Richard Branson - Chairman of the Virgin Group

there was the Vietnamese war was was their waging and I was against the Vietnamese war I was 15 years old I decided to start a magazine to campaign against it it's called student and it was canvas so the national magazine for young people the magazine didn't make much money but it got a big circulation about a hundred thousand young people what the magazine and one day I took an advert in the magazine Virgin Records ten to sixty percent of any album on any label and listed the kinds of records we liked things like Frank Zappa rather than Andy Williams and so became very much the rock and roll mail-order company and then we started selling our own bands bands that we couldn't get other record companies released we released ourselves there are bands everywhere that want to be found it's finding the right ones and I had a fifteen year old boy called Mike Oldfield come to me with a tape called tubular bells which he recorded all the tracks himself I literally went to another record company borrowed an artist called sandy Denny's contract and you know he typed out the contract you know we managed to get the Exorcist to take the music and that took it number one in America it became a phenomenal success move doll and son bands like The Sex Pistols and the Rolling Stones and a lot of other other you know iconic great bands in those days you know there was quite a lot of money to go around in the record business you know big hit album could sell ten and fifteen million albums we went into the airline business because you know had record companies all over the world and I was traveling a lot of other people's Airlines and there was one time I took a flight from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands and I got bumped by American Airlines and chartered a plane and I came out with the black board and for fun I wrote Virgin Airlines twenty nine dollars you know to to the Virgin Islands walked around all the people being bumped I filled up my plane and then as I was landing somebody said to me you know sharpen up the service a bit you could go into the airline business and I've started three or four Airlines so Virgin Atlantic Virgin America Virgin Australia and they've all gone really well and the reason they've gone well is because they're the best airlines in their field and if you're the best hotel or the best you know shop or the best club or the best airline you survive I mean it's people who try to be second best which who normally the key to our success is to offer people much more than it expects so we offer a much better than first-class product for our upper class passengers but we charge a business class fare we offer a class above what people would expect we do lots of nice little things which surprise people you know I mean just little things like you know we give people an ice cream when they're watching a movie or popcorn or we have a limousine to and from the planes for our business-class passengers and we put seat back videos in their planes six years before anybody else did were smaller we're more nimble you know we're from the entertainment business so we know that people like to be entertained virgin is always evolving I start businesses not because I think I'm going to make money out of business are not particularly interested in that I start businesses because I think I can make a real difference the main thing to remember though is if you do go out to start a business most people fail but most people also pick themselves up and try again and gain until they finally succeed you