Pound for Pound champion

Like the modern-day plot of some Greek tragedy, Eddie Hearn's professional life has been defined by his relationship with his father.

Being the son of high-profile sports promoter, Barry Hearn, gave the young Eddie many advantages in life but also, by his own admission, gave him a point to prove.

He readily recounts a tale of the time when he was a young teenager, albeit a very tall one, that his dad invited him to step into the ring with him to test his mettle. As Eddie tells it, he eventually ran out a convincing winner despite his Dad’s efforts to remove his head. 

All character-forming stuff. If it proved anything it was that Eddie had some character already fully-formed. Nobody climbs through those ropes without it.

“When I was young I used to love being Barry Hearn's son. I couldn't tell you quick enough and I was like ‘do you know who my dad is? Do you know Frank Bruno? Do you know Chris Eubank, they’re my mates,’ you know.

“You look back and think, ‘oh God that's terrible’. As you get older you realise, you know what, unless you do something a bit special you will always be Barry Hearn’s son which you know, I'm very proud of, but how do you make a mark in the world yourself?

"So I had to take things to the next level. I looked at what he did and others might say that is amazing (and it is amazing), he comes from a council estate in Dagenham and he built the business from scratch. I look at it and said well the only way I can get respect for myself in my own right is to take it to a completely new level.”

Comes with chips

So whilst he enjoyed the perks that went with being the son of someone wealthy and famous, Eddie knew that nothing was going to be handed to him and that he would have to become his own man and a success in his own right. And it is this (in his own words) “chip on his shoulder”, that forms the basis of the passion that he brings to the business of Matchroom Sport, one of the world’s biggest players in boxing promotion and management.

There can be no doubt that he has achieved his initial goal and more, filling arenas and stadiums, including a sell-out Wembley Stadium for the Anthony Joshua versus Wladimir Klitschko heavyweight world title fight. He is currently in the process of putting together a deal for what promises to be one of the biggest fights in boxing history between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua for the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world.

He now operates in the rarefied air of multi million pound deals but despite the advantages of his upbringing, his Dad didn’t hand him the keys to the castle. He had to find his own way there. So he has much to offer in the way of advice for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Business is business

To this end, he is taking part in Vodafone's series of online business seminars under the banner #ThoseWhoDare - a series of one hour sessions from business leaders and disruptors passing on their own hard-won experience and advice.

Hearn seems so busy tying up deals and arranging fights in the global boxing promotion market that it is something of a rarity to see him take part in such an initiative. But despite, the outmoded image of boxing promotion as being all cigar smoke and shady deals, Hearn believes business is business and that he has much to pass on to SMEs and entrepreneurs taking the first steps.

“You see me do loads of things from making a plonker of myself in interviews to dealing with brands we associate with for the business and this was a kind of different approach from Vodafone where, huge brand, and complete coincidence I'm also with Vodafone. Genuinely.  And when they got in touch with me I didn't know whether they were going to ask me to change my monthly payments or ask me to do something

“It was really interesting to look at this community of leadership and entrepreneurs who want to talk about their experiences and give people guidance. The one thing that every business owner has in common is a passion for what they do and also the willingness for other people to succeed. That's a nice thing for people to be able to have. Normally you don't want your competitors to succeed but when you get to a comfortable point in your life and a comfortable point in your business you're quite relaxed about that as well.

“But certainly coming out of lockdown and seeing small to medium size businesses and even big businesses as well evolve, learn to bounceback and fight back…it’s been a horrendous time for all businesses really unless you're in the pharmaceutical world or making facemasks.

“You have to see it as a challenge you have to be excited in a way about the world that you live in and you also have to be excited at the fact that the end is near, whether it's June or July, that's what we're talking about.”

Lightbulb moment

Talking is something that he does well, it has to be said. That, and at 6’ 5”, changing lightbulbs. It’s central to what he believes is the key not just to his success in boxing but also in business generally.

“In boxing it's all about personal relationships. You're dealing with a highly charged testosterone-filled, macho world and now obviously we've got the ladies coming in as well which is another element (and they are a lot easier to deal with than some of the guys). It's really about managing relationships.  Being honest.  

“When you become older and you become a lot more successful you become a lot more honest. And when you're honest it's a lot easier to deal with situations and people. Credibility is everything in business and that's something that's very important to us.

“The other thing which is common to all businesses is budgeting and forecasting and making sure you are absolutely across the numbers at all times.

“You see so many small businesses that will start and have they even created a budget? Have they done a financial analysis and really looked at the numbers?

“Be conservative with your budgeting. That's something that the team do here really well because I'm a very positive kind of guy, so my budgeting will be on the up side of our events whereas the team’s budgeting now will be on the down side. 

“So, before the event I might look at it and go, hmmmm, but when the actual event numbers come in you look at it and go wow! We did well! So, make sure you are realistic; make sure you understand the numbers, make sure there's going to be no shocks coming into the business and make sure that you budget on the down side of turnover and sales because again coming out of this pandemic you just don't know.

“Run a good business. Run a business that is built on integrity, hard work and passion and on the best product that you can deliver.”

If ever talking becomes a sport, Eddie is a good shout for the next Olympics. But, it’s not wide-boy bullshit. It is wisdom acquired in the business of the hardest game of all, and applicable to life generally.

He’s certainly worth listening to.

Original article here

The prime of the ancient mariner

He will either make a first-class second mate or a second-rate first course but, either way, business consultancy stalwart, Guy Rigby is determinedly undertaking the challenge of his life by attempting a record-breaking row across the Atlantic. It’s mad, bad, and dangerous, you know. Find out why and how, here…

Veteran entrepreneurial adviser, accountancy expert, non-exec, MD, FD, chairman and author, Guy Rigby’s CV is as impressive as it is long and will shortly (fingers crossed) see ‘record breaking trans-Atlantic rower’ added to it. 

Some argue that it might also require the addition of ‘lunatic’; but what does Mrs Rigby know eh?

This December, Guy Rigby will take part in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge race, setting off from La Gomera with his rowing partner, David Murray, aiming to arrive in Antigua in February and becoming the oldest pair ever to complete the crossing. Indeed, to complete any ocean crossing.

Why? It’s all for ‘charridee’, which is seemingly compulsory for any such activity in the UK, in this particular case UnLtd, a foundation for social entrepreneurs, whose aim is to develop “a generation of social leaders with enduring impact”.

“It’s a great charity,” says Rigby. “In 2018/19, they backed 458 social entrepreneurs, often in challenged communities. 59 per cent of these people were women and 28 per cent were BAME. Their impact report shows that, as a result of just that one year’s activity, they benefited the lives of 333,000 people. They are now aiming to give at least 50 per cent of their funding to BAME and disabled. This is hugely important.”

The Entrepreneur Ship

Rigby has spent his whole life enthusiastically supporting entrepreneurs, so his choice of charity for the Entrepreneur Ship (see what he did there?) is consistent with his life’s passion. 

“I like organisations that believe doing good is good for business and there’s a whole social mobility and levelling up agenda to be pursued. The benefits to local communities can be huge and hopefully we’ll make a small dent. 

“From a personal perspective, I have sat behind a desk all my life and wanted to do something real. It was just time. See my blog here "If It Isn’t Broken, Break It!” - The Entrepreneur Ship 

https://theentrepreneurship.co.uk/blog/if-it-isnt-broken-break-it/."

Rigby is making the trip with the son of a recently departed friend of his, with whom he has kept in touch and who possesses quite a bit more in the way of intrepid adventurer credentials than he, having completed six Ironman events (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride followed by a marathon) and in 2016 was in the top five per cent in his age group in the world. He has also run several ultra-marathons and completed the Mallorca 312 bike race, cycling 190 miles around the hilliest part of Mallorca. 

Slouch, he ain’t.

By contrast, Guy Rigby’s longest row to date is 25km. And that was on a rowing machine, not the ripping and rolling Atlantic ocean. So he’s just around 4,684km short of what he needs. But, how hard can it be?

The answer is about 50 miles a day, which means a trip of roughly (and no doubt it will be) 60 days. Even his partner, Murray only started rowing last year. It’s a daunting task, no mistake. 

So, of course, Rigby has been training for the race: “A mixture of strength and endurance training, including rowing on ergs and on the river. A bit of running and biking too. Exercising every day is my aim but this is sometimes frustrated by the sheer admin of putting together our challenge, preparing our boat.” 

You don't have to be mad...

Although you might also give strong consideration to the middle and end, he anticipates the beginning part of the race to be the hardest.

“We will be catapulted from the comforts of relatively normal life into a harsh environment where we will row two hours on, two hours off, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In these early days, we are very like likely to be debilitated by seasickness, sleep deprivation, an inability to eat or drink enough calories to maintain any kind of equilibrium etc. Many rower suffer from hallucinations. Particularly in the early stages of the race.”

Just to confirm, Mrs R has indeed arrived at the conclusion that by attempting it at a ripened 68 years-old with relatively little in the way of ocean-crossing anecdotes, Mr R seems to have lost his brain down the back of the sofa.

“My wife thinks I’m mad and was very much against it. She’s coming round as she sees how much it means to me and David and how much effort we are putting into it, including into making it as safe as we can. My children, currently aged 40, 37 and 33, are a mixture of proud and amazed. My older two are entrepreneurial and my son wishes he could participate. My youngest has Downs Syndrome and will miss her Dad while he’s away.”

The good news is (and as a journalist you do have to check these things) that he has ruled out both eating (and being eaten by) his crew-mate; the drinking of any urine and, even in the face of recent chart success, the singing of sea shanties. 

Despite those assurances the daily specials board seems like a grim old affair.

“The average rower loses 10-15kg during the duration of the row so we will be trying to consume about 6,000 calories and six to eight litres of water a day. This will be dried, packet food, which we suspect we will mainly eat cold. It’s difficult to boil water when the boat is behaving like a bucking bronco! We’ll supplement the dried food with “snack packs” — daily treats of high protein such as nuts and chocolate.”

Oh and here’s something non-rowers might not be aware of.

“Earlier this year three of the Talisker Atlantic boats suffered marlin strikes, with one putting a 30 cm spike up between a crew members legs while he was asleep in the cabin. Last year, a shark bit one of the rower’s oars in half.”

How to sponsor

See? Mad. So, you know what to do — facilitate this fantastically unwise undertaking by sponsoring the duo for a large amount of money. Think of it as an investment, in fact, because you will be giving a leg-up to the wealth creators of the future that provide fuel for our economy.

Rigby is a lot more enthusiastic about that part than he is about reconstituted dried food.

“Now you’re talking. We have bespoke packages for larger sponsors, including rowing days and crew speaking opportunities, not to mention prominent branding on the boat. For smaller sponsors, we have a range of packages which can be found in the download at Support Us - The Entrepreneur Ship https://theentrepreneurship.co.uk/sponsorship/."

All joking aside, Rigby and Murray have had to tick off a rigorous list of safety requirements and training to get to the start line including obtaining a Short-Range Radio Licence, an RYA Sea Survival course completion certificate, an RYA First Aid at Sea certificate, an RYA Essential Navigation and Seamanship certificate and a certificate of completion of an accepted Ocean Rowing Course.

The whole things seems reckless (let’s hope it’s wreckless), ill-advised, risky and endlessly compelling. In short, the very epitome of an entrepreneurial adventure. You can only say bon voyage.

Foundation of an empire

Fame, as they say, has many advantages, but being famous isn’t one of them.

One of those many advantages is that it can create opportunities and provide a platform but, depending on the type of fame you achieve, it may also make it difficult to be taken more seriously. 

“My background definitely helped me get my foot in the door and granted me access to useful connections,” recounts Trinny London founder, Trinny Woodall. 

“However, you walk into a room and people misjudge you. I always used to get asked, ‘what do you know about creating tech?’, or ‘what do you know about the actual figures?’ I had to work hard to convince investors that I actually did the legwork and that Trinny London would be a success. 

“What really gave me confidence was securing my first investor, Jane Henderson. Jane was someone I really respected in the industry; she’s the beauty director of Mintel, and her belief in both myself and the brand I wanted to build gave me the courage I needed to shake off the sceptics and really drive the Trinny London dream forward.”

Since creating the online fashion and make-up brand in 2017, turnover has grown to £45m and it achieved growth of 350 per cent in 2020. From 2019 to 2020, new customers more than doubled from 95,000 to over 260,000. 

The site offers face to face virtual make-up appointments, to help customers achieve their best look according to their style and complexion and of course, it is able to recommend its own range of products as the solution. 

The brand’s USP is that products come in little stackable pots, so women can easily use them anywhere. Its cream-based products are made up of a unique formula, and what it calls a skincare hybrid. The BFF Serum De-Stress can be applied at the end of a make-up routine as a shaded foundation, and after an hour the formula kicks in, making skin look and feel better as the day goes on. 

In addition, personalisation service Match2Me enables women to purchase make-up that suits their unique combination of skin, hair and eyes. Over 70 per cent of its customers now use Match2Me when buying products.

Undress for success

Inspiration for the project came from her TV career on make-over shows What Not to Wear and Trinny and Susannah Undress.

“I spent 20 years of my career speaking to women to help them feel better in their own skin,” she says, “and although I was giving fashion advice, the first thing women would always notice after a makeover is their makeup. They would get a fresh look that enhanced their features as it matched their unique palette. 

“However, speaking to so many women over the years I understood the frustrations they felt with the beauty counter, and how challenging it is to pick a shade that really suits you when there are hundreds to choose from. The anxiety induced by this paradox of choice often results in a misdiagnosis of the correct shade.

“I therefore wanted to create an online experience where women could find makeup that perfectly suited their unique combination of skin, hair and eyes, as well as a brand that supported the truly inclusive notion of beauty that I so strongly valued.”

From the beginning Trinny London has been a fully digital direct to consumer brand, so it was important to invest early in innovation to perfect the personalisation service it wanted to create. 

Some 30 per cent of the team is dedicated to R&D - with the tech team now 41-strong, enabling the business to experience such strong growth during the pandemic last year -  from March 2020 to March 2021, it grew by 330 per cent.

Ambitions for the brand were set high from the start, but its success so far has surprised its owner.

“Although I always had ambitious goals for Trinny London, I had never expected the company to be as successful as it has been. In just over three years, revenue has soared to over £45m, and our team has grown from a handful of people working around the kitchen table to 152-strong. 

“We’ve become a truly global brand, shipping to 162 countries. Prior to Covid, this figure was 94, highlighting how much we’ve grown as a result of being a fully digital-first beauty brand.” 

It was important to put the right foundation (geddit?) in place before launch, and Woodall spent nearly three years developing the concept of the brand before recruiting the right people to help realise the idea. As CEO, however, she remains very much hands-on and involved in the day to day of the company. She’s not merely the face.

“I’m involved in every aspect of the business. I lead product development strategy with the Product Development team to ensure we’re creating top quality products that respond to our customers’ needs. 

“I also work with the marketing, retail and makeup artist teams to drive customer engagement, satisfaction and loyalty. A large part of this involves engaging with both my personal and the company’s social media channels. We aim to share thoughtful, educational, and inspiring content for our audience. 

“With tech it’s about the customer journey, retention and personalisation, and good customer service is key to a successful company growth.”

Personal services

There are plans to widen the offering, although Woodall won’t be drawn on exactly what they are yet, but personalisation is the core of the business. As is international expansion. The brand already ships to more than 162 countries and is particularly focused on expanding in the US. 

“We look at where we can localise every few months to encourage growth. We recently launched the Germany site in pursuit of raising German sales from 2.6 per cent to seven per cent of revenue by the end of this year, and we ensure we have makeup artists all across the world, from Vancouver and Houston to New Zealand, so there’s someone in every time zone for virtual appointments. 

“International growth is also supported by the community aspect of our brand. Our online ‘Trinny Tribe’ Facebook community is made up of women from over 30 countries, from Tasmania and South Africa to Qatar and Israel. A particularly inspiring tribe in Sydney is made up of just phenomenal, uplifting women, and they’ve had a large impact on our growth in the country. In fact, in 2019, we made it our mission to take Australia revenue to 12 per cent, which I think at that time was about six per cent of our revenue. It’s now at 16 per cent.”

On 20th May Trinny spoke at the CxO Connects Event, a virtual summit designed to connect Chief Officers and powerful women. It is hosted by accelerateHER, a global network and event series which exists to re-balance gender in the technology sector to secure women an inclusive future across all business.  

“We’ve got an amazing team and I thoroughly enjoy working with such an inspiring, hardworking group of women, who genuinely care about the business.

“On Trinny London’s Instagram, we run an Elevator Pitch series that gives a budding, female entrepreneur the opportunity to pitch her business or product to my audience in 30 seconds. I give each entrepreneur personalised feedback on their pitch and how they can scale, and by sharing the pitch with Trinny London’s followers, young, female-led businesses are able to get the extra exposure.”

Timing is everything and the business has undoubtedly benefited from the upswing in online shopping and content absorption over the last 12 months. 

Trinny London’s mission is to give people the confidence to look good and feel good. And after all, that is the whole point of the business to help people to be the person they want to be.

Aria Spruced Up ad copy

 

Aria Classical guitar ad copy

 

Rotosound Guitar Show release

 

Ad copy for Aria Guitars

 

The non-dairy queen taking on the choc giants

 Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned lacto-ovo vegetarian? Did they become extinct? 

After years of slow but steady progress in establishing veggie brands like Linda McCartney, Quorn and RealEat in supermarkets, the cruelty-free food market has suddenly made a quantum leap towards full-on veganism by-passing most people’s usual first step in giving up meat,  which is vegetarianism.

Research from Finder estimates that the number of vegans in the UK increased by a massive 419,000 (62 per cent) over the past 12 months. A not-insignificant 7.5 per cent of the UK now claim to be vegan in 2020, whereas 14 per cent claim to be vegetarian. Vegan food suits both of course. And then there’s the flexitarians, that eat both vegan and meat. Go figure.

Clearly then Manav and Rimi Thapar’s LoveRaw business, with its brand of vegan chocolate, is riding a sizeable wave and, in fact, having started back in 2013 in their own kitchen, caught that wave early on.

“Manav [Rimi’s husband] and I were your typical twenty something millennials,” explains Rimi Thapar. “We both worked independently of each other:  I was working in Investment Banking and Manav in Textile Distribution. Both miles away from anything food or FMCG related and not particularly mindful about food. Our idea of healthy was calorie counting. At the time we were living in the south of Spain and started visiting farmers markets and really appreciating seasonal fresh produce, and our vegan journey started from there. Our brand and products have really evolved since then. Today we make indulgent vegan chocolate products.”

The home front

Although not exactly a rags to riches story (both had well-paid jobs) it is a classic entrepreneurial, cottage industry tale of kitchen table to supermarket, started with no investment (and, it has be said no real level of expertise either) but a lot of determination and trial and error.

“I wanted to start the business with minimal cost and risks, and the quickest route to market was making the products at home,” explains Thapar. “Also coupled with the fact that every contract manufacturer turned us away as we didn't meet their minimum quantity requirements. We got our big break when we launched with Wholefoods. Our first order was 5,000 units, which increased over a few months. We were making around 3,000 units a week in a tiny kitchen working 18 hours a day and even when I reached the minimum requirements of the factory, I worked from the kitchen until I reached full capacity.”

Searching for an investment boost the pair even appeared on Dragon’s Den. Having received an offer from Deborah Meaden, however, they decided not to take the investment but did receive a PR and branding uplift from the experience. 

“We needed the investment but intuitively it didn't feel right to give away so much of the business. A business which we had invested so much time, effort and emotion in. It was the right decision as we went on to raise much more money financially, and at a higher valuation.”

Progress has been made since then, with the brand stocked in Holland & Barrett, Boots, Waitrose, Wholefoods, Ocado, Revital, As Nature Intended, The Vegan Kind, Selfridges, Various petrol station forecourts and independent retail stores. In the last 12 months the firm has experienced 114% YOY growth during Covid. 

With a staff of around 13, the headcount has also tripled from two years ago. 

“This year we have mainly focused on sales and digital growth, growing our sales team from one to three people and taking on a digital marketer earlier in the year to support our growing ‘direct to consumer’ sales since COVID 19.”

Flex account

Unless you believe that the rapid rise of vegan product at retail is a passing fad (and Thapar is somewhat unsurprisingly of the opinion that it is not) then there is still a lot of potential for growth as more and more people convert to plant-based foods. 

Paradoxically, what gives this trend some stickability is the fact that it is not so much about the widespread adoption of a strict vegan lifestyle, but more about people adding vegan products onto their shopping list. It’s those flexitarians. And that means it is much more likely to have permanence on supermarket shelves. 

“There are so many factors which have contributed towards the shift to vegan: health, environment, animal welfare, social media,” comments Thapar. “I think the food industry has been exposed a lot over the past few years and there is more transparency about the source of what we eat, especially the meat and dairy industry. Most consumers are not converting to full veganism however, more-so taking a flexitarian approach, where they have the choice to eat partially vegan and non-vegan, but still contributing towards their health and the environment. I don't think you can scroll through Instagram without seeing a user's vegan breakfast, lunch or healthy smoothie.”

Now that the brand has emerged from the kitchen, sights are set high - on market leadership of the vegan chocolate market, no less and beyond- and having obtained fresh investment, the Thapars are already developing a range beyond its initial launch.  

“The brand and product offering has evolved since we launched in 2013 and we are confident in continuing to grow our range of indulgent vegan chocolate snacks. Not letting COVID get in the way of progressing, we are working on new products and extending ranges. I think now is even more of an important time to innovate and be dynamic to the current market conditions.” 

That’s where the fresh investment comes in.

“We have invested in new hires, new product development, working capital, marketing and generally building the brand.”

Ultimately, LoveRaw does not want to be just a vegan chocolate brand but wants to make an impact in the established dairy-based choc market too. 

“We want to be recognised as the leading vegan chocolate brand that disrupts the mainstream chocolate market, and we want to be accessible to all UK consumers. Most importantly we want to have a good time along the way and to make our journey memorable.”

Lofty ambitions indeed. Looks like the Dragons missed a sweet deal on this one.

Read the original feature here

Veloce's driving ambition

Ever been in a room with people playing video games, but not playing, just watching? It’s a uniquely frustrating experience. Like having your clothes on at an orgy. Probably.

Video games are meant to be played not watched. And yet, people clearly like doing that too because according to video games trade body UKIE, the UK esports sector grew at an annual average rate of 8.5% between 2016 and 2019 with a gross value of £111.5m. You can get a few more stats on that here - https://ukie.org.uk/value-of-esports-in-UK-2020.

Clearly,  the competitive nature of officially-sanctioned professional e-sports, with actual prize money at stake, has provided an added edge and dramatic tension that watching Motherwell match up against Argentina on FIFA at your mate’s house, can’t match.

Into this burgeoning arena has stepped Veloce which is both an e-sports team and an actual motor racing team too, set up by ex-racing drivers Jack Clarke and Rupert Svendsen-Cook and marketer Jamie Maclaurin. 

This is how Svendsen-Cook describes the business: “In simple terms, esports is professional gaming. As an established organisation in the industry, we have a multi-pillared eco system that continues to evolve. We have our own talent, teams, media network and leagues across multiple titles and platforms. 

“I am an ex-racing driver and after realising I was better suited to the business of the sport I established a management business in motor racing. It was an archaic model and I wanted to scale. Together with my two tremendous co-founders Jack Clarke and Jamie Maclaurin, we entered the esports arena off the back of the clear opportunity to scale and own a market.”

Life in the fast lane

As you would imagine with the personalities and the subject matter involved, all talk of the future direction of the company is smattered with high octane talk and competitive fervour.

“It’s a cliché to say but our culture is highly energised and extremely hard working. Our motto is ‘Viva Veloce’ which translates to ‘Live Fast’ and we certainly do that! Of course as we’ve grown so fast we’ve learnt some hard lessons on the job and I think we continue to embrace those challenges.”

The ‘real’ racing aspect of the business sees the team compete in the Extreme E Championship (electric cars) as well as the W Series (all female), where the team has already had its first win at the Austrian Grand Prix with driver Jamie Chadwick. Then with Extreme E it scored a podium with second place in only its second ever race in Senegal. 

Extreme E is an off-road motorsport series that sees all-electric SUVs racing in areas that have been affected by climate change. Each race features two laps over 16 kilometres, with the male and female drivers taking an equal split of driving time – one lap each – swapping over at the halfway point. 

W Series, meanwhile,  is a free-to-enter championship, launched in October 2018, that provides equal opportunities for women and eliminates the financial barriers that have historically prevented them from progressing to the upper echelons of motorsport.

Drivers are selected purely on their ability and the series’ cars are mechanically identical, which means that races and championships are won by the most talented drivers, rather than those with the wealthiest backers.

The two halves of the business connect together by adding the authenticity of the real-life racing team to the e-sports side, with branding and cross-promotion in both. 

“When looking at the world of motorsport we see three main areas of opportunity -  electrification, women in motorsport and esports,” says Svendsen-Cook. 

“Veloce is well established in all three and they compliment each other well. From a commercial standpoint, we’re able to offer partners a fairly unrivalled engagement across both real and digital platforms. Our esports media network achieves more than 230 million views per month for a 17 to 24 year old demographic which is a hugely valuable asset to compliment our real world activity.”

Electric dreams

The e-sports business is the “mothership” as he describes it and  the main focus.

All are fairly emergent sectors, but the projections for them are pointing upwards.

“Electrification within the automotive industry is now well underway so of course an electric racing series that serves as a platform to not only raise awareness around climate change but also to develop the technology directly relevant to the future of how we travel is in a very strong position."

“The same goes for women within motorsport. Simply put it has been a very slow-to-adapt and male-dominated sport. But the W Series is changing things fast and we fully believe that it can be the biggest women’s sport in the world. In my opinion, the only other women’s sport that is on a par with men’s in the same discipline is tennis and that is largely thanks to the Grand Slam competitions taking part with both men and women at the same events with equal prize money, TV time etc." 

“The W Series is making great strides to do the same by racing alongside F1 on the same weekends in front of the same fans etc. I think more can be done by the media players to move the needle but it’s moving in the right direction."

“And for esports and gaming the projections of growth are almost infinite. Accessibility and limited barriers of entry to either take part in or consume the content, represent enormous opportunity.”

Asking about the amount of investment involved Svendson-Cook, is a little vague, but clearly it is still not quite self-financing just yet. 

“We’ve been raising constantly since we started so it wasn’t a case of just securing an amount to kick things off. As our model has evolved in the esports industry so have our requirements on capital. With so much opportunity and clear value to be realised, we are focussed on making that happen with enough capital to do it.”

Such a new concept can be a tricky mission to explain to investors. Which can also be an advantage, of course.

“We’re not a fundamental business and of course some traditional investors want to see some tangibility to what they invest in. It’s funny, we’ve had multiple ‘advisors’ and all sorts but until now we’ve always just found it faster and easier to do ourselves. Certainly at this stage, nobody can sell our business better than ourselves.  With so much growth in a short time already achieved in a very fast-paced industry, the management team is who the investors are backing and we are conscious of following through on that.”

Talking to investors the firm has experienced a variety of reactions, ranging from scepticism to ‘this is new and sounds promising so let’s not miss the boat’. Which is not that unusual with new and emerging markets.

“It’s very different depending on where you are in the world,” he says. “The US totally understands the business and the same goes for Asia - there is no justification required and the value is understood. In the UK, for whatever reason we are met with more scepticism but our viewership data and revenue growth already speaks for itself.”

If the e-sports market, which is part of a £7bn UK video games sector, can continue to evolve and, more importantly, convince investors and entrepreneurs that it is here to stay, then Veloce is nicely positioned to play a big part. 

It will need to keep winning races as well, mind. Strap in

Johnny on the spot

Interview with guitarist Johnny Marr, from MI-Pro, 2012

Guitar hero Johnny Marr has spent the last few years putting together a signature Jaguar model for Fender, which will hit shops this year. Ronnie Dungan visited the former Smiths, Modest Mouse and Cribs guitarist, who is now full-time with his own band The Healers once again, at a studio in Salford to find out how it all came together…

Marr's new Fender Jaguar is a labour of love

The UK MI trade perhaps doesn’t know it, but it owes a lot to Johnny Marr. When it comes to influencing and encouraging a new generation of guitarists –  and therefore a new generation of customers - few have done more in the last 30 years.

History records that Brit pop was all Oasis and Blur, but those haircuts, that attitude, those guitars? Johnny Marr. Noel Gallagher’s transformation from guitar tech to guitar hero? Johnny Marr. The Smiths captured, lyrically and musically, the elusive and much-vaunted ‘Englishness’ of Brit Pop long before Damon Albarn found out he was born within the sound of Bow Bells.

Another facet of Marr is that he is comfortable, indeed, he loves, the role of guitar hero, in his own understated way. Traditionally it has been bluesers and metal-heads that have had the monopoly on guitar obssession, but while you would struggle to find much in the way of soloing or noodling in the Marr canon, he is as much a guitar freak as any from what he would call the more ‘Harley Davidson’ end of the spectrum.

And it’s his genuine passion and immersion in certain parts of guitar culture which he has brought to the creation of his new signature Fender Jaguar.

The honesty, graft and integrity which has underpinned much of his work has been applied to the creation of the new model, which has essentially been some six years in the making, ever since his own love affair with the Jag started.

"Got any riffs?"

“I started playing Jaguars in the summer of 2005 when I joined Modest Mouse,” he says. “That was just some strange quirk of fate or destiny, because the first night I was writing, my guitar wasn’t really cutting through at the time as I wanted it to.

“I was using a Telecaster because I just figured I would bring over a guitar which was pretty much all purpose and I thought I could do pretty much what I do on a Telecaster. I still love ‘em. I noticed that Isaac, Isaac Brock, [Modest Mouse, lead singer] had a beat up old 1963 black Jaguar amongst his rack.

“So I pulled that out and at the same time he said to me, very forcefully, ‘have you got any riffs?’. And I had this riff in the back of my mind [plays Dashboard] and it just felt really good on this Jaguar so we wrote the song in about ten minutes.”

“And then the rest of the night I just stuck with that guitar. And I was thinking about it the next day and quite looking forward to playing it. I got it and I fixed it up and gave it some love and I just started playing that guitar almost exclusively and I immediately realised that it kind of sounded like I think I’m supposed to sound. It steered me in a way that was good for my playing and very exciting for me. And sonically I really loved what it was doing. So that got my interest in Jags going.”

It's a jangle out there

The popular, but false, perception of Marr is as a bit of jangler, sixties haircut on head, Rickenbacker in hand. But Rickenbackers only ever featured for about 18-months on the Smiths’ first tours. The truth is that Marr has never really been reliant on one guitar more than any other (Strats, Les Pauls, 355s, Teles have all figured). Until he became a Jaguar aficionado, that is.

“The record we made was really successful, so there was a lot of touring, lots and lots of shows and I was around the culture where I was able to get Jaguars and Jazzmasters quite easily and cheaply for those days and I started to put together out of a few Jags that I had, the idea of the ultimate Jag for me. And getting rid of what I call the unwanted conditions while maintaining all the stuff that I really love about them.”

So the Fender signature was being designed before they even asked him to do it, essentially. And as anyone who has ever played a Jaguar will testify, he couldn’t have picked a more…idiosyncratic guitar to get to grips with.

“The very first thing I noticed from being a Jag player and all Jag players notice this (and naysayers complain about it), is that the strings pop out, so the first thing every Jag player does is put a Mustang bridge on, with Mustang saddles in there.

“The vibration of a Jag, which is one of the things that makes it so great and adds to the sound of it, causes the grooves that keep the bridge in place to move. And the only ones that don’t do that are ones that have been stuck with gunk and dirt and age and rust. So I got a couple of new ones, reissues from Fender, and I ended up trying nail polish… Loctite and Superglue even, won’t keep it from vibrating such are the vibes in this guitar.

“And I had this thing where I would do 12-14 shows and I would get to a sound check and go ‘what is that sound? What is that high-end digital clipping? It’s horrible’. And I would go through all my pedals, go through my leads and after about the eighth time I did this over a period of a few months my tech said to me, ‘it’s the bridge, every time’. The last thing I would try. The next time it would happen I would still go through all my pedals, still go through all my leads. And after a while I did go ‘shit man! It’s the bridge every time’.

“Believe it or not, the solution that we arrived at, which is much fatter screws and crucially that sit in these little plastic tips that stop them spinning around, took about 18-months of trial and error. Seriously, you think that we had a problem and you sit down and brainstorm and then two hours later you come up with this eloquent, simple solution, the only way you come up with those solutions is to come up with three different types of bridges that went right.

“So we had ones that had little locking heads that stopped the screws turning round. For the longest time, I was playing one of the prototypes. It had a screw in bottom and then it had a second screw on top keeping that one in. And we thought, bingo! We’ve done it.

“And it was only when that solution still was a problem - and this is over a year’s work - it was ‘what the hell are we going to do about this!’”

If you build it...

It could have been that the guitar obsessive in Marr had bitten off more than he could chew in endeavouring to improve such a complex machine, but it meant that the end result is not merely some label-slapped model with a nice colour scheme and some custom knobs, there’s a lot of the guitarist in it as well as his signature on the headstock.

“The guitar has taken four years. I didn’t design it in Fender. I designed it with me and the guy who does my guitars over 300-400 gigs with Modest Mouse and The Cribs. It was me playing and then I’d say to my tech ‘OK. On the next one give me the prototype’.

“Nothing quite gets you to make a decision quite as well as when you are stood in Madison Square Garden, 10,000 people, and the neck pickup is wrong or the bridge pickup is wrong. You make a decision very quickly. And I was doing that all the time in Modest Mouse, constantly using different Jags and going ‘the neck on that one is not quite right there’ or ‘that A-line neck right there’, ‘that’s a really good pick-up sound, give me that tomorrow’. All the time working with Bill Puplett who fixes my guitars and an engineer called John Moore all the time building that guitar and saying to Fender, ‘it’s coming’.

“They let me just build a guitar and said to me whatever you need from us, we’ll do it. Supplying necks and parts and whatever I needed and they’ve been really, really good. But I didn’t go in with a design team and a drawing on a napkin.

“I went through about 15 different Jaguar necks over a period of a year and a half and luckily for me was given a one-off 1965 neck by Jerry Rosen in San Francisco, who said ‘you’re a Jag freak, I’ve been waiting to find a home for this.’ And he gave me this neck and it was bigger than a regular Jag. I put it on the prototype and thought ‘right, Johnny, learn to love this one’ because other guitar players will like it.’ And because there’s more mass in it, it made the guitar louder and it was better.

“So now I’ve got the bridge and the neck. And the first big thing to break out of was the thinking that I love Jags so much that I didn’t want to change any of the aesthetic. But the other serious problem with it is that these switches that switch the pick-ups on, also switch the pick ups off. And the amount of times, like every other guitar player, where my amp would go off and every single time without fail I would glare at my guitar tech saying ‘what the hell?!’ And it happened with the Cribs at Reading 2008 and it’s on the TV and while we’re doing it in front of 40,000 people, my guitar tech is saying ‘it’s not the guitar is it?’ And I’m going ‘of course it’s not the guitar’. Oh. Shit! It’s that switch.

“It was Bill who put it together with me, who came up with the idea and put it to me very meekly, he said ‘well you could change that switch out’. And I immediately was like, ‘what? Change the perfect look of a Jaguar? I love those switches.’ And he said ‘yeah, but you keep knocking it off and that’s why people put duct tape over it.’ He just said ‘you could try a Telecaster switch. I said, ‘that will look horrendous’. Fast forward a few months and now when I play a normal Jag, those switches are a pain.

“Really, what you’re supposed to do with old Jags is you’re supposed to put it in that rhythm mode and set your amp up in that mode. That normally sounds like that [makes muffled noise] and then you bring in this bottom section for all your colours, that’s the way it was designed. Modern guitar players don’t do that. They just go ‘bang, there’s my sound’, bridge pick up usually and then when they hit that button that changes the tone signal, suddenly you’ve got that very dull sound. So I realised that, for me, who uses a lot of different tones on the Jag, this whole beloved secondary circuit was redundant.

“But I wanted to keep the aesthetic of it and I use the high-pass filter a lot, that’s where the high pass filter is now. That rhythm section is gone. And believe it or not, I was on tour for a couple of years wondering ‘what are you going to do with the wheels Johnny? What are you going to do with the wheels?’ And I thought do I put a compressor in there? But no self-respecting guitar player from my culture wants a battery living in his guitar, it’s just a pain. Do I make it active? No. And I just did a lot of research on other guitar players. And for a time I thought, well I’ll leave the wheels and they won’t do anything. And then Ross from the Cribs who is the drummer and a very smart guy, said ‘I don’t know about you, but if I bought stuff from a shop and it had bits on it that didn’t work, I wouldn’t be very happy.’

“So I took that on board and I just decided I would make it look a little bit like a Mustang. Once we had the switch thing sorted out we thought we could take care of a lot of business by putting a fourth position on the switch. And that brings that in series position, which give you a thick, dark sound that no Jags have. But, weirdly, it was too dark. Which is really unheard of on a Jag and that necessitated putting this switch here as an extra filter.

“There are ten sounds on it without any batteries or out of phase nonsense or coil taps. It took care of all the business.

“My tech said to me when we’d got this done that he’d been playing the guitar and it sounds like a Gretsch, crossed with a Ricky and plays like a Fender and…that’s what I do. Also I use Les Pauls for a clean sound. In series position it sound like a clean Les Paul. So it sounds like all those guitars that I’ve used, together. But I play it like a Fender.”

Vintage Marr

Obsessive, see? At one point it looked as though he was going to say it should have ten sounds but he had managed to add a Nigel Tufnelesque eleventh. For that extra little push over the edge.

But no doubt Fender have got great value from him and there can be little doubt that anyone who ends up buying the Marr Jaguar will be getting a lot of the man himself for their money.

Being quite the guitar icon of course, you’re unlikely to find him shopping for a new strap in Dawsons, but he does retain a fondness for guitar retail and recognises its importance in bringing through new generations of musicians.

“It has been part of my life since I was seven or eight. First time I ever went to one. The first toy I ever had was a guitar. It wasn’t a train, it wasn’t a car, not even a football, it was a guitar, that was my first ever toy.

“And the first great experience I ever had with my Dad was in a music shop. He took me to buy a harmonica. So I don’t know any different. And I’ve been very fortunate over the last 25-30 years because as soon as I started to be able to make records I was able to get into being in the world of specialist guitar shops. And there was only a few of us doing it – myself, Robin Guthrie from the Cocteau Twins was into old guitars. But they were just called old guitars then. And over the years I have built a relationship with guitar specialists all over the world because pretty much everyone knew each other and that culture has changed with the Internet.

“And the other side of that which is the less elite side of it is the guitar shop in the suburbs, which is another disappearing culture, I stayed in touch with and have got a couple of friends who have a guitar shop in Manchester which has been able to be very successful.

“In the 90s I came across Sounds Great in the suburbs in Manchester and the guys who used to work in there until recently were absolute experts at boutique pedals, new amps, new PAs whatever. So I had my feet in both camps – the elite culture but also the world that normal guitar players inhabit.”

Is a healthy retail environment important for new bands?

“Yeah, it is absolutely, true as shit. And I really loathe the stranglehold that’s starting to happen with your tasteless chain, that shall remain nameless. Certainly in the North of England, it’s horrible. Selling crappy pianos and crappy guitars. It’s a big question because on the one hand I love that guitars are much less difficult to buy. But there is a knock-on effect. When I was younger they were exotic. And it wasn’t like now where everyone will know a family that have either had an electric guitar under their roof or know someone who has had an electric guitar under their roof. And I’m fine with that, I think it’s really good.

“In a lot of households I think electric guitars have gone the way of the skateboard which is it’s in a wardrobe gathering dust because a kid fancied playing one for a year and then gave it up. I’m on the side of that. I think that’s great, absolutely fantastic. But obviously we start to see a real drop in quality with things being more affordable and they sound cheap. It’s just the way of the world, you know, they sound cheap.

“It’s all swings and roundabouts because at the same time the internet has meant people are able to make very, very good pedals, on their kitchen table. And buy machineheads and capacitors. That’s the culture in Portland. Some of the guys who work for me in America, young guys, are absolute jedis at making guitars. And will do it for you cheap. So it’s all good and what you lose with one hand you gain on the other.”

Take it literally

Editorial comment for music B2B mag MMR Global

A UK violin maker has made a new instrument to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Wuthering Heights author Emily Bronte, using wood from a tree which grew close to where she wrote.

You can't beat having a fiddle in the fresh air                           

Steve Burnett said he thinks the sycamore, which was felled close to the Bronte Parsonage, in Haworth, West Yorkshire, may have been old enough to have been there during Bronte’s life.

He spent around three months making the Emily Bronte Violin and said in Haworth that “in an artistic sense, it has come back to the moors”.

He said a musical instrument can be seen as an extension of the literary world.

“As Goethe said, ‘music begins where words end’,” Burnett said.

“What I do is give voice to the environment.”

Which may or may not be so much unadulterated guff, accompanied by pics of him looking suitably “windswept and interesting” as Billy Connolly would no doubt describe him.

But I think it’s the sort of snake oil we need more of in the MI business. When you can’t actually do anything significantly new with the design and function of a violin or most other instruments how else are you going to innovate and give dealers something to hang a sale on?

There are plenty of other industries that function pretty well off some very shaky science (shampoo anyone?), needless anniversaries (stamp, mug or coin anyone?) and other strokes. We’re not bad at making up new colours and slapping on signatures but I think we could push the envelope a little further with this stuff. 

Will it mean much to real musicians? Probably not. But a sale is a sale. And that, more than anything else is what the industry needs right now. 

George Bernard Shure 150th anniversary mic, anyone?

Take back control

Intro piece for Evening Standard supplement I edited called Be Your Own Boss...

You’re reading this on the train, aren’t you? A lot of people do, of course. For many it is part of the daily ritual of the commute, along with the over-strength coffee, delays, standing, excess cold/heat and the people. Oh yeah, the people. Sitting down on the train to read the paper is the pavlovian klaxon signalling that the horror is at an end and you’re on your way home. 

It’s also a great way to avoid eye contact with that one opposite, with the sniffing, and the hair and the anti-social…face. Grrrr.

And all this after you’ve put up with the usual daily nonsense, the meetings, the memos, the customers, the….country reports; the young idiots, the old idiots, the ‘bantz’, the boss. Oh yeah, the boss.

What on Earth did you do to deserve this?

But perhaps it doesn’t have to be this way. What if you were the boss of you? What if you were the boss of quite a few others as well? Sounds marvellous of course, but don’t you need lots of money, contacts, a diamond-bullet-in-the-forehead idea and….you know….that certain something that elevates management above mere shop-floor fodder? 

In a word: Nah. Anyone - anyone - can do it. 

Want proof? According to the Office of National Statistics, the number of self-employed people in the UK has increased from 3.3 million people (12% of the labour force) in 2001 to 4.8 million (15.1% of the labour force) in 2017.

And the fastest growing part of that is people working on their own. So how hard can it be?

Neither is it absolutely necessary to endure any kind of dues-paying, started-off-with-£1.54-and-no-shoes kind of back story so beloved of the mythology that surrounds entrepreneurs. 

What you will hopefully glean from reading this supplement is there is plenty of support available immediately for people who want to strike out, go their own way, and become masters of their own destiny. More so than ever, in fact. 

Be Your Own Boss will give you the starting knowledge to hit the ground running, establish the right kind of company set-up, covering all legal and financial obligations, and offer some guidance on funding, marketing, work spaces and building your business. 

You can also read plenty of examples of people who have been where you are now and have gone on to establish successful companies in all manner of different fields.

So, dive in. Get inspired. And look forward to having that conversation with your boss tomorrow. 

Can I teach myself violin?

Product blog for leading violin manufacturer...

When someone asks ‘can I teach myself violin?’ what they’re really asking is, ‘do I really need to have proper lessons with a proper teacher, paying proper money?’. 

It’s totally understandable to ask that. After all lessons can be expensive and there’s no doubt that it has also never been easier to find all sorts of information online for free that can tell you what you need to know from basic music theory to video lessons that will pretty much cover all levels.

So why then would you need a violin teacher at all?

Much depends on your reasons for learning the violin in the first place. If you want to progress to any sort of serious level (to join a local orchestra for instance) with your instrument - any instrument for that matter -  then it is certainly hugely beneficial to undertake a structured curriculum (such as ABRSM and many others offer) with a recognised musical qualification at the end of each grade or level. Those bits of paper will make it much easier to be thought of as a serious musician. 

Again, you can easily acquire the grade books and work through them yourself, however, without the help of a teacher to explain and expound on some of the finer points it is very difficult.

Having a good teacher can be of huge benefit to anyone trying to learn any kind of instrument. Learning to play takes patience, diligence, perseverance and hard work. Even with a good teacher it is often difficult to maintain the right level of discipline with regards to practice and technique.

Just like a personal trainer at a gym, your teacher should provide encouragement, advice and keep you motivated when you need a little extra push. Let’s face it, even the most dedicated student has moments where they’re just not feeling it and would rather be doing something else. Having a regular lesson to turn up to, with someone whose time you have paid for and committed to, stops you from bunking off. 

In any process of learning there will inevitably be times when you need extra explanation, demonstration or just need to know that you are doing it right. You can’t get that off the internet. Encouragement, advice and positive reinforcement are all things you will get from a good music teacher. It will spur you on when you’re struggling to grasp certain skills or concepts and help you on your (here’s that X Factor phrase) ‘musical journey’.

There’s something else. Learning correct technique and passing grades will give you authenticity as a musician. You will know that you are progressing at the right speed and reaching the right levels. In turn, that will make you take your playing a lot more seriously and help you reach a standard you may not have been able to reach on your own. 

So, yes, it is possible to learn to play on your own. But to avoid adopting bad habits and progress quicker, a good violin teacher is worth their weight in gold. 

If you’re not doing it through an educational establishment, your local music shop should be able to help find a good tutor. In fact, they might even have teaching facilities on offer in the store.