Moonpig: Nick Jenkins and the £120m card company

In this episode you will learn;

How he started his career in Russia working for the infamous Mark
Rich as an ‘intrapreneur’ and what that process taught him about
business.The value of being a sole founderHis definitions on focus,
and how important that can be for someone who describes himself as
‘easily distracted’.How he started an MBA knowing he’d most likely
come towards the bottom of the class but still be one of the only
people to start an actual business - and he was right on both fronts.

And lots more of course...

Key Quotes

Being considered by others as being fair in business is much more
valuable than being ruthless. If people need to check how many
fingers they’ve got left after a handshake, I dont understand how
that’s constructive to business.There’s nothing quite like ‘needing’ a business to work, and what’s more motivating than if you’ve put all your money in?

Top Advice

"As a founder, never, ever, do any work that you can pay someone else a simple basic wage to do. For starters, you are creating a job someone needs, and secondly, you’re more likely to create more jobs if you focus on your priorities and key skills like strategy and the big picture."“Write a business plan, and then spend as much time as you can looking around to see who else is doing it - and what you’ll do better. No harm in anyone doing it, just do it differently!”“You need to be decisive. What I learned whilst doing my MBA was there were many people far brighter than me who could do a bunch of presentations much better than I could, and yet they couldn’t pick one thing to go with and they never got anything properly off the ground - so being decisive is a key skill”.

Other Facts:

Yes, they had a pig in their office, and yes they had to take it for walks all the time.He failed a business which led him to be sure he needed an MBA before starting MoonpigMoonpig ended up being one of 5 ideas developed through his MBA