Top Entrepreneurs

I love Management Today’s annual list of Britain’s top 100 entrepreneurs for the light it throws on what’s really happening in the economy. You’ll not be surprised to learn that service businesses vastly dominate among the 100 multi-millionaires (with only eight from ‘industry’ in the top 50), or that finance dominates the service sector. Having said that, however, the range of fortunate fortune-hunters is so wide as to prove that opportunity knocks on countless doors in countless ways.

The key lies not in the seeing of the opportunity, but in its seizure. That normally requires an early start and enormous concentration and persistence over many years. Look at the ages of the list and you’ll see that big-time entrepreneurship is largely a middle-aged pastime. I long ago noted that most successful companies required a 30-year growth span before becoming significant competitors. That may have speeded up generally (and especially in the IT sector).

All the same, if you’re not prepared for the long haul in time, don’t expect to hit the big haul in loot - like that of the MT champion Peter Cruddas, whose CMC Group has made him a fortune of £800 million since start-up in 1989.