I heard a story recently which sickened me. It was about a guy in America who has made more than £250million in less than five years.
Do you know how he did it?
He put sleeves on a blanket. That’s right, sleeves on a blanket. He had that simple idea that we all dream of – and saw the opportunity to make millions.
So could we all become millionaires if we start strapping sleeves on things? Sadly, the answer is probably no, because a great idea is not enough anymore.
What sets winners and losers apart in business is opportunities, not just ideas, according to Gary McEwan, chief executive of the Enterprise North East Trust.
The not-for-profit plc is currently turning an industrial unit at Aberdeen Energy Park into a haven for entrepreneurs to help preach that mantra.
The new Aberdeen Centre for Entrepreneurship – modelled on similar schemes in Barcelona and Boston – will be the first of its kind in Scotland.
Key to its success will be a 13-week business accelerator, where up to a dozen aspiring business people will be given a masterclass in transforming their start-ups into money-making behemoths with endless potential for growth.
“We have taken inspiration from Barcelona in certain respects and Boston in others,” Mr McEwan said.
“Right now we have a high performing Business Gateway in Aberdeen – we always hit targets because it is a very entrepreneurial place.
“A lot of that is down to the provision of good quality business advice – but when you go abroad, you find that there is a lot more to it than that.
“In Barcelona, we learned you can create a stimulating environment that gives an energy and a spirit to the whole thing.
“We have 2,000 people engaging with us, out of which half will start a business. But there is feeling that the half that don’t make it might just start a business if there was a better environment.
“If you are an entrepreneur and walk into the Activa in Barcelona, you feel like you are home – you feel like you are among your own.
“It’s a cool place where entrepreneurs ‘hang out’. That was mirrored in Boston. It has a spirit of entrepreneurship. There is a feeling that good stuff is going on.
“We just don’t have that in Scotland – so this is about creating a place with spirit and energy and then putting the highest quality business advisors around that.
“We also learned from Boston the impact a high quality business accelerator can have on a city.”
The Aberdeen centre, which should be up and running by September, will merge the city’s existing Business Gateway operation with the new accelerator under one roof
There will be meeting rooms and spaces down the middle, and an amphitheatre built at one end for presentations and link-ups with other members of the global accelerator network, including Boston and Barcelona.
“There is no other centre that combines this – it is an absolute first for Scotland,” he said.
The accelerator will take eight to 12 businesses at a time, mainly from the technology and energy sectors.
Mr McEwan added: “It is intense training. In 13 weeks they will be put through the mill.
“They will be challenged at every turn to evidence where their business opportunity for them is.
“We will produce much better and more robust businesses. We can’t accelerate 1,000 start-ups, so we need to focus on where we can make the most impact.
“People wander through this phase of conceiving an idea through to execution – but it is a path fraught with difficulty.
“There are so many holes you can fall down. The people who fall down the holes and get lost are in many ways the lucky ones – it’s the ones who ignore the holes and just keep going that suffer and ultimately end up with nothing.
“There are two big issues we need to fix. One is just how many businesses ignore the fact that a business idea itself doesn’t make money, it’s business opportunities that make money.
“People back ideas too much. But sometimes a good idea on paper has no opportunities.
“The second issue is that only 7% of our start-ups grow in any significant way. So we need to get better at providing the skills that entrepreneurs need to grow.
“You can’t teach entrepreneurial gut skill, but you can teach them to grow a business – and that is what the accelerator is all about.”
He added: “What we are trying to do is create an eco-system in Aberdeen that supports entrepreneurship. The expertise and mentoring will need to come from industry.
“So we have a job to persuade industry to participate in this. I can see real upsides for companies to be involved in this.”
If its to become the “cool” place Mr McEwan is hoping for, blankets with sleeves will need to be banned.
Or perhaps I’m just bitter.