Meet Ben Wright, founder of Velocity² and Fast Growth Icon
Velocity² brings together leaders of hundreds of fast-growth businesses for practical hands-on advice on how to achieve rapid growth, and how to cope with growth when it happens.
Ben is an entrepreneur with over 20 years experience of being a business owner and manager. In the last 10 years, he has been an investor in, and mentor and adviser to, a wide range of businesses.
After selling an eCommerce wine business in 2013, Ben founded the Fast Growth Icons series of events which bring experienced entrepreneurs together to get practical tips to take their business to the next level.
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
Having grown a business for over 10 years and been through many highs and lows, I wanted to do something that would help other founders avoid the mistakes I made and overcome the many challenges of rapid growth. Through the live events and online community, we want to provide a place where founders can have open and honest conversations about the challenges they face.
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
Our key value is quality over quantity. We want to provide the best quality experience for our founders and monetising that takes a back seat. So our whole community is smaller but higher value than other similar businesses.
Do you have a morning routine or ritual to get your day started on the right foot?
I’m usually the first one awake in our house and I spend the first-hour awake processing emails and making sure my to-dos and agenda for the day are clear. If I have time I read the papers and check Twitter. I usually make breakfast for my kids and often take them to school (when not locked down!) – so I need to be ready for 9. At some point in the day, I will do some exercise, usually a run.
What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?
I have so many. But something that is key for me is to be methodological. Are you clear about your priorities? Could you list your top 20 ideal clients or prospects? What are you doing each day to get closer to that hit list? If you send three well-thought-out and well-targeted cold emails per day, you are creating three opportunities for a stroke of luck to go your way.
Right now, I also think that the value of social media is underestimated by founders. Having a good presence on Twitter and Linkedin is an amazing way of getting leads, support and advice from other people. But again, you need to be methodological about how you use it. You can’t just post once a week and hope that will deliver results.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?
I know it’s a cliché, but focus is key. The biggest learning I’ve had is that you need to be very purposeful about where you direct your focus. If you have multiple products or projects, it’s tempting to focus and spend more time on the ones that aren’t working: the “problem children”. But this takes your attention away from the things that are working, and where the same amount of attention could deliver better returns. Let’s say you have a product that is budgeted to do £100k sales and is on target, and another that has a budget of £40k and running 50% behind target. If you solve that problem and hit the target, you make £20k, If you put the same effort into doubling sales on the first product, you make £100k.
What are your thoughts on failure?
It’s very popular to be open about your failures now. But I like Reid Hoffman’s way of putting it: “Silicon Valley doesn’t celebrate failure, we celebrate learning”. Failure is great if you learn something. Otherwise, it’s just painful. You can actually set up your company as a learning machine where you make bets on things that could make a significant impact on your business. Look for the things that could have a 10x rather than a 20% boost, and where regardless of the outcome you learn something valuable.
If you’re not failing, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.
What’s the single most important decision that you made, that contributed to your business?
This is simple: it’s the decision to get started. You can have all the greatest ideas, but if you never start they will never happen.
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves?
What do you really want from life? Friends, good family relationships, lots of money, a fulfilling career doing something you love? Work out exactly what success looks like for you, and make sure you are working towards that. Don’t spend all your time building a financially successful business but then regret not seeing your friends and family, or realising you’ve not been enjoying work for 10 years.
How do you believe the evolution of tech will affect your industry over the next 10 years?
Events won’t go back to how they were pre-corona. It massively accelerated the shift to digital. The events that are truly engaging and entertaining live will have a future. The ones where you just broadcast to people in a big room won’t.
What do you think gives a brand longevity?
Your brand is the sum of all the experiences that people have of your products – so make sure those experiences are all a delight. Apple is the king at this.
