Find Your Lightbulb

Would you love to start your own business but feel daunted by the slim odds of success? Do you dream about making millions but simply don't know where to start? Find Your Lightbulb answers all these questions, helping you to harness your ability to make millions from nothing more than a simple idea. You don't need to be superhuman, you don't need to have funds in the bank - you don't even need to have an amazing idea in order to get started.

Serial entrepreneur Mike Harris shows you that all it takes is enthusiasm, commitment and a willingness to learn. And Mike should know - he's spent the past 20 years creating successful businesses from apparently impossible ideas - ideas which everyone told him would never work. With invaluable business advice and case studies from entrepreneurs and innovators on both sides of the Atlantic, this make-it-happen manual will help you fix the odds of success firmly in your favour.

Acknowledgements viii

Introduction 1

1 Living the dream 3

2 Star in your own soap opera 17

3 Critics who count 37

4 Making million-pound ideas 53

5 Find funding 81

6 Know your ends from your means 107

7 Brand and reputation matters 131

8 Creating a powerful culture 151

9 Leadership and the edge of reason 171

10 The smart risks principle 199

11 Hot teams 213

12 Powerful stuff: the principles in action 235

Bibliography 255

Index 257

"This is a really useful and practical A-Z of how to take a business idea and make it successful." (HotBrandsCoolPlaces.com, May 2008)

"... the chapters on brand-building, culture and leadership are filled with sensible advice." (Management Today, May 2008) Mike Harris was the founding CEO of telephone bank Firstdirect and internet bank Egg; he created two one-billion pound businesses and was credited worldwide. In between these commitments, he was chief executive of Mercury Communications, then the main competitor to BT, where he created an iconic brand and built a multi-billion pound consumer business. He was also chairman of mobile phone company Mercury One-2-One during its early years. One-2-One was bought by T-mobile for $10 billion in 1999.
He is currently chairman and co-founder of digital identity experts Garlik - a company which was created in 2005 in order to give individuals and their families more power over the way their information is used in the digital world. It has the inventor of the World Wide Web - Tim Berners-Lee - on its advisory board.
Mike is also chairman of innovation at the Royal Bank of Scotland. he was a regular speaker at mid-career MBA courses at the MIT Sloan School of Management between 1996 and 2006 and he often speaks at public seminars and runs private workshops on leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship. His clients have included O₂, IBM, Colt, Intel, Oracle, Adobe and EDS. Find Your Lightbulb combines Mikes 20 years of invaluable experience from the front line of big business, as well as exclusive "I wish I'd known' advice from leaders in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. So whether you're stuck on finding an idea, getting funding, or creating a brand, this guide can help you on your way to success, fixing the odds in your favour.

If ever you needed a reason to take charge of our future, this is it.

"Find your Lightbulb is an indispensable guide to getting yourself on the road to success and staying there."
—Jamie Murray Wells

"Mike inspired me when I worked for him with his unique combination of vision, innovation and customer focus. Now he has put it all together in this common sense guide."
—Terry Rhodes

"Mike thinks the way Virgin does and starts with the customer. (In our case even building a spaceship has been approached from a customer. Perspective as well as a technical one)."
—Will Whitehorn

"Packed with practical advice which is going to make a real difference to anyone who reads it from a powerful leader who consistently makes the impossible happen."
—Tracy Goss

Would you love to start your own business but feel daunted by the slim odds of success? Do you dream about making millions but simply don't know where to start?

Find Your Lightbulb answers all these questions, helping you to harness your ability to make millions from nothing more than a simple idea.

You don't need to be superhuman, you don't need to have funds in the bank - you don't even need to have an amazing idea in order to get started. Serial entrepreneur Mike Harris shows you that all it takes is enthusiasm, commitment and a willingness to learn.

And Mike Should know - he's spent the past 20 years creating successful businesses from apparently impossible ideas - ideas which everyone told him would never work.

With invaluable business advice and case studies from entrepreneurs and innovators on both sides of the Atlantic, this make-it-happen manual will help you fix the odds of success firmly in your favour.

Mike Invites you to plug into the collective wisdom of an army of high-achievers:

• Get started in the most powerful way possible.
• Discover how to deal constructively with the inevitable criticisms
• Learn how to find hundreds of successful ideas.
• Get your business funded.
• Create the most powerful yet often neglected assets possible for your new business.
• Discover the one fundamental principle which characterises all successful leaders.
• Uncover the best kept secret in business.
• Put all of this together in a step-by-step approach to success.