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Entrepreneurship
Course: Entrepreneurship > Unit 1
Lesson 10: Lara Morgan - Founder of Pacific DirectLara Morgan - Founder of Pacific Direct
Lara Morgan, Founder of Pacific Direct, shares her entrepreneurial story and describes her motivations in founding companies. Lara describes how understanding the mechanisms of money, along with a fearlessness of asking questionshelped her company grow. Created by Kauffman Foundation.
Want to join the conversation?
- what you to when you have financial burdens and no one there to help you?(9 votes)
- 1- get agood night's sleep
2-think about the situation - 5 years from now-
3-get professional suggestions and decide which one you would be willing to try.
4- remind yourself that you are the only help, and you will find a way
5- remember all things are possible
6- prepare yourself to accept whatever is available to atleast get started to through this finanical burdens, do not let it conquer you
7- As long as you have your health and strength , you can do anything(20 votes)
- Does this interview really end at? 3:40(4 votes)
- I am sure that the actual interview itself was longer than what is shown here. In order to make this video brief and efficient, and still worthwhile, the producer probably asked Lara Morgan a series of questions, and then from her responses was able to edit them in order to highlight and feature here the major points of her ideas and opinions.(7 votes)
- What kind of dumb questions are we afraid to ask that hold us back? I wonder if there are any common roadblocks that people often face that simply asking a dumb question could have prevented.(3 votes)
- i advice you to know about it and education is key, be about it the right way and know that you like it not just because your dad is in it,(4 votes)
- we want to retire in 30 years, and we shall need 50,000 income per annum during our retirement which will last 20 years. we can save 10,000 annually during the first 10 years. We estimate that from year 16 to 20 we shall return to school for a graduate degree, which will cost 40,000 yearly in actual cash flow and opportunity cost expenses. Additionally, we will send our niece to college for 4 years starting in year 26 from now. Her tuition will rise by 4 percent annually, but it will be the same every year after year 26. We would like to know what the pension fund should be to finance our retirement. Second what annual savings would we accumulate from years 30 to 40 to be able to fund all the aforementioned expenses and our retirement. We have a discount rate of 6 percent.(1 vote)
- If you plan on saving money long-term, consider investing in either property or stock funds instead. The basic idea is to put in a large amount of money, and your investment will slowly pay it back in small installments. (rental checks, mutual fund payments, etc.) If you can get even 10% a year net, which wouldn't be too difficult, (and a lot higher than you'd get from any bank) you would be paid back in 10 years and be making some good money in passive income (money you make with almost no work). Of course, there is risk, but if you do your due diligence you can avoid it. I also recommend reading Rich Dad Poor Dad (Robert Kiyosaki) , as well the Book on Making Money (Steve Oliverez). They know more than me. Starting a side business can also be profitable, but it's a lot of work.(1 vote)
- why was she from germany but grew up in hong kong and went to school at scottland(2 votes)
- no he means if she grew up in hong kong then wouldnt she go to school in hong kong(1 vote)
- Is her necklace the twitter logo?(0 votes)
- A bit late, but this is for future users... you can see it better at. It is not the Twitter logo. 03:03(1 vote)
Video transcript
- I was born in Germany. I grew up in Hong Kong. I went to school in Scotland. So I had a global outlook. And I also had parents who were unbelievably enthusiastic
about everybody having a value. And I know for a fact
that my passionate belief in everybody has something to offer, everybody can grow can be infectious. My dad went bankrupt, so I had
to get a job when I was 18. Two weeks after finishing, if you like, my formal education, I had to
start paying my parents rent. And my job was selling
premiums and giveaways. I'm shamelessly proud
of selling everything from umbrellas and key chains to stuff you put in a cereal packet, McDonald's promotion
items, I'll sell anything. It was a small business, and
we grew it pretty quickly. I guess from that was my
foundation of building my first company, which
was Pacific Direct. I started that when I was 23 in UK. The guys that had owned
the premium company, had just bought into a
manufacturer of sewing kits and shower caps, so it's not a terribly glamorous or glorious start. But I needed a job. I needed to make money. So I started and my grandmother
was my strategic advisor, genuinely, and she said,
darling if you're gonna sell this stuff go to the Dorchester. One of London's loveliest properties. The business graduated from
shower caps and sewing kits into toiletries and
branded, licensed goods for leading luxury brands and we sold them in 110 countries, which was pretty cool. So I traveled to 92 different countries in the development of my business. They are brand luxury goods at the five star end of the market. And, on a global platform,
if you're working with some of the major hotel
groups like Intercontinental or Sofitel, you'll be
delivering to 57 countries, just to meet their needs. Simplistically, I would
buy a product at 14 pence, sell it at 21 to the Dorchester, it's a pre-threaded sewing kit. As we grew the business,
you're starting to deal in much bigger volume, must
bigger contracted goods. And again, you might be buying
at 6p and delivering at 9p, but you're selling 2 million units. I started Pacific Direct
with a 99% shareholding. My mother was the other shareholder. And I sold Pacific in 2008, and I'm still retaining
99% when I sold it. So the business went from startup nil to 23 and a half million
sterling turnover. That was also about me
progressively growing up and learning to communicate,
and this is really valuable, about finance, and about
understanding mechanisms of money, and interest, and where I could continue to grow the business by really milking every penny out of the way finance works. I like to learn about
stuff I don't know about. I'm currently invested in a
platform called sodash.com, which is a social media platform. I know nothing about social media, but I see it as sales channel. So I just have to see whether I can make some money out of that. If you have that ambition
to learn and grow, it's about asking the dumb questions and not being afraid to ask. And I certainly ask, still,
masses of dumb questions, and I know a bit more, but not much. And so the answer is,
is I learned by asking. I think if you go in with a
very open mind about learning and a humility about wanting to learn, actually the world is
a very generous place. People are unbelievably
generous with their time. I can't really think of someone I know who grew a business to just make money. I think it's about wanting to
be the best, the most admired, or the most outstanding in your field. But you know, it's a
combination of lots of things, being in the right place at
the time, working really hard.