Latest news with #RichardHarpin
Daily Mail
12-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
How To Make A Billion In Nine Steps by Richard Harpin: Guide to making your first billion
How To Make A Billion In Nine Steps by Richard Harpin (Piatkus £22, 240pp) As it happens, I do quite fancy being extraordinarily wealthy. I briefly toyed with the idea of reading Ten Steps To Making A Million but entrepreneur Richard Harpin's book promises more money in fewer steps. This is an interesting read. Harpin, 60, displayed entrepreneurial skills when still a Newcastle schoolboy, selling conkers to friends. Another business he started as a youngster, tying fishing flies for anglers, was so successful that when he sold it, straight after university, he made enough money to buy a car and put down the deposit on his first house. He worked in marketing for Procter & Gamble for a few years and then he and a friend, Jeremy Middleton, set up HomeServe with £50,000 in 1992. HomeServe, which provides home emergency repair cover, was sold in 2023 for £4.1 billion. His first lesson is that you have to 'copy and pivot'. In business, copying is good. There's no point in reinventing the wheel. HomeServe was a copy of a water company's plumbing insurance offer and a pivot from his loss-making emergency plumbing business. Similarly, in his earlier days, when he realised that the feathers he used to make his flies could be used to make earrings, he pivoted, calling the business 'Hookers'. Is it better to enter a marketplace in which there are no competitors? Harpin argues that it's a good thing if there is a competitor: 'It proves my idea is already working and there is potential for growth.' He also places great store in coaches and mentors. People think successful business people to be visionary loners but Harpin values advice. He's not above showing off occasionally. When he had set his mind on hiring a particular executive, he flew her from Buenos Aires to Miami 'and put on quite a show, hiring a big motorboat, and even a helicopter so I could fly her around Miami and over Gloria Estefan's house'. Oh, yes, he flies helicopters. Remember when Rishi Sunak was prime minister and flying around the country in a chopper? Sometimes he was using Harpin's. However, he doesn't gloss over his mistakes. In the very early days he and Middleton were operating on maxed-out credit cards and had bailiffs on the doorstep. Harpin also discusses the fact that HomeServe fell foul of the Financial Services Authority (now the Financial Conduct Authority) and was fined £30.6 million. He even quotes colleagues' criticisms of him. 'A lot of his ideas are good, but they're mixed in with a good amount of garbage,' says one. He eats, sleeps and breathes business. He listens to books at 1.4 speed so he can get through them quicker, and spends two hours on a Sunday evening planning the week ahead and reviewing the previous one. What this book is not is a get-rich-quick manual. The truth is – and we all know it really – that there is no magic formula. You need a great business idea and you need the sort of drive and resourcefulness that Harpin has in spades. He even suggests that half of all entrepreneurs are born rather than made. Some of us are never going to be billionaires, no matter how many books on the topic we read.
Telegraph
11-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
‘I gambled my last £10k to set up my company, and sold it for £4.1bn'
In this series, Telegraph Money speaks to millionaires to find out how they made their fortunes. How did you make your first million? If you'd like to share your story, email money@ Running rabbit kennels, selling conkers, becoming a magician: Richard Harpin's entrepreneurial prowess began in primary school, with each path yielding its own particular charm. 'I don't think I ever had a long-term plan other than: I do want to one day run my own proper business,' the 60-year-old reflects. 'I'm looking for that big idea.' It's fair to say that he got there in the end (and then some), selling HomeServe, his home assistance service business, to a Canadian asset management firm for £4.1bn in 2023. The sale has prompted the writing of his upcoming book, How to Make a Billion in Nine Steps. Part memoir, part business toolkit, it charts the wins and inevitable failures that made HomeServe a multi-billion pound British success story, and secured Harpin a spot on the Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated personal wealth of £700m. Harpin never set out to make so much as £1m, he says. Born in Huddersfield and raised in Northumberland, business was just part of who he was. 'As a boy, I built businesses the way my school friends built Airfix kits,' he says. The most successful of these was a fly-tie fishing company he started in his teens, which had staff in Kenya and Newcastle, where Geordie housewives would package the goods. It gathered enough profit for a car and a 10pc deposit on his first house by the time he left university. He later landed a graduate role at Procter & Gamble, working as a brand assistant for Fairy Liquid (the reason, he says, that his hands remain soft even now) – but doing a day job alone didn't cut it. Harpin began shifting Christmas trees in pub car parks to make extra cash. Once other vendors who were paying rental rates realised he was selling his wares without such costs, however, they complained, and Harpin was left with a vast – and dying – inventory. 'I lost a couple of my selling sites and ended up with about 1,000 trees that I wasn't going to be able to sell, so I got up at 4am and sold them at the fruit and veg market every morning,' he says. 'I managed to get rid of every tree and worked so hard. [I] made no money that year, but [it was] a big learning point.' Another would come a few years later. He had met Jeremy Middleton, who would become his business partner, at Procter & Gamble in the early 1980s, with the pair going on to start up a lettings agency, ironing service and decorating company along with a string of other ventures. They egged each other on in search of the 'big idea' and undertaking the unusual strategy of attending prospective staff's homes to interview them, so they could eye up their kitchen table (with a view to choosing an employee based on one they wanted to work from). Their first member of staff was hired on that basis; their weekly tête-à-têtes and meetings with prospective renters were held at that kitchen table, too. Pivoting to property management gave Harpin his next step – a home repair and maintenance business, funded by his and Middleton's life savings. But trouble struck when FastFix (then renamed A1 FastFix, to get it to the top of the Yellow Pages) expanded. They had secured investment from South Staffordshire Water. 'I thought that we'd get economies of scale and therefore the business would get to profit – it didn't,' Harpin says. 'The losses got bigger because it was the wrong model, so I became increasingly unconfident, and thinking: 'how am I going to find a way through this?'' The business lost half a million in its first year, leaving Harpin down to his last £10,000. Even Middleton told him: 'You've got to admit your life's dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur is over, you better go back and work for Procter & Gamble.' He had other ideas. With that final chunk of cash, he devised a new company, inspired by the plumbing insurance cover he had seen offered by Sutton Waters, a water company in Surrey. He mailed an offer for an equivalent service to 1,000 of his customers, 38 of whom sent back a cheque for £50. 'That was the magic moment. I got on my desk in front of those 23 [staff] who thought they were going to lose their job,' he says. He told them: 'We made it.' Harpin was convinced that if this take-up rate within 1,000 households could be replicated at scale across 100,000 households, the business could work millions of times over. By the end of the company's second year, it had more than 100,000 customers pumping turnover up to £3.67m, that first-year loss becoming a profit of £700,000. The following year, with an affinity partnership signed with Anglian Water, turnover had doubled, doubling again by the end of the 1997-98 financial year to £14m. Harpin is loath to dwell on the negatives in his business past – which may well include the £30m fine HomeServe was issued by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2014 for mis-selling insurance policies and failing to properly investigate complaints. 'Mistakes are fuel,' he believes. 'I'm resilient and determined, and I knew that I'd find a way through because that was my life's dream, and nobody was going to stop me.' According to Harpin, 50pc of entrepreneurs are struck by their big idea later in life, while '50pc of entrepreneurs are born entrepreneurs, and that was definitely me'. That hardwired drive explains why Harpin isn't sitting back and enjoying the spoils of his sale. He stayed on for two years as non-executive chairman of HomeServe (he says sacking himself as CEO was 'the best business decision I ever made'); has invested £150m of his own cash into different ventures – including a Yorkshire pub, and Checkatrade. He's also acquired a business magazine and podcast, written a 25-year business outline (HomeServe's chairman told him: 'I don't know of anybody else in the whole world that, after they've just sold the business, would have then written a career plan for the next 25 years'), and written the book. He is also on a mission to double the number of large companies in the UK, which he believes is a vital step in stimulating the economy. Taking his foot off the pedal is clearly not on the cards for Harpin, who was a major Conservative party donor until earlier this year (he'd given the party more than £3.5m since 2010; Rishi Sunak used Harpin's helicopter for campaign stops ahead of last year's election). He will not be spending his days troubling local golf courses or seeking out 'sun-drenched tax exile,' but instead splits his time between homes in Marylebone and a property close to York, spending non-work hours on pursuits like half marathons and triathlons with his children, skiing, and going on a selection of bucket list holidays. I ask Harpin what the word 'retirement' means to him. 'Death,' comes the response. 'The day that I die will be the day that I've retired.' 'How to Make a Billion in Nine Steps' is out now.
Daily Mail
06-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
My top tip for how YOU can become a billionaire: Serial entrepreneur RICHARD HARPIN reveals the key secret to business success (and it even saved his local pub)
Richard Harpin is on a mission. The founder of HomeServe built his domestic emergency repairs business into a £4 billion FTSE 100 company. Now he wants to inspire other entrepreneurs to do the same. 'I'm a great believer that you should share secrets,' says the self-styled angel investor.
Daily Mail
05-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Serial entrepreneur Richard Harpin says copying is the secret of business success
Richard Harpin is on a mission. The founder of HomeServe built his domestic emergency repairs business into a £4 billion FTSE 100 company. Now he wants to inspire other entrepreneurs to do the same. 'I'm a great believer that you should share secrets,' says the self-styled angel investor. His quest is to 'double the number of large companies' in the UK by providing small and medium-sized firms with the money, advice and networking opportunities that they need in order to grow. A consummate marketer, Harpin has used a big chunk of the estimated £500 million he made from the sale of HomeServe to Canadian buyout group Brookfield in 2023 to back businesses 'that have copied a proven model and are improving on that'. His investments include Easy Bathrooms, which is modelled on rival kitchen and bathroom retailer Howdens; a fitness club chain in Spain that Harpin says is 'a twist on PureGym' in the UK; and Passenger, a British version of US outdoor clothing business Patagonia. So it is no surprise that in Harpin's new book, How to Make a Billion in Nine Steps, he lists copying as his top tip. He describes how HomeServe succeeded because 'we constantly learned from others – especially our competitors – and adapted proven ideas to create even better solutions' for customers. For Harpin, being the first to introduce a product or service, or to enter a new market, may bring some advantages, but it is no guarantee of long-term success. He prefers what he calls 'second-mover advantage', noting how streaming giant Netflix began life by copying Blockbuster's video rental model. 'They copied what worked from Blockbuster, and then assessed what the market wanted and how the business could be improved.' The rest is history. Blockbuster went bust, whereas Netflix is worth more than £400 billion. 'We are taught at school that copying is bad,' Harpin notes. 'This is not true in business. Taking credit for someone else's work is bad, obviously, but copying is simply how we learn.' He put this philosophy to good use when he stepped in to save his local village pub in 2013. 'I never wanted to run a hospitality venue, but it's different when you're helping your own community,' he explains. Set in a Grade II-listed building, The Alice Hawthorn is the last pub in Nun Monkton, a picture-postcard village off the beaten track in north Yorkshire with reputedly the tallest maypole in Britain. Like many pubs, it had fallen on hard times and was reduced to serving ready meals before Harpin stepped in with a £525,000 rescue. But with no experience of owning a pub, he struggled at first. 'It took me ages to find the right people to run it,' Harpin recalls. He lent a neighbour £50,000 to run the 172-year-old pub rent-free, but he lost all of the money. A couple who ran a restaurant in York were hired, only to discover they couldn't be in two places at once. Their chef, who took over the pub with his daughter, also couldn't make it work. 'I had to find a proven leader with skills I didn't possess, give them equity in the business and proper accountability, and set them free to make their own decisions,' Harpin recounts. Backed by what he calls 'an uneconomic amount of money', a husband-and wife team have finally transformed the pub's fortunes. But as co-owners with Harpin, they didn't invent a new business – they copied what they saw. Harpin and his family toured the Cotswolds to assess other pubs and hotels, and were inspired by The Wild Rabbit, an inn in Chipping Norton created by Lady Bamford of the JCB diggers dynasty. A dozen Scandi-style guest bedrooms were built, the pub was renovated and the restaurant was turned into an award-winning diner serving superior food. Named after a champion 19th Century racehorse, The Alice Hawthorn is in the Michelin Guide 2025 as one of Yorkshire's best pubs. But Harpin is not aiming for a Michelin star – if only to 'avoid the disappointment of losing one', he quips. The formula seems to be paying off. The Alice Hawthorn now makes around £30,000-£40,000 a month. 'That will never be a sound return on the £5.5 million I've put in,' Harpin says, but he thinks it's been worth it. 'I believe people who've made their money should stay in the UK, pay their capital gains tax and give something back to the community,' he adds. Of course, he is not alone in this type of venture. Fans have flocked to Jeremy Clarkson's renovated Cotswold pub, The Farmer's Dog, after it featured in his hit Amazon Prime TV show about the perils of running a farm. Like Clarkson, Harpin is a Yorkshireman who readily admits to being 'tight' with money. But he is happy to subsidise the beer on tap. The last thing he says he wants to hear from local farmers is: 'They've put the price of a pint up, so I'm not going to The Alice Hawthorn because it's too expensive.'
Forbes
23-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Art Of Risk: Balancing Vision With Viability
Vikram Joshi, Founder and CTO at pulsd—a company in the business of democratizing fun in New York City. Entrepreneurship is often romanticized as a daring leap into the unknown. However, I've found that the true art of succeeding as a startup founder lies not in reckless abandon but in the delicate balance between bold vision and calculated risk. In the high-stakes world of startups, embracing risk is important—but only when it's deliberate, informed and aligned with strategic objectives. Understanding Calculated Risk Calculated risk involves making decisions that have uncertain outcomes but are based on thoughtful analysis, preparation and a clear understanding of potential rewards and consequences. Unlike reckless risk-taking, which is impulsive and uninformed, calculated risk should be strategic and intentional. For instance, consider the journey of Richard Harpin, founder of HomeServe. Reflecting on his early ventures, Harpin acknowledges that while his entrepreneurial spirit was strong, his initial approach to risk was sometimes reckless. Over time, he adopted a more rigorous method of assessing risks, emphasizing proactive risk management as crucial for growth and innovation. I believe Harpin's experience underscores the importance of balancing boldness with caution in business decisions. The Importance Of Calculated Risk In Startups Uncertainty and rapid change are par for the course for startup environments. In such settings, calculated risk can be a cornerstone of innovation and growth. When you're willing to take educated risks, you can create more opportunities for your company to challenge conventional thinking, disrupt existing markets and introduce novel products or services that resonate with customers. Take AirBnB: As fast as they grew, they could have potentially grown even faster. The idea of letting strangers stay at your home was a bold move, and there was initial skepticism about peer-to-peer lodging. Instead of scaling up too quickly, they tested their idea in only a handful of markets and focused on quality over quantity. This way, they could iron out the initial kinks based on user feedback, build trust and validate their business model before launching in other markets. My own company is a bootstrapped startup, which means we have to be especially mindful of our budget. At the same time, we also need to experiment with new campaigns. To strike that balance, we launch ad campaigns with a small initial budget and assess the return on investment (ROI) before deciding whether to scale up or shut them down. This calculated approach helps us minimize risk, limiting potential losses to only the initial investment if a campaign happens to fall flat. Strategies For Balancing Vision And Viability Understanding market dynamics is a startup's first defense against potential failure. By tapping into a deep well of market intelligence, your startup can gain important insights into consumer behavior, emerging market trends and the competitive landscape. This information can lead to more effective decision making, helping you predict which innovations will flourish or flop. I believe a solid risk management plan is non-negotiable for startups that dare to disrupt. To ensure your plan will make a reliable safety net, meticulously craft it to anticipate possible setbacks and mitigate their impact. Begin with a thorough analysis of potential challenges, from market shifts to technology failures, then outline proactive measures to address them. Embracing agile development methodologies can enable startups to adapt quickly to changes, which in turn helps ensure that their innovations can pivot in response to feedback and market forces. Agile methodologies emphasize iterative development, where teams work in short cycles to continuously refine and improve their product or service. For example, our core business relies on users going out. However, when the Covid pandemic forced people to stay in, we quickly pivoted our restaurant offerings to focus on delivery and takeout. This adaptability played a key role in helping us bounce back more quickly. Startups often fall into the trap of an all-or-nothing approach, but I've found there is power in spreading your bets. By diversifying your efforts, you can protect your business from unexpected challenges. This means: • Exploring multiple customer segments • Testing various acquisition channels • Piloting more than one product feature If one initiative doesn't pan out, others can still gain traction. This layered approach to growth can help build resilience, providing your startup with multiple avenues to success rather than depending on a single breakthrough. Establishing a culture of risk tolerance can be transformative for startups. This culture begins at the top, with leadership. Founders need to play a pivotal role in modeling behaviors that embrace risk-taking. For example, I recommend openly discussing your own experiences with failure and success, encouraging your employees to share their ideas and celebrating both wins and losses as part of the learning process. Learning From Failure Even if a risk doesn't pan out, the ability to learn from those setbacks is important for long-term success. A culture that embraces risk-taking and resilience creates a foundation for overcoming obstacles and coming out stronger. In my experience, seeing failure as a chance to learn makes you better prepared to handle the unpredictable nature of the startup world. Final Thoughts The art of risk lies in balancing vision with viability. While the allure of bold, high-reward ventures can be strong, it's important that you approach risk with a strategic mindset. By conducting thorough research, developing solid risk management plans, embracing agile methodologies, diversifying risks and fostering a risk-tolerant culture, your startup can navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship and transform uncertainties into opportunities for growth and innovation. In the end, calculated risk isn't just about daring to dream—it's about doing so wisely. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
