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CANADIAN INDUSTRY ONLINE - DECEMBER 2011
IM: What about trying to figure out your
brand if you are a start-up? Where can you
learn about brand where it won’t cost you
anything?
BW: The most obvious and overlooked
place to figure out how to brand are to look
at your competitors. How have each of your
competitors branded themselves: are they
the highest cost proposition, highest value,
the lowest design, quickest to market, or do
they have the best service and delivery?
You need to look at every word that’s ever
been written about your business. I can’t tell
you how many times I’ve heard of someone
trying to introduce a new business and
they’ve thought ‘oh that’s a cool idea’ –but
haven’t done the research. It troubles me
greatly if they don’t think it’s been done
before.
IM: Let ’s talk about your show. What ’s
the biggest difference about working on
Risky Business compared with Dragons’
Den?
BW: (chuckling) Well that’s easy. Risky
Business is on Mondays and Dragons’ Den is
on Wednesdays.
No but really. As much as advice is free,
action requires courage, commitment, and a
wallet. On Dragons’ Den you get advice, lots
of advice, free, doesn’t require any
commitment. When people do a show like
Risky Business or actually follow through
and do their deals on Dragons’ Den you get
action. When you see deals on Dragons’ Den,
actions count.
Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than
words.
What we’ve done with Risky Business is
invited real people with real money. Not
someone else’s cash. They come on the show
and they risk it. They look at two investment
opportunities – they choose one, and I choose
the other. Then the business has 30 days to
deliver. So in terms of a premise, it’s a real
investment, in real time, with real results.
There aren’t a lot of shows these days that
are completely real.
IM: Do you ever feel for the investors
that lose out or don’t see the success they
were expecting?
BW: About a third of the deals don’t turn
out. I have a disproportionate share of those,
because the couples tend to pick the ones
that are lower risk and lower reward (and I
take the higher-risk opportunity).
In the big picture, I do feel for them. We
actually changed the original format of the
show; originally couples were bringing in
their life savings. We changed it—we wanted
people to invest big, want it to be
meaningful for them, but not bring their life
savings. And when you think about it, $10,000
- $20,000 is meaningful for most people in
Canada.
IM: Of all the entrepreneurs you work
with, which types do you admire the most?
BW:
I
particularly
enjoy
young
entrepreneurs, those that aren’t waiting to
see what a career is like. They are taking the
bull by the horns, and changing the
perception of risk. I genuinely believe that a
few years of work experience can accelerate
an entrepreneur’s career. Having said that, I
greatly admire those who say ‘damn the
torpedoes!’ and get right out there.
IM: What do you teach at the Wilson
Centre for Entrepreneurial Excellence at
the University of Saskatchewan?
BW: What we do at the Centre is create
collisions. There is innovative thinking
being done there by entrepreneurial students
in all disciplines - engineers, commerce
experts, and art students. We are creating
collisions
where
people
talk
about
entrepreneurial ideas. [Ideas are] are
popping up—and the concept of collisions is
what I get really excited about. Not sure
there’s any academic research to back that
concept up, but I like it. The Centre is
becoming a significant innovation incubator
- connecting students and business leaders
with investment opportunities across the
West.
IM: Why is Canada the place for small
businesses and entrepreneurs?
BW: First I need to clear something up. I
get frustrated in the academic world by the
linkage between small business and
entrepreneurship. Small business is small
business. But entrepreneurship is a way of
thinking. I’m really pushing that when I can
get to the academics, I say: ‘I understand you
want to teach small business but don’t use
the world entrepreneurship in that concept.’
We’re trying to teach a generation of people
to think differently, when we talk about
entrepreneurship.
An entrepreneur would never say ‘that’s
not my job.’ And an entrepreneur in a large
corporation, when considering entrepreneur-
ship as a way of thinking, would never say
that either. They would say ‘ok let’s try and
see how we are going to get this done.’
“
Study marketing (that’s number one) and number two: study
entrepreneurship. Number three: study philanthropy. Differentiate your
brand from others. Most entrepreneurs say they don’t have time to go
back to school. But if it’s going to advance your business, why wouldn’t
you do that?”
- W. Brett Wilson
COVER STORY - CANADA’S INNOVATION FUTURE
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