Embedding entrepreneurship at IU
Nick founded Charles Tyrwhitt in 1986. The company sells shirts online, by mail and through 22 stores in the UK, USA and Germany. With sales of £220 million, the business focuses on delivering outstanding products and an outstanding level of customer service. Nick is married to Chrissie Rucker, founder of The White Company.
Nick enjoys flying helicopters, skiing, cycling, tennis, shooting and photography.
You run an incredibly successful company, how did you achieve such an impressive entrepreneurial empire?
I think the most important thing I’ve done is I’ve just stuck at it. When you start a business you have to have a vision for what you want to achieve and I always knew when I started, if you start a shirt business it’s never going to be an overnight sensation. It’s not a Facebook or a Google. The shirt market was not growing at 50% a year like mobile phones or laptop computers. I always think if you’re an entrepreneur you have to decide early on whether you want to own a small slice of a big pie or a big slice of a small pie. I decided I wanted to own the business so what I wanted was a big slice of the big pie! To do that it takes a hell of a long time. It’s not revolutionary, it’s evolution. Every day, thinking of ways to do things a little bit better. If you add all those days together — and I’ve had 30 years of them — you end up with a good business. It’s funny when people say ‘how did you achieve such an impressive entrepreneurial empire?’ because I feel that I’ve done nothing extraordinary — I’ve just done something for a long time and I’ve stuck to it. It’s about ‘great quality, great service, great value’ and it’s sticking to that day in, day out.
Is there another business you wish you had started?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. First of all you have to ask yourself what was the reason for starting the business in the first place. I wanted my own business because I wanted to be in control of my own destiny. I never liked working for anybody else. I used to have holiday jobs when I was at school and university and I worked for the consultancy Bain & Company for two years after leaving university. I loved Bain and it was a great business but I knew that I didn’t want to work for somebody else. Some people think ‘I want to have my own business because I want to make a lot of money.’ I think if you start a business because you want to make a lot of money, there’s a high chance you’re not going to succeed. The question I get asked by people who aren’t entrepreneurs is ‘will you ever sell your business?’ as if that’s the whole reason for doing it. If you establish that the reason for starting a business is not the money, then there’s no other business I wish I’d started. I look at Michael Dell who started Dell computers and Charles Dunstone who started Carphone Warehouse, which were industries that were massively fast-growing. They’ve grown huge and impressive businesses. In a way, I could say that I wish I’d started Dell computers or Carphone Warehouse or, to be honest, Facebook and Google. I’ve always wanted to have the best shirt business in the world. Whatever you choose to be you have got to be the best in the world at what you do. I want to be the best shirt-maker in the world. I’ll keep on plodding away.
Which businesses are you most envious of and who are your biggest competitors?
I want a business where our customers, suppliers and the people who work in the business love Charles Tyrwhitt. I like it when people come up to me and they say ‘this is the best place I’ve ever worked’. I like it when a customer comes up and says ‘I’ve been buying your shirts for 20 years and every time I put one on it makes me feel great’ or ‘I’ve bought my first shirt from you last week and it’s the best shirt I’ve ever had’. The businesses I’m most envious of are the ones that people really love. Businesses that people love more than my customers love Charles Tyrwhitt. It is businesses like Virgin, a lot of people love Virgin because they champion the consumer. I look at the Sunday Times best places to work and I want Charles Tyrwhitt to be in there.
Our biggest competitors in the UK are Marks & Spencers and Next. Just because they’re the people who sell the most shirts. When we look at where most of our new customers are coming from, they’re coming from Marks & Spencers and Next.
What would you say has been your biggest business failure?
How did you overcome this?
My biggest business failure was in 1994 when the business was going pretty well, and I basically got a bit bored. So I thought, I’m going to buy another business. I bought a chain of children’s clothes shops called Patrizia Wigan. They had five shops and I lost more money in three months than I’d made in the last three years. I don’t know what I was thinking! What we’re trying to do is be the best shirt business in the world, selling great quality shirts to men and suddenly I went and bought a children’s retail clothes shop — it was a disaster. That was a big lesson and we went bust which was a bit of a shock. We overcame it by realising that was a monstrous mistake and bought the business back with nothing from the receiver.
For many of the young people that IntoUniversity work with, the biggest challenge they are now experiencing is applying to university. What experiences and lessons did you have whilst in university that have since assisted you in your business ventures?
When you apply to university, you have to think very carefully about what course you’re going to do. There are some courses that are very full on and you do a lot of work but there are other courses with less time spent in lecture theatres and more independent study. I think it’s getting harder now because there is a lot of pressure and you’re paying a lot of money to go to university so you’ve got to come out with a good degree. University is a fantastic opportunity to experiment with business ideas. If you want to be an entrepreneur then you need to really get stuck into it at university because it provides a safety net for you. I had lots of businesses at university — a Christmas tree business, a photography business, a shoe business and most of them were a disaster but you learn a lot. I think it’s difficult to beat the practical nature of starting a business and giving it a go, especially getting out there and selling stuff to people. If you can sell stuff to people you can be a success in life.
Why did you choose to study Geography?
I actually did Geography because I wanted to get into Cambridge and so I looked around and I found that Geography seemed to be one of the easiest ways to get into Cambridge. Then I didn’t get into Cambridge so that was a bit of a disaster! I arrived at Bristol and tried to change and they said ‘absolutely no way — you applied for Geography and you’re jolly well doing it!’
You work with IntoUniversity by supporting their entrepreneurship programmes, what first inspired you to work with the charity?
I have been very lucky because I came from a family who sent me to a great school, which was fee-paying, and it was the normal progression to go to university. If you look at people who have been ‘successful’ in life, they generally have been to university. It’s a big leg up and it’s a big help. For me, everybody who went to my school went to university, pretty much. It was just the sort of thing you did and I think the world is an unfair place unfortunately, but I think it’s very unfair that a lot of schools don’t send anybody to university. I’ve always felt that working with young people and helping them to get on in life and help themselves is a way to make the world a better place. I just love the success that IntoUniversity has had. It helps those who didn’t have the good fortune I had growing up and giving them the leg up that they need and deserve to make their lives better.
What are your hopes for the future of IntoUniversity?
There’s a need and IntoUniversity is opening new centres at a good pace, but there is a big need for it. IntoUniversity hasn’t yet saturated the UK market by any stretch of the imagination and so I would hope that they would continue to grow and continue to keep the same ethos and have the same success as they’ve had to date.
Through your partnership with IntoUniversity, you recently attended and launched the charity’s Academy of Enterprise week, did you enjoy the day?
I loved the day. I always find it incredibly uplifting when you meet people, some of whom have had a really tough start in life, who realise how much potential they have. Everybody has a lot of potential and the biggest obstacle is making people believe in themselves and believe that they have the potential to get on and do it. I thought that the students at the Academy of Enterprise week were just fantastic. They would get up and go. They were really engaged and I think the week could make a real difference to their lives. It’s quite small things that can make big differences to people’s lives. You just have to make little things click in somebody’s mind. Fundamentally, making them believe there is no limit to what they can achieve. If you can make that happen then that’s really exciting. I think I saw that happening on that day.
What most struck you about the young people you met that day?
I think it was their positivity and drive. They were proper budding entrepreneurs. There was no feeling that they were there because somebody had told them that they had to be there. They were there because they really wanted to be there and they wanted to get up and make a difference. That’s what it’s all about; it’s finding that attitude in young people. That attitude was there in abundance with all the people I met.
What advice would you give any of the students we work with?
I would probably say that the really important thing to do with your life is to make a difference. So when you die, the world is a different place to the world it was when you came into it. I think the opportunity to make a difference is there for everybody. It’s not necessarily about making a big difference, it can be a small difference but it’s about making sure you really do make a difference.
I went to see a talk by Malala [Yousafzai]. The whole ‘Malala movement’ of giving young people a voice, I think that’s something that most people forget; that it’s possible by doing small things and leading by example, you can make a massive difference to the world. You’ve got to make sure you change the world, to a greater or lesser extent.
IntoUniversity is celebrating its 15th birthday this year. When you were15 years old, what were your dreams and aspirations for the future?
I think if you ask most 15 year olds — my kids are 20, 19, 17 and 13 so they span either side of 15 — most 15 year olds don’t know what they want to do. When I was 15, I always wanted to have my own business. It meant I was always thinking of ways of doing it and rushing off and doing things and it was always a bit of a sprint. I remember when I left university and I went to work for Bain — I spent two years at Bain — and then I thought I’ve got to get into my business now otherwise I’m never going to do it. I remember feeling then at 24 that life was passing me by. That’s nine years after being 15. I think when you’re 15, you need to just try everything. You need to have a really open mind because you’ve got another 70 years to go.
Every opportunity, say yes. If somebody says do London to Brighton on a bicycle when you’re 15, do it — it’s a good challenge! You’ve got to push yourself. Get out there, be really open-minded and just embrace everything.
I recently did a really fun Q&A interviewing Nick Wheeler in front of a cohort of IntoUniversity students. Nick and I had the opportunity to sit with the students in break out groups and it was wonderful to see them engaging passionately with entrepreneurial ideas.
I have been an entrepreneur all my life and I am so thrilled that, thanks to Nick, IntoUniversity now has the opportunity to inspire and support young people who want to follow this path.
Of course, becoming a successful entrepreneur is always a challenge but if our young people want to succeed and we can help to nurture and facilitate their ambitions then it can make for such a fulfilling life and be a terrific ladder for social mobility.
The Accelerator Awards
Many thanks to John Pfeffer who provided four Academy of Enterprise participants with the incredible opportunity to progress onto a paid, 15-day internship with one or more entrepreneurial organisations in the industry of their choice.
