WORDS: ADAM PESCOD
PEOPLE
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With a little help What do Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Google all have in common? Other than being the world’s leading tech firms, they were also founded by personal acquaintances. What, then, makes friendship such a powerful force in business?
(H)I get by with a little help.indd 1
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hether or not it was intentional, many entrepreneurs become the face of their brand. It would be impossible to think of Virgin without an image of Richard Branson springing to mind. Likewise, how could one not envisage James Dyson when vacuuming the living room floor? These two pioneers are also distinguishable by the fact that they went it alone. Whilst they may have had a few close colleagues whispering words of advice in their ear from the start, both Dyson and Virgin are the result of one person’s vision, imagination and unrelenting determination. Nevertheless, many of the world’s other corporate behemoths were founded by some mates with a great idea. The late Steve Jobs may be seen in some people’s eyes as ‘Mr Apple’, but the tech giant wouldn’t be where it is today without Jobs’ former workmate and co-founder Steve Wozniak. Moreover, one can only wonder where Bill Gates would find himself were it not for his childhood buddy, Paul Allen. Their friendship, along with a shared
love of both computers and entrepreneurship, combined rather well to create Microsoft, which continues to make billions. And lest we forget that Mark Zuckerberg was one of five Harvard College roommates to found Facebook. Throw Twitter and Google into the mix as well, and you have got a rather impressive portfolio of enterprises that were created off the back of shared adolescent experiences and a common passion for building businesses. Titus Sharpe, co-founder of MVF, the customer acquisition platform, is one person who can bang the drum for starting a business with buddies. Founded by Sharpe and four friends in 2009, MVF was recently named the UK’s fastest-growing tech company by The Sunday Times. Needless to say, that probably wouldn’t have happened as soon as it has, if at all, if Sharpe hadn’t become acquainted with his fellow founders. The fact that most of them had worked together before meant that the decision to combine forces on MVF was a relatively straightforward one, he explains.
31/01/2014 20:59