Sir Richard Branson is a businessman investor from the UK. He is the founder of the Virgin Group which is made up of more than four hundred companies.
Branson famously left school at sixteen and began his entrepreneurial journey immediately when he started a magazine and quickly branched out into the record business..
Branson now heads a globally recognised brand, fuels global humanitarian efforts and is famous for his adventurous spirit.
The Early Days
After being challenged for many years by his dyslexia, Richard Branson decided to leave school at sixteen to start a youth culture magazine called Student. The idea was it was to be a magazine run by students for students and Branson sold the first fifty thousand copies for free after covering costs by selling over $8,000 worth of advertising.
At the age of nineteen, Branson was living in a London commune and was in close contact with the music and drug scene. It was whilst in this environment that he had the idea of starting a mail-order record company called Virgin to help fund his magazine. The company did well enough for Branson to expand his business by adding a record shop in the famous Oxford Street, London. After the record company began to do well, the boy who dropped out of school was able to build his first recording studio.
Virgin Records
Branson and Virgin Record’s first recording was the smash hit ‘Tubular Bells’ by Mike Oldfield. The song stayed in the UK charts for two hundred and forty seven weeks. Eager to rapidly build on the success, Branson signed other up and coming groups to his label, including the Sex Pistols. Virgin Records then grew to one of the biggest record companies in the world as Branson proceeded to sign Genesis, Culture Club and The Rolling Stones.
“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” - Richard Branson
The Growth of an Empire
Branson continued to increase his entrepreneurial efforts, including the travel company Voyager Group in 1980 and the birth of the airline Virgin Atlantic in 1984, as well as a series of Virgin Megastores. However, his journey was not without some adversity and in 1992 Virgin found itself struggling to function financially and Virgin Records was sold that same year to EMI for $1 Billion. Branson was deeply hurt by having to sell the record business where it all started and he apparently cried when the sale was finalized. He was adamant that he was going to stay in the music business and he founded Virgin Radio in 1993 and started a second record company, V2 in 1996.
Branson’s Virgin Group has grown to hold more than 400 companies across the globe with business activity in the UK, the USA, Australia, Canada, Asia, South Africa and mainland Europe. The Virgin Group and Branson have expanded into trains, mobile phones, TV, drinks, banks and more.
More at:http://addicted2success.com/entrepreneur-profile/why-richard-branson-is-so-successful
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