GUIDE TO GROWTH
Organised by Like Minds , more than 150 leading investors , entrepreneurs and SMEs came together in Bristol to hear the most innovative thinking in business today . In the following pages , we pick out some highlights of the two-day summit ...
A MEETING OF MINDS
Glenn
Le Santo finds much to enjoy at the Like Minds event in Bristol
For my money , business conferences fall into two distinct categories . Ones you wished you hadn ’ t gone to and ones you ’ re glad you attended . Like Minds , the brainchild of Drew Ellis , certainly falls into the latter group .
Drew drove Like Minds through the heady early years of social media and start-up fever and has managed to mature the brand and find a consistent groove in innovation . It ’ s the theme that guides the Like Minds events and ensures they deliver inspired – and inspiring – content .
The recent Bristol edition of Like Minds , powered by Barclays , kept the thread going with plenty of help from the main ingredient of any great show – great speakers .
Drew never fails to gather together amazing people with tremendous stories and great delivery . One highlight was Chris Moss , the man who helped Richard Branson build the Virgin airline brand . Chris always moves his audience with great stories and his lateral way of thinking . I love watching this charming man hold an audience . He ’ s so affable he lulls you as you listen to his tales . He doesn ’ t lead you into any comfort zones and likes to challenge everything . He showed a slide that simply said : “ It ’ s not what you look at that matters , it ’ s what you see .”
Chris had a message about thinking differently , and that standing out takes courage . Chris knows how to be brave . He launched a mobile phone company called Orange in the face of many who thought it was the wrong name for a phone company . The lawyers even told him they couldn ’ t trademark a colour . So he told them it wasn ’ t a colour . It was a fruit . Orange of course has grown to be one of the most recognisable brands in the UK and , thanks to Chris and his team , the strength of the brand is a testament to his inspired bravery .
Deri Llewellyn-Davies is known as the strategy man and he presented his idea about strategy on a page – getting your entire business plan onto just one page . He champions this brevity in what is normally an over-stuffed document partly because : “ You only read the first page anyway , you lazy b ****** s !”
Trying to get a business plan down to one page might seem like mission impossible to some but Deri is a doer of the impossible . He stared into the jaws of death when was stranded for three days and nights in the Himalayas after the 2015 earthquake in Nepal . He survived and earned the undeniable right to show the slides : “ Live life with no regrets ” and “ build a business with no regrets ”. He urged everyone to do business for the right reason , and for him that isn ’ t money . Like Minds speakers have a habit of saying at least one thing that really resonates with you . Something they ’ ve picked from their personal journey that somehow fits your experience perfectly . Tiffany St James did this for me in one slide . “ Lead from wherever you are ” it said . This is such great advice if you ’ re pushing for change and innovation from within a complex structure . Don ’ t wait until you are on the top , make the changes and influence business outcomes from wherever you are .
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FOR THE ENTREPRENEUR THE CHALLENGE , THEN , IS NOT COMING UP WITH KILLER IDEAS BUT COMING UP WITH EFFECTIVE WAYS TO IMPLEMENT THEM – THAT IS , TO TRANSLATE BRILLIANT IDEAS INTO PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
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