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Founder's Courage

I have a feeling that the economy is going to provide plenty of challenges to those in business over the next couple of years. Britain has enjoyed pretty friendly conditions in most sectors in recent times, but many indicators now point to a slowdown or even a recession. So to give some inspiration I have compiled a few true stories of courage under adverse circumstances displayed by a number of successful entrepreneurs.

Henry J. Heinz started his first food business in 1869, when he was 25. His initial product was a home-made horseradish sauce based on his mother's recipe. The business was based in Pittsburgh; other condiments were added to the product range until by 1875 Henry employed 150 staff. But a terrible disaster shortly hit the firm: a buyer bought too many cucumbers and the surplus drove the business into bankruptcy.

Undaunted, Henry picked himself up, and within a year he had started another food processing business with two relatives. Not only did this undertaking prosper, but he was able to use its profits to pay off all the creditors from his previous failure. Today the HJ Heinz Company has sales of over $9 billion a year and is one of the largest food firms in the world.

Harland D. Sanders had a tough childhood, going out to work at the age of 12 as a farmhand. He held a series of modest jobs until he opened a service station at the age of 40, and started serving panfried chicken. His "finger-lickin' good chicken became well-known, but the property burned to the ground when he was 47. He started again and built up a second success, but a new bypass took all the passing traffic away and he was forced to sell out at a knock-down price.

By now Colonel' Sanders was 66 years old and broke. But he had his secret chicken recipe, and so he set out to sell the concept of Kentucky Fried Chicken as a franchise. Within four years he had signed up over 400 restaurants and it had become the world's largest take-out chicken business. Despite selling out for just $2 million in 1960, Harland Sanders remained involved with his creation and lived until he was 90.

William C. Durant is an almost forgotten entrepreneur who helped develop the modern car industry. While only 25, this enterprising individual formed a business called The Flint Road Cart Company. By 1908 this had become the General Motors Company through takeovers and start-ups. But Durant was a somewhat reckless fellow and the business became over-borrowed. In 1910 its bankers seized control and Durant was thrown out - at the age of 49.

But the irrepressible Durant did not give up, and a year later he formed the Chevrolet Motor Company in Detroit. Within two years he merged this into General Motors and took back the reins. Eventually, in 1921, Durant had to step down again, aged 59. Yet the enterprise he built grew to become the world's largest automobile maker and one of the largest corporations on earth.

You can probably guess what King Camp Gillette invented. But his eventual success did not come easily. He was 40 years old and working as a travelling salesman when the idea of the disposable safety razor came to him. It was six more years before the American Safety Razor Company was started, and another two until production commenced. That year the business sold just 168 blades, and the long-suffering shareholders of Gillette's business were growing unhappy. But growth in revenues started to gather pace, and within ten years the business was selling seven million blades a year. Gillette is today one of the biggest consumer product companies in the world, thanks to King Camp Gillette's persistence and inventiveness.

A recent, home-grown individual who has shown considerable powers of determination is James Dyson, inventor of the dual cyclone vacuum cleaner. He spent most of the 1980s struggling on a limited budget to develop his revolutionary household appliance - in the process building over 5,000 prototypes. He battled against multinational competitors and sceptical buyers, working for much of the time out of a freezing coach house near Bath. He says in his autobiography, Against the Odds , that success as an inventor takes stamina and conviction. Mr Dyson struggled away for ten years and kept control of his idea and his business, and must be a candidate for self-made billionaire status in a few years - something very few have achieved in this country.

I suspect that all of the above entrepreneurs have suffered worse setbacks than most of us will ever encounter, and yet they all eventually achieved great things. The energy and belief of the individual can always overcome external conditions, no matter how bad they might appear. As Charles Luckman said, "Success is that old ABC - ability, breaks and courage. We shall all need our fair share of these for the next few years, as we enter tougher climates, but the survivors will end up stronger than ever.