Dragon tips for Domination

On Friday The Tab got the low down on the business chat given by Dragon Doug Richard. 

Over the course of the day, Doug encouraged students to discuss their business ideas. Small clothing companies were a popular idea, with one student wanting to sell clothes with unique photographic imagery to a popular high-street retailer.

Doug says you need a decent pair of shoes

Other initiatives ranged from setting up an online market-place for producers to sell their tracks to vocalists, to “an exciting iPhone app”, which Doug termed the most intriguing idea he’d heard of –  the nature of which he couldn’t reveal due to its current involvement in a business competition.

According to Doug, once the product is in place, “all you need is a little shoe-leather and a lot of nerve”. He describes success as just about doing “a series of actions in a certain order”.

Doug believes “entrepreneurship is learnable” and wants to share his knowledge with as many students as possible. He will visit around a dozen universities over the course of his current UK tour.

Doug’s focus on students comes from his belief that “being young is the one time in your life when it’s cheap to take risks”. Despite the current economic climate, he believes that students can afford to be optimistic “because even if things don’t work out… you won’t be dead”.

One student, Alex Shammas, said: “It was really interesting to see how he reacted to different ideas. It was really useful to hear how everyone was going wrong. He’s straight-talking, but really charismatic”.

Another student, Tom Charman, said that his “advice on putting stuff into department stores, distribution and marketplace was invaluable”.