurture, that provides the impetus for entrepreneurial activity, Angus Thirlwell, co-founder of Hotel Chocolat said that his background had been integral to the decision to go it alone.  He related how his father’s founding of the Mr Whippy ice cream empire and his subsequent setting up and selling of Prontaprint, had proved a major influence.

Mark Constantine, co-founder and managing director of Lush said that family input had not been at the heart of his success and indeed failure had featured large in generating his desire to take risk when setting up Lush 16 years ago.

For Ben Philips, owner of Steamer Trading Cookshop, and Tom Joule, CEO of upscale clothing retailer Joules, however, it was less a matter of being born to be an entrepreneur and rather more to do with an “inability to say no to an opportunity,” as Joule put it.

All agreed however that in spite of a tough trading climate, the entrepreneurial instinct in the UK remains alive and well.