Richard Branson, you must have heard of him. If I throw some businesses at you I’m sure you’ll remember. Virgin Money, Virgin Records, Virgin Australia, Virgin Mobile and if you’re in the UK I could name many, many more companies he’s started. Branson is a long-haired layabout who believes in diversity and also in challenging the establishment. He also believes in giving a fair go to each business and not having the government give handouts to one business while ignoring the others. He recently took out a full page advertisement telling us the government shouldn’t give a handout to Qantas, you can read more about it here.

Branson is a fascinating personality. At the age of 15, while still at school, he and a friend started a magazine called Student aimed at students not just in his school but further afield. He made up a list of 250 MPs and a list of possible advertisers as well as writing to WH Smith asking if they would stock this magazine, all of a sudden he’s got a business plan and he then goes to it with gusto, ringing everyone on his list. It turned out that while he was hopeless at maths at school he could work the numbers when it came to real life situations. He got this magazine going and it ran for several years. He left school two years later with the headmaster’s parting words ringing in his ears ‘Congratulations, Branson, I predict that you will either go to prison or become a millionaire.’ As it happens he did both.

During this magazine period he found other business opportunities and moved in on those starting with a Student Advisory Centre which focused on helping students with awkward problems. Whether it was needing a sympathetic doctor for an awkward disease or an unwanted pregnancy or even talking someone down from suicide, Branson found himself working rather long and varied hours in the Student Advisory Centre. Much of this work was done from a commune. Branson had long hair and one day walked into a bank asking for a loan, he had no shoes on.

He went from these beginnings to being the sixth richest businessman in the UK. He ran Student on a fraction of a shoestring finding ways to make every phonecall go further than it should and is now a force to be reckoned with.

I loved this book. It has all the makings of a movie showing how business can be done. Branson had people in ‘the establishment’ trying to put him out of business as he was a threat to their business and they felt he was an upstart. He eventually found a way to sue them and won. He details it all in this book so you can see it all from his point of view. As he puts in the letters he received in response to his letters you can get some idea of how ‘the establishment’ viewed him.

Branson shows himself warts and all. He details how he lost his virginity to a lady with asthma. He talks about his partners and how he fell in love with someone else while still married. There are numerous times detailed to show us he’s not entirely a nice guy and that he has some faults.

If you’re excited by autobiographies or business books then this is a book you should read. It is both books in one.