Bloxham was selling posters in Afflecks Palace, Ferguson had just arrived at United, Tony Wilson was giving the Factory a whole new meaning. Tim Bacon was a barman in JWJohnsons, Oglesby was at Cheadle Hulme where only weeks earlier I’d been playing against him on the great British rugby fields.

Bruno was holding centre stage at the French Restaurant, at the then Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, Midland Hotel. I was the cheeky piano player busking my way through life.

I had never been so poor, but I had certainty that something good was just over the horizon.

I learnt pretty early on that it was never going to be that simple. I took a hundred wrong roads and although I had the belief that “one day” I’d be successful, I had not found my direction.

That direction came after a trip to New York when I realised that the next era had to involve the internet. I was now 30. I had tried and failed in so many areas, and I knew my venture had to be the right one. Without time on my side there was no margin for error.

There is a saying that behind every successful man is a good woman.

That could not be truer than in my case. My chance meeting with my now wife Gail Jones was undoubtedly a great Manchester partnership. 200 yards away from where Rolls met Royce in Albert Square, we instantly hit it off.

Many people ask me, “how do you work with your wife?” I have never had an issue with it. We both focus on different areas of the business and whilst it is sometimes hard to switch off when you live with your business partner, I have had the benefit of a soundboard for every major decision that has ever been part of the shaping of UKFast.

Has the last 10 years been an easy ride? There is no such thing! Every week there is something new. That’s the nature of business and life in general. It’s full of ups and downs. 3 days ago I had the first of 2 operations on my thumb after trapping it in a door and slicing clean through the bone. I was told that they were going to amputate it the next morning.

Not the holiday on Necker I was hoping for. But after another operation and a great deal of determination, I am told now that it will survive! And whilst the holiday has been somewhat interrupted with emergency hospital trips, the kids are oblivious to any disruptions thanks to Danielle, PA come Mary Poppins.

So I’m sat here on Turtle Beach where my daughters found 2 baby turtles yesterday fighting for survival, less than 10 minutes from hatching. Today Charlie, one of the Necker team has just helped dig out another 72 other turtles that would not have made it. And what about my thumb? Well I am managing to type, and inspired by just hearing the news that I have been very kindly awarded the EN Entrepreneur of the Year title for 2011, I am reminded that around every corner is another exciting challenge and the only pain you feel gives you a bench mark to truly appreciate the great moments in our lives.

I know my children will never forget today and the freeing of what seems like hundreds of turtles as they swim for safety around the girls ankles. I will never forget this day for very different reasons.

I haven’t won many things in my life and its typical that I am not there to celebrate with my colleagues and friends without whom I’d be average at best. However to be awarded this is just one of those moments in my life where I stopped, took a sharp intake of breath, filled my lungs and had to brace myself.

I am honoured to accept such a title. Do I deserve it? Not in a month of Sundays.  What does it mean to me now? If I thought there was any let up on the road ahead, I was mistaken. I now have an added responsibility to live up to all those kind people who have belief in me. Thank you I am truly honoured.

It seems doubly special that I find out on Necker Island, home of a great inspiration, friend and in my opinion Britain’s greatest living Entrepreneur.

If you don’t mind I have some turtles to attend to.

Lawrence Jones holding baby turtle on Necker Island

Even to a man considered by Forbes as 13th most powerful man in the world as recently as 2010. It looks as though Murdoch’s luck is running out. And the “unlucky for some”  placing will be difficult to hold on to, with people queuing up to enact revenge.

One of the problems Murdoch faces, is his empire in the UK holds people accountable irrespective of whether you are rich, powerful or popular. He was one of the untouchables. With his TV channels and Newspaper coverage he is a powerhouse, a man who set standards and invariably changed the world.

But then along came the Internet.

I got some friendly stick last year at a round-table discussion held at UKFast’s offices in City Tower. The subject was “Pay-walls” and I predicted the collapse of The Times Online and other newspapers who chose to charge readers to use their site.

Although the Times is still online, one year on, its a shadow of its former self with traffic down to record lows. After instigating the Paywall, the publishers predicted a temporary slump. Experts were confident it would bounce back once people saw sense.

Well they’ve seen sense alright. Its just from a different perspective and it never bounced back.

Murdoch never really got the Internet. He loved newspapers and he saw them at their height when the corridors of power linked like veins pumping headlines in a coordinated fashion across the globe. Who could have predicted the fibres being laid under our pavements would one day destabilise the newspaper empire. The internet is gathering momentum and the new found power is in the lap of the consumer. It is the consumers who are now able to communicate in their masses, coordinating opinions as a collective. When Branson chose not to advertise in the News of the World and other businesses followed with their coordinated effort, there was no other alternative.

But looking at the traffic to the News of the World site before it closed, it took a similar slump to the Times, the News of the World was already floundering. It wasn’t the first time Murdoch has come unstuck on the Internet. On 20 July 2005, News Corp. bought MySpace.com and other popular social networking-themed websites, for $580 million USD. Only last month it sold off Myspace for US$35 million in a much lower key affair.

It looked at the time as a panic buy, however I think the decline of the once mighty MySpace is more down to the lack of understanding from the Murdoch boardroom of what users expect on the Internet.  In the same way Facebooks meteroric rise to fame and fortune is their obsession on giving their users everything they want quicker than everyone else.

In Murdoch’s world, the newspaper controlled the reader. It fed the news very much one way. On the internet there is a dynamic relationship between the reader and the source, so the user contributes to the source and expands the feed, creating more news.

Nowadays people dont care where news comes from, as long as its accurate and transportable.

When giants like Google take their customers into consideration when making changes to their model, you’d think other established businesses would follow suit with some simple market research. This is a lesson to us all that “listening to our customers” is the single most important rule in business.

I called Murdoch a dinosaur, not out of disrespect. As a young boy the dinosaur  was the marvel of all creatures that have been on the planet. But they are a great example of what happens when something so large is unable to adapt to rapidly changing environments.

And that is exactly what is happening here. Its nature teaching us all a lesson. After Spring comes Summer, after Autumn comes Winter. The fall invariably comes at a price. Its how you prepare for the eventualities and unforeseen circumstances that separate the good from the great.

Yet there are plenty of examples of businesses who have defied the laws of nature and ridden the economic storms of time. Sometimes business owners and people forget the disciplines that got them to the top of their game. They believe the hype and enjoy the glamour and rich pickings. This is usually the start of a slippery decline which is difficult to recover from. Good entrepreneurs bounce back, great ones learn from other peoples mistakes and whilst no one can go through business with a  perfect 10, its imperative that you never make the same mistake twice.

And a year on from the Paywall going live, how is Murdochs empire now? Well its not going well as you know as he prepares to answer to the Select Committee this week.

Was the catastrophic decline of TheTimes.co.uk and then the News Of The World a clear marker for the rest of fleet street that “Murdoch is fallible.”  With readership leaving in their droves Murdoch’s once powerful hold on Britain showed cracks. Big cracks.

These cracks never went away, they just got bigger. MySpace being a good example. The sacrifice of  the News of the World is actually a very small concession, as the 168 year old newspaper was already dying, it just needed humanely putting down.

The phone hacking incidents have certainly put a few extra nails in the coffin and all the friends he once courted are unable to throw him a life line, as what his business has done is simply appalling. With Police and Politicians likely involved, rival journalists dine out on the greatest revenge story of the past 100 years, whilst his own news channels are forced to cover the headlines that condemn their leader adding insult to injury.

The modern media is a frightening place when things go wrong. Guilty by association. The ex-leader of the IMF, in line for the President of France, singled out and arrested only to have the charges dropped once the overly sensationalised story loses stamina and fizzles out. The victim is the man who lost his job and reputation. The victor the press who profit from salacious scandals.

Back in the UK we don’t tolerate people who attack an underdog, so experts are predicting Murdoch is pretty much finished in Britain, but that should be the least of his worries. On the other side of the Atlantic, the politicians are lining up on Capital Hill. The laws are very clear in the US and it is highly likely that they will make an example of Murdoch or his  son. If there is any knowledge that these practises were going on, he could face jail sentences.

Robert Maxwell who used his sons to help him run his empire made some hefty mistakes that Murdoch might have learned from.

Maxwell’s untimely and rather strange death triggered a flood of instability with banks frantically calling in their massive loans. His two young sons desperately tried to hold the empire together, but it collapsed nevertheless. It emerged that Maxwell had used hundreds of millions of pounds from his companies’ pension funds without permission to shore up the shares of the Mirror Group, to save his companies from bankruptcy. Eventually, the pension funds were replenished with monies from investment banks and the British government.

The Maxwell companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992. His son, Kevin Maxwell was declared bankrupt with debts of £400 million. In 1995 Maxwell’s sons and two other former directors went on trial for conspiracy to defraud, but were unanimously acquitted by a twelve man jury in 1996. But again, guilty by association their lives were pretty much ruined.

The difference is that Maxwell had both John Majors support and Neil Kinnocks. Very different to the situatiom today that Murdoch faces where everyone has fled the scene and politicians unite in parliament against the man who they once feared.

Whatever your views on the subject, whether guilty or not, he’s guilty of underestimating the Internet and the people of Great Britain.  Incredibly a year on the £1 paywall still remains in place, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that it is killing yet another of his online businesses. Mind you, he has a little bit more to worry about at present.

Just minutes ago, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson resigned.

What is it about this man? He keeps on popping up on British TV, yet he lacks the finesse of Branson and the passion of Robbins. He most certainly lacks the humility that you’ll find in abundance in the other two great men.

He comes across as a self opinionated man who likes putting people down to make himself feel better. And by surrounding himself with sycophantic people who do not openly challenge him, it is no surprise that he slipped up this week, after telling engineer Glenn Ward as he fired him on BBC’s reality TV show The Apprentice: ‘I have never yet come across an engineer who can turn his hands to business.’

Is he right? Are engineers poor business people?

Actually to put this into perspective and illustrate just how ridiculously dumb a statement this is, you have to look at other generalisations, like racism, agism etc. White people can’t dance, black people can’t swim. They are just preposterous and there is no place for generalisations in today’s society. It’s so important that people stand out from the crowd. Isn’t that what entrepreneurialism is all about?

There will always be some people that fall into sweeping generalisations like this, however no generalisation can cover all people.

Sugar just created his own new ism, engineeringism. You can’t take a group of people and publicly denounce them on National television.

Correct me if I am wrong, but engineering is a trade. It is something learnt. So why would people who chose to learn engineering as a skill be any worse or any better than people who study music, martial arts, French or whatever takes their fancy. Actually, history tells us that the people who learn the skills have a competitive advantage when setting up businesses where these skills are required.

The moment I heard this bigoted comment, I immediately thought of James Dyson an engineer who cleaned up after revolutionising the vacuum industry. Dyson’s fortune, estimated by the Sunday Times Richlist at £1.45bn, is almost double Lord Sugar’s £770m. It’s safe to say that Dyson changed the world and is in another league.

Lord Sugar defended his remarks: “I was drawing on my experience, having dealt with thousands of engineers over the years. That said, I accept the odd example that has been outlined, although James Dyson has told me many times he is an inventor not an engineer.”

Dyson’s own description of himself as an “inventor” just demonstrates his humility, the trait so lacking in Sugar.

When you start to unravel the list of great entrepreneurs over time, engineers do play a huge part.

What car would Sugar be chauffeured in if Rolls hadn’t met Royce in the Midland Hotel, Manchester back on 4th May 1904. Royce was an amazing engineer and entrepreneur. Ironically, one of the first proper apprentices too, not the wooly TV type.

Royce started his trade in 1878 when he started an apprenticeship with the Great Northern Railway company at its works in Peterborough. When he ran out of money after 3 years he joined a tool-making company in Leeds, before joining the Electric Light and Power Company. He had a stint making dynamos and electric cranes and one of his first factories opened in Trafford Park, Manchester, a stones throw from where we built UKFast’s first Data Centre.

After seeing the equipment being delivered and installed to our new DC, I have the utmost respect for engineers. From the generators to the cabling, it’s remarkable the technology that we take for granted because it’s out of sight.

It seems that the greatest revelations of all time are born out of engineering discoveries and brilliance. The Internet being probably the biggest of them all and if not, it is certainly the incubator for the engineers of tomorrow. Giving life to other great engineers like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook who is giving the Google boys a run for their money.

What gets my goat is that Sugar continues to set such a bad example to fellow entrepreneurs of how to behave in business and worse still, he gives the public a very one dimensional view of what business is really like.

The great business people that I have met are like the great people from all walks of life. They are warm, kind and giving. We can all go through life taking, however to truly get anything of note out of life, you have to put in without expecting anything in return.

Only when you arrive at this outcome will you be truly fulfilled.

There are probably a few incredibly rich people reading this thinking “*ollocks,” yet the very same people who think that they are the pinnacle of their existence are the people who need to go back to the basics more than most.

I am not trying to be judgemental. It works for me. The day after my avalanche accident, I stopped worrying about what other people think and I just got on with doing what felt right. Then one day I just woke up years later and everything was rosy. I am not saying everything is perfect in my life. I am a million miles from where I’d like to evolve as a person. I have so much to do to improve if I am going to hit some of my goals, but I know what needs to be done and I choose very different people to Alan Sugar to aspire to. I once asked Branson if there is anyone in business who has inspired him, we were running at the time. He said firmly, “No.” he paused and said, “I do admire Nelson Mandela.” After another pause, “And Desmond Tutu.”

This supports my point that to be great, follow great people. It doesn’t matter that they are in a different walk of life. Great people will have similarities in their behaviour that help make them successful. Likewise, idiots have a habit of copying daft things!

On the subject of being an engineer. I surround myself by them because I admire the skills that I would so much love to posses. Being an entrepreneur allows me to tap into the engineering world and marvel at the things that are made possible nowadays.

Given the choice to aspire to be like Dyson, Royce, Sugar? I gave up Sugar a long time ago.

So next time you watch The Apprentice, see if you noticed he has a boardroom chair that is bigger and taller than everyone else’s. Lord Alan Sugar should stop taking himself too seriously and someone should tell him, people watch the show because of the uncertainty of who is going to be axed and not for him. Sorry Alan

Its good to see other business people and prominent ones speaking out about Sugar’s stupidity. Will King, founder of the King of Shaves grooming business and himself a mechanical engineering graduate, said he was ‘saddened’ by Lord Sugar’s very public statement, dismissing the abrasive business leader as ‘out of touch’.

“I am disappointed,” I said, “but not surprised.”

Its the end of an era. “It is being made official in the morning and there is an embargo on the story until 10am tomorrow. Charlie Hodgson is resigning in the morning.”

I was leaving for Verbier in the morning, for a few days skiing and boarding with the family and friends from work. Charlie is someone who I’d consider one of the most underrated fly-halves in todays game. Underrated or not, you have to treat people nicely who work for you, and if you want incredible results my advice is you need to go overboard on the “lavishing praise” aspect of management.

The lavishing praise is something I learnt from Branson, and sitting here now in his home in the Swiss Alpes with friends I am reminded just how much he has helped me and UKFast in 2010.

The Lodge is a great place to reflect and the New Year is the best time to review and plan. I am here with a crowd from work and we wouldn’t be here if Branson hadn’t kindly offered up a few pearls of wisdom. It just goes to show you being nice pays off, as I am spending my hard earned money in one of his luxury properties spoiling my top performers at UKFast!

Team launch

So what did I learn and how are we different?

Well UKFast was a pretty good business going into 2010, but it wasn’t perfect and I was probably the biggest of a number of few weak links. I had no formal training to run a business of this size. With an anticipated turnover of between £17 and £20m this year, the business is very different from the one I set out on the journey with Gail back in 1999.

And although my heart and intentions have always been in the right place, I have been learning as I have been going along. Now this is not too big a problem when the business is small, however as the stakes get bigger, small mistakes can manifest themselves as much larger ones down the line. So it is essential errors of judgement are kept to a minimum. On the whole we have been lucky, but luck not something you want to solely rely on when everything you hold dear is at stake.

I needed help and fast. Ironically on this journey of development I have come to the realisation that as fast as I develop, I will always  need to learn more! This is to maintain the momentum that you create. Mohammed Ali said, “I run on the road, long before I dance under the lights.” This beautiful phrase is almost prophetic. There is so much you can read into this statement. You can image just how hard Mohammed Ali trained and how far he must have run to become the living legend we all now know and love. And what was his ultimate outcome? To be the greatest boxer? Or to change the world? Somehow I think the boxing was just a stepping stone for the latter and the momentum he created will live on long after his memories fade.

Tony Robbins sums up the importance of learning nicely with the phrase, “If you are not growing you are dying.” I can associate with this. The times in my life where everything slotted perfectly in place coincide with the times when I am consciously making an effort to develop. All the people I know who end up failing, simply stopped developing often riding on their past successes. They stop doing everything that got them to that place in the first place. The result, they get less lucky.

Going into 2010 was no different to previous years, I knew we had some work to do to maintain our spirit we’d worked hard to achieve since inception. Managing thousands of customers and hundreds of people required skills I simply didn’t have at that time. It was my first question I asked Richard B, “how do I maintain the spirit that we have had since inception whilst growing it beyond a hundred people?”

But the answer is not important and maybe something for another day, what is important is that I was asking questions and eager to learn other peoples opinions. You will find the answer to the most extraordinary problems if you set out on the journey to discover them.

And now, sat in the basement of The Lodge typing away, with the guys from work watching “The Hangover” which is swiftly becoming a cult film for our team in this cult venue, I enter 2011 really excited about the differences we are going to make to peoples businesses and their lives. I am even more excited about the differences we are able to make for the guys at work, all of them. I have learnt that my colleagues have the appetite to develop at a similar pace to me and they need rewarding just like I do too.

Enjoy the challenge

And reflecting on 2010, was it a good one? I certainly regard it as was one of those life changing years. One where I stepped up a gear and started listening, not just to the advice of great people around me, but also my gut too. Following your heart and fulfilling your dreams is where you are ultimately tested. Fundamentally isn’t this really what it’s all about anyway?

So if you are a dreamer like me, dream big and best of luck for 2011. I wish you every success. Go make those dreams a reality or come and join me on mine.

Lawrence

Good luck for 2011 from UKFast

“What’s that?” I replied.

“That feeling inside of you now…. it hurts doesn’t it.”

It certainly did and although I smiled, I thought, I am not giving him the pleasure of saying that again.

I realised why he is such a great motivator. That’s all he had to say, a simple observation, making me focus on the pain I was feeling and boy it hurt all the more.

I had been warned that this is Richard Branson’s game. We were the last to leave the beach, all the others had gone back up the hill to the Great House. It was after midnight and Richard said, “Right, who’s for a game of Perudo?”

If you were like me and had no idea what Perudo is, it is a game of dice that is played on the streets of Peru.

It was during the game I asked Richard if he’d mind if I’d interview him. I had spoken to the EN Magazine and they’d expressed an interest in it. Richard agreed to the idea and on the last day before leaving whilst sitting in his kitchen I had one of the most enlightening conversations of my life. It was a great moment with the kids playing with baby tortoises in the garden and Gail and Joan talking in the background, I really felt a million dollars.

To get advice and insights from a man like Branson is a serious gift and that’s one of the reasons I feel the need to share them. He is a man who does things the “wrong way,” he bucks convention and he is one of the few men alive who have managed to create, maintain and grow huge corporations yet maintain his entrepreneurial flair.

So when he talks, I listen.

Without spoiling the interview, one of the things I highlighted is Richards propensity to compete, at everything.

He plays tennis twice a day, he is always playing chess, backgammon, or racing round the island on a catermaran or kite surf. The man never stops, but there is always a challenge imbedded in everything he does. I highlighted this and he said something along the lines, “life’s all about the challenge.”

Ten days later on business in Dubai, a friend showed me his computer screen and I read the headline, “UKFast wins IT employer of the year.” It was a really proud moment. I’d completely forgotten it was the week of the UK IT Awards.

It means a great deal to win an award because they represent milestones in our history. They are accolades that are owned entirely by the team and reinforce why we all work so hard at constantly trying to improve and better ourselves.

So this week, as finalists at the MEN Awards in Manchester it would have been the “triple” if we’d picked it up. We were in the £10m to £25m category. We’d previously won the under £10m group in 2008.

It was a disappointment even though I wasn’t truly expecting us to win it. It was jolly decent of them to include us again, and as they announced the winner, I remembered that Branson moment. I focussed on the pain of losing and turned up the dial and as I did, I began to understand.

It was right that we didn’t win it. We can do so much better. There aren’t more hours in the  day, yet we are wasting time by not being as organised as we could be. I savored the moment. This is the fuel that I need to rise to the next level and understanding this fills me with confidence. I realised that losing is as important as winning and the sinking feeling of losing is actually a great motivator.

Back in the kitchen on Necker, I reminded Richard of one of his biggest losses. I asked him how he felt after the Northern Rock debacle, where after huge amounts of work and courage to take on one of the biggest mess ups in banking history, his bid and his team, Virgin Money were ignored for a weaker state run option. He spoke at length about winning and losing and on this particular occasion, he said, “Oh, I went out and got completely pissed!”

I now understood. It is the avoidance of feeling failure that partly drives him. It is common sense, if you remember the feeling, you are more likely to work harder to avoid it. I remembered just how motivated I was to improve when playing Peruda.

As a man who has had plenty of practice of getting things wrong, I have been using failure as an effective mechanism to inspire change without knowing it. But this time with the added weight of my entire focus on my failure to bring home the prize to the most deserving workforce I have ever had the pleasure to work along side, I felt sick.

That feeling drove to ask  the question, “What else can I do to drive UKFast even further, even faster making our product the very best in the market place and setting a new standard in hosting?”

With all the great people supporting me, I do believe I have the answers, I certainly have the right team around me both in and outside of work. Looking through these new set of spectacles, I am beginning to think I have been over complicating something that is essentially very simple.

But strangely, that horrible empty feeling became almost pleasant, knowing that I am about to take the reigns and step up a gear or two and inspire the UKFast team, after all I have only myself to blame, and only I can set the example. I have some extraordinary goals and I cannot afford to miss them. I cant imagine the pain and disappointment for all of us involved.

It is safe to say I am going to do everything necessary to avoid the negative association with missing future amazing milestones.

So I headed to Wales for a simple weekend in the mountains with my family and some of my closest friends. I am feeling inspired, truly inspired.

A few years ago I was a dreamer. A hopeless young man desperate for a purpose, directionless.

Today, I am a man on a mission. I know where I am going and why. I have a greater understanding of the game. I’m here to compete. I am on this planet to make a difference. I cannot wait for monday morning!

Oh, and back on Necker, I won those next 2 games by the way. I am sure you can guess what I said to Richard.

It was earlier this year when I could have gone one of 2 directions. Do I carry on the potentially expensive quest of developing our business in a carbon neutral fashion? Is there a guarantee at the end of it, I will find a viable alternative?

I was ready to throw in the towel, when I was challenged by one of the worlds greatest entrepreneurs. He didn’t directly challenge me, yet his words spoke volumes. I cannot give up. Here is a man who is pioneering space travel, undoubtedly one of the hardest of any of man’s achievements. But I think this is what great leaders and adventurers do. If you set out on a journey and you know the outcome, it sort of spoils the occasion. It’s the not knowing, the uncertainty that makes life interesting.

I have realised that I love the uncertainty. This is why I love sport. I love competing, because win or lose, its not really the point, but to fight for something, this is everything. And the longer the fight, the harder the challenge, the more enjoyable the journey.

So when I was reminded that “the world is changing and every business will have to adapt to meet the new climate changing demands.” The thought of our business, our sector, one of the fastest, if not the fastest growing sectors in the world operating without an abundance of power, is a scary prospect. The internet cannot run without electricity and its requirements are huge.

And this is where some of the guilt or rather realisation came from, when a power expert reminded me, “your data centres probably use more power than all the hospitals in Manchester combined.” This comment hit home.

And being around achievers like Branson makes you think, I just have to try harder. I have to raise my goals to new heights if I am to compete and achieve at my highest potential.

And so the journey began. Thousands of miles away in world apart from Necker, at the foot of Snowdon I made my first step on this new journey of uncertainty.

In the pouring rain I whistled the dogs and set off to climb Snowdon. I have lost count the number of times I have climbed to the top of Snowdon, yet I never tire of the experience.

I love time alone to think and there is no better place than our valley, if not for the solitary nature but for the fact my mobile is inoperable in the area. It was whilst walking I started tackling my goals. What was I trying to achieve?

The facts. We are building a datacentre. We use too much power. The power is incredibly expensive and the power companies are not the easiest to deal with. We are growing at an extraordinary rate. The internet is NOT going to get smaller and therefore the impact on the environment from not just UKFast but all hosting providers is substantial.

“Its easy,” I thought, “I need to set up an electricity company, that somehow generates power from the elements.”

I will spare you every thought, but on the way down from the summit of Snowdon, I took a different route. I dont know why, I just did. For some reason I just went off the track in a direction I’d never been before towards our lake Llyn Llewlyn. I wondered, with all that water that we own, is there not a way who we can harness the power from the weir at the end? I looked at the waves from the howling gale and contemplated wind turbines at the end of the valley.

I followed a river that I’d stumbled upon and carried on towards the farm above the railtracks.

I believe if you focus on something hard enough you get the desired result.

I took a shortcut through our next door but one neighbours farm. And this is where the journey really began.

I’d never considered hydro-electric power generation as a possibility, because I knew nothing of the subject. What’s the likelihood of finding a local farmer, a next door neighbour, in the process of building a hydro-electric power station with water that flows off Snowdon into our lake?

I dug a little deeper and realised this is a massive opportunity to fulfill my goals. The further I investigated, the more committed I became. I remember the board of directors at UKFast when I first came up with a diagram on becoming greener. Paul asked me if one of my girls had drawn it. He was correct of course, it was an idea, not a plan at this stage.

When I came back to Manchester and explained I wanted to invest millions into a scheme to power all our datacentres using gravity and water, they stared at me, waiting for a punch-line. But underneath, they were hooked. How can you not be?

The schemes create power. Green power. They are profitable and although capital intensive the ROI is relatively quick over a 4 to 5 year period.

I put a team together of the absolute best professionals in the industry and we set about securing some if the top sites in North Wales. We now have 11 sites where every one of them is more than 1 year into a 2 to 3 year completion period.

And until we have enough power to generate our entire datacentre and network we simply registered and purchased a huge number of carbon credits for the interim, until all the schemes are ready. With all 11 schemes we anticipate being able to generate enough power to manage 5 or 6 datacentres.

In the meantime, its funny how things start to snowball, my passion for this subject is self evident and since I have been allowed to talk about it openly, (as prior to this week I have had to keep this a secret for 7 months!) some huge opportunities have arisen and a serious number of entrepreneurs are taking an interest, in a BIG way.

I had originally intended on getting all the big hosting companies together and forming an alliance where we are able to make a massive difference and set a new standard. Branson kindly put me in touch with the Carbon War Room and I believe that the opportunity to help the environment is greater than conflicts that competition creates.

Meanwhile back on Necker, I reflect on the immense progression we have made already this year. UKFast Energy is now incorporated. We are in the process of obtaining a license to sell electricity and we are already able to help businesses become carbon neutral and sell carbon credits. UKFast is the first hosting company in the world to be PAS certified, which is an awesome accreditation and one we are very proud of. Its all incredibly exciting and its just the beginning.

And if you are wondering whats next, I’ll let you into a secret. It’s Wind Power.

I am off kite surfing!

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I had already said goodbye to my friends at school. It had all happened so quickly. One minute I didn’t have a care in the world, my focus was on next seasons rugby and the place I’d earned on the 1st XV. Then suddenly I was told I couldn’t remain at the school. My parents could no longer afford the school fees.

I never really believed this and as I stared through the gates I shook my head thinking at the double standards as my sister remained in her school. If one of us had to give it up, then I am glad it was me, but the devastation I was feeling knowing I would never again feel the exhilaration of playing in front of the school, representing the greatest schoolboy rugby team in Wales. An honour I had worked thousands of hours training for. I can never put this feeling into words. It was simply unbearable.

I opened the door, climbed in the car and faced forward. This was the end of everything and everyone I knew. I felt the resentment, like fuel pouring onto a burning fire. I was raging. I still am if I think about it.

I was never to return to Garden Cottage in the same capacity. I lost all my personal belongings, my identity, apart from a cricket bat, a photograph and a diary I do not have one a single thing that is pre-1986 in my possession. My parents sold the house shortly after to buy a hotel, all my belongings were thrown in a skip, so I never got to close that chapter of my life.

Its an emotion I use to power me through life, it gives me a drive that I still have never witnessed in anyone else I have met. I don’t mean to belittle anyone elses drive,  as so many people achieve so many great fetes, however I genuinely believe that the sequence of events that unfolded created a strange combination of hulk like properties that are truly imbalanced and disproportionate running through my veins. I have searched the globe to find a kindred spirit and continue to do so.

For many years I went from one disaster to another. No matter how hard I tried to be successful, my emotions were so extreme I was unable to win small, and consequently when I made mistakes I’d lose BIG. My father called this the snakes and ladders principal.

Then one day it changed. Meeting a girl in Manchester with the same surname as my late grandfather’s football team, I looked upto the sky, and nodded. The difference between coincidence and destiny is simply your outlook. A “cup-half-empty” person sees “coincidence” and “cup-half-full” character sees “destiny.” This was destiny, off the scale. The girl I refer to is 10 years my younger and still is funnily enough, she is my now wife Gail. She saw something in me that no one else saw and she is the only girl who has the strength of character to harness the passion in side of me, giving me direction and something to fight for.

It is this focus that determines whether or not people like me are absolute failures or absolute successes. Together we have both leant so much. We have become proud parents and I look back at Garden Cottage a house that I once thought as the ultimate dream that never was and I look now at my 2 girls bouncing around this place with my 2 dogs Indie and Lara dancing to Abba. Funny isn’t it, eras change, people change, different places, yet I cant seem to escape Abba.

I remember something Richard said to me on on Necker about his own personal drive. He said something along the lines that he is a different person now than he was 20 years earlier. He never conceded that he had less drive or determination, he is far too competitive for this.

Consider this, my runs with Richard Branson were all well over 2 hours in length. He was 59 years old at the time, now 60. Imagine what his drive was in his youth. I believe what gives Richard his youthful spirit and determination is the fact that he is still pumped full of testosterone and he is clearly proud of the fact.

Driving down the hill that day a tear rolled down my left cheek. I brushed it away with my shoulder. I remember every heart beat. I looked left at the huge garden wall unable to see a thing as the tears rolled uncontrollably, I gave up trying to wipe them away shaking my head slowly. I will never forget this feeling. The feeling of having everything taken away from me. I don’t want to forget the feeling either. The pain. This is the very same pain that drives me harder than anyone else on the planet. This is the drive that I now have learnt to love. This is the emotion my wife learnt how to harness. She knows how to open the furness door. She knows when to shovel in more coal and which direction to head me in. She also understands that once I have started, there is no stopping me and this trait makes the initial target so important.

I love a target. I love to compete to the bitter end. I love winning and I even love losing because I know I will have competed beyond comprehension. I just love fighting. I love pain, there is solace in pain. I remember on the rugby pitch I never lost my cool. Once in the USA, in New York I went to watch Pete my best friend play rugby. The oposing team was a man down. I put on a shirt to help the opposing team, and Pete walked off the pitch. He was very calm, but said, “there is absolutely no way I am playing on the opposite team to Loz.” They were curious at what Pete meant. Pete was always shrewd and suggested, “well if you want to see what I mean, pick anyone from the backs on our team and we’ll swap him.” We rejigged the numbers, they took the biggest guy and a I ended up playing for Pete’s team. We destroyed the opposition, we systematically dismantled them limb from limb. I organised the backs and the forwards into a military unit. I held everyone accountable and everyone one on our team knew what it was like to fight within an inch of your life.

There are a bunch of Americans who will never forget that day. It was a day they had never worked harder. A day they raised their standards where everything they tried just came off. Somehow these guys who didn’t grow up going to sleep with a rugby ball in their bed and weren’t drilled like Pete and I, played out of their skin. The pitch was hard and the blood and hits were extraodinary. It was an amazing occassion, one that I cherish. I made some great friends that day on both sides of the park.

How you harness the power inside of you is crucial. Your future balances delicately between success and failure in everything you do… but it doesn’t have to.

Firstly you need to understand your strengths and weaknesses. Strengths deployed at the wrong time are sometimes peoples downfall. I am lucky, I have Gail. I not only let her choose the destination, everything I do, I do it for her. I take it personally.

Secondly you need to understand what drives you, what motivates you. What events in your past really stir up emotion. Quite often these are your “limiting beliefs” and they are actually the things that are holding you back. For example, if enough people tell you you wont be good at something, eventually this will rub off and effect your performance. You have to listen to this then stand up for yourself and tell yourself “you are great,” then use the negative comments of others to drive you.  Stuff everyone else’s belief in you. You are amazing, truly amazing. Be inspired, be properly inspired you only get one chance at this life and this is your opportunity. Switch off your television, go and give your wife girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, children, friend, in fact give everyone  a massive hug. Embrace everyone, embrace life.  Get your running shoes on and get off the sofa and stop reading this blog and go and run and try like you have never tried before.

If you are looking to learn how to motivate others or you want to come and join me on my quest, pick up the phone and give my team a call. I am waiting to hear from people just like you. Thank you for reading. Be inspired. Loz

Why does one of the shortest words start the longest conversations?

On Friday one of the girls from our recruitment division MySort.co.uk came to me and asked “do you have 5 minutes to see a prospective new recruit for the sales department?”

I am always keen to get feedback and develop the business and where better than from an fresh pair of eyes. I followed Abbey into my wife’s office where Tom sat, looking relaxed, sitting back and at home. After talking with him for a few minutes, I asked him “do you have any questions for me?”

“You clearly put a huge amount of effort into making this a great place to work, from your website you look like you really value people much more than other businesses I’ve come across since moving to the UK 7 years ago….. why?”

“This is indeed true,” I replied. “we sleep a third of our lives, we have a third to ourselves and we work the rest. As I do not want to waste a minute of my life I am focussed to ensuring that I enjoy every second whilst I am wide awake. This means the time at work is just as precious as the time I spend outside of work.

I therefore concentrate my efforts into making my work environment as stimulating as possible. To guarantee this I need to make sure everyone around me is stimulated and performing at their very best too, so a large part of my energy goes on ensuring the team is as focussed as me. The end result is that if you come to work here at UKFast or any of our companies, you are going to have fun. A BIG part of that is you are going to develop quickly.” I paused for thought and then asked him a question.

“Are you ready for such a journey?”

” YES PLEASE.” Tom said eagerly. “I can see that everyone here loves their job. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door.”

I got up and shook his hand saying, “I am sure you are going to be very happy here.”

I left the office knowing that I have a very excited new recruit who is going to really enjoy his new job. Is that not stimulating enough to inspire me to be an entrepreneur? It amazes me that most business people just don’t get that people are the most important ingredient to a successful business. There is a saying, behind every successful businessman there is a great woman. Isn’t that the truth! But the same applies to businesses as a whole. Behind the scenes of every business are hundreds if not thousands of great people.

I see businesses starting to struggle as they get bigger. When businesses are small they have personality. The smaller group the bigger the personality. As the business grows the personality is watered down. The founders of the business usually get further from the coal face, middle management is put in place and then the whole thing collapses as it grows. To save the business from absolute failure and total melt down from over expanding, the businesses usually shrink back to the size of when they were more successful. This is one of the reasons so few businesses fail to get past the million pound turnover mark.

I like Richard Branson’s philosophy, something he said is, “business has to give people enriching rewarding lives or it’s simply not worth doing.”

And there you have it. Master that and you have the secret of a successful business, and as we are all stimulated by different things, what works for one business may not work for another and so the challenge begins.

But that is what gets me out of bed early every morning to improve the puzzle I started 11 years ago. I’ll let you know if I ever find the answer

If you go to the Virgin Limited Edition website we will see a whole host of amazing properties. They all have a similar style of layout with long sociable dining tables, comfy spacious chill-out lounges and bars where you can help yourself to just about any drink or cocktail you can dream up.

One of my favourites is The Lodge. It is particularly special to me as my early memories of the Alps always involve bus trips and cheap hotels. As I grew a little older I progressed to chalets, but invariably you get what you pay for. I am in a fortunate position to be able to experience The Lodge, at £80,000 to £90,000 per week, it is a place for the discerning skier who wants to really live it up in the mountains. It is the ultimate hideaway, with a beautiful style of bleached & distressed wood throughout the building. Down stairs there is a swimming pool and jacuzzi with a steam-room and gym. Although the gym is small, really with skiing all day (if you fancy it) and mountains to run up and down, even I seldom use it.

Another great point is the location. And even though it is only 250 yards from the bottom of the main lifts in the resort of Verbier, Switzerland, the team here drive you to and from the lift entrance.

Do you remember the queue at the ski rental shop? Here the guys from the ski shop bring the boots and skis to the Lodge for you to try on at your leisure. Nothing is too much trouble for the team of superstars that Branson and the managing director John have hand selected.

The food really is something else too! We are not the easiest people in the world to cater for. We are incredibly disciplined and my wife and I eat no dairy, wheat, and my wife takes it even further with zero citrus as well. Yet the chefs are all too accommodating. Cutting out wheat and dairy more or less rules anything scrumptious out of any meal. Not for these guys, Gerwyn the head chef and his crew design and make cakes you could not believe were possible, using blends of rice and tapioca flour and soya milk. The Michelin stars are evident the moment you put food to the palette.

The bedrooms are wonderful, all spacious and have great touches like funky ducks on the sides of the baths, and bath hats you feel compelled to take home for the kids. There is nothing quite like the Lodge. The jacuzzi, a cup of tea and a Bolivar cigar complete a good days skiing and prepare you for the evening of kicking back and enjoying a bottle from Richard’s wine cellar. That is something that is common to the Virgin Limited Edition properties. You really do feel you are in someones home, and with pictures of Richard Branson with his kids and wife and friends on the shelves, it simply makes it all the more special.

I know it is out of most peoples price bracket, however the touches that these guys lay on can be done by any operator. It’s just that people don’t overlay this layer of attention to detail. Things like:

• your names are written on your door in chalk
• the boot room has an elaborate system which dry and warm your boots so they are warm in the morning and again with areas named for your hats gloves and equipment.
• postcards with stamps already on them are in every room
• a cuddly toy dog with “let sleeping dog’s lie” to leave outside your room if you want a lie in
• great books you can pick up and put down everywhere, in every corner of the house

the list is really endless.

Hat’s off to Hannah and her fantastic team and best wishes to Hannah and Paul who are expecting their first little-one soon. We are thinking about you and we look forward to returning soon and catching up.

If you are thinking about having the ultimate mountain holiday skiing or even mountain-biking in the summer, this is the number one place on the planet for it. I use it for team building and training sessions too where I am able to take people outside of the office environment and get their undivided attention. It is a great place to work!

The Lodge, Main lounge

BBQ Lunch on the veranda

1. Cancel the Hosting Summit in Verbier

2. Wait for the news that we could take the private jet

3. Consider other options?

I am confident at this point as the pilot had been on to the powers that run the airspace and in-spite of the doom and gloom on the news, there was no reason in his mind why we would not be able to take off at 9am on Sunday morning. Little do I know!

It’s late Saturday afternoon in Manchester, a good friend James who runs the very successful business Printerland turned to me saying “you are not going to Verbier Loz, they are not going to open the airports.”

Thank God James said this. I might have waited if it wasn’t for this comment.

It was this one line that inspired me to change my mindset. I realised that everything hung in the balance of nature and the weather.

This was not a great situation to be in. James bet me £1 that I wouldn’t get there and that was it “game on.”

I picked up my mobile and rang my PA, “Rach, put everyone on full alert. I want everyones bags packed and around at our house in the next 90 minutes.”

Gail was already looking at options to get us across the Channel. The P&O website was inoperable, clearly a business who doesn’t host with UKFast! We found away via another site and we booked the ferry for 4am.

News was coming in from my PA of everyone’s whereabouts. It wasn’t looking good. 2 in a beer garden, one in Wales without transport, one getting ready for her grandfather’s birthday party. One gone walkabout and, one thankfully at home – Charlotte.

Charlotte started to help round up the troops. Meanwhile, I had another problem.I now had one car and 8 people. I rang my bro, Jonathan who is my communications director. He was in Sainsburys.

“…..well leave your trolley where it is, you are not going to need it.”

I had another driver, but I was still a car down. I then rang the marketing director Paul Harris. (Big Frank)

Paul and his lovely wife were getting ready to go out for a dinner party with friends.

It’s times like this, when you realise just how committed friends are.

“I’ll be there for you in half an hour” he said.

This was great news as Paul had just bought a Porsche Cayenne, which meant the vehicles for our RoadTrip were 2 very handsome black beasts.

The team was now complete, and with a bit of creativity we prized the boys from the beer garden and Wales and Rach even made her Grandfathers party; cut short admittedly, however I had done the calculations using the satnav, and I knew that as long as we left no later than 8.53pm we had a good chance of arriving at the early ferry, Dover.

James and Sue, his wife, were laughing at us, as this was going on in support of the madness required to change direction with little or no thought or regard for the consequences.

Grandma turned up, and with an emotional “goodbye” our 2 little daughters headed off a night early.

It was the best thing we could have done in hindsight and I owe James for bringing the realism home. Else we wouldn’t be sat here.

We made it to Dover and with 2 minutes to spare we boarded the early ferry at 1.55am.

The ferry was a far cry from the private jet and I remembered the times we did this as a kid. It was different from how I remembered it. Already tired, I couldn’t sleep. There was a great buzz amongst the team who had arrived at the house with lots of hugs kisses all ready for the adventure.

There was a massive sense of relief, as all of them had thought this great trip would inevitably be cancelled.

We headed from Calais across France, past Lake Geneva and into the Alps. The trip was exhausting and the hairpin bends were the only thing keeping Ross my co-pilot awake. The sheer fear of each bend approaching kept him on the edge of his seat.

This stage of the journey took us 8 hours, and with the exception of one flashing speed camera, and being pulled over by the French police for misunderstanding the speed limit, we had a great journey.

In fact, the French police made the  UKFast RoadTrip complete and after a couple of UKFast baseball cap souvenirs and a massively reduced fine, they ignored the 3 girls sleeping in the back seat. They escorted us to the cashpoint at the next service station, we shook hands and we were on our way again.

So as the rest of the world is grounded (apart from Richard Branson, who set off anyway from Necker yesterday in spite of the uncertainty of where he might land) we found there is always a way. But it does remind me the importance of friends, because none of this would have been possible with out the flexible grandparents, John and June, “Thank you.” To Paul’s family, especially Claire, the ultimate working mum, “Thank you”. To everyones parents, girl and boy friends, “Thanks, it is much appreciated.” Most of all, to my 2 little-ones who didn’t get a choice in the matter, “thank you T & P, I miss you lots!”

We are here to redesign and shape our product offering to ensure UKFast clients get the very best service and solution in the IT and hosting industry.

But, because we believe so much in our philosophy that fresh air, exercise, coupled with learning and sharing experiences drives better decision making, we have chosen this years retreat to be hosted at The Lodge, Verbier. Mountain retreat to Sir Richard Branson. Mine and Gail’s personal favorite winter retreat.

Today’s itinerary for example, is play hard in the morning with plenty of Skiing and Boarding.

2pm lunch back at the lodge

3pm – 7pm Focus Groups and product shaping

7pm – 9pm Dinner

9pm Coffees and home made biscuits

9.30pm – close

Midnight relax and pre-detox drinks.

I have a mixture of members of the sales team here along with 4 directors and my personal assistant. In a way it doubles as an incentive, because although we dont take the biggest earners or highest revenue generators, who are usually the people you reward in an organisation, we take people who contribute to the highest level, and for them it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to hang out in the ultimate property in the alps, whilst being fed by the best chefs in the world.

Stood in the Great House on the hill looking at a photo of Sam Branson and his friends, I turned around and Richard walked up to me arm outstretch and with a warm smile he bowed his head gently and welcomed me to his home. It is the greatest thing for me to meet such a distinguished businessman. I have many friends who have become incredibly successful. Most of them though are particularly hard with their staff and rule their businesses with an iron rod. Richard is someone who clearly breaks this mold and it is refreshing to see that he is a million miles away from the ludicrous business ethics they portray on The Apprentice.

It didn’t take him long to suss me out and pretty soon we were discussing sport. He is currently in training for the Virgin sponsored London Marathon. He had already heard I was a keen exerciser and immediately asked if I’d like to run with him. A couple of Richard’s guests arrived for drinks, they were staying on the nearby island. They owned and developed Vale and Beaver Creek in the US. (An amazing Ski Resort) During the conversation with Janet and Paul from Beaver Creek, one thing stuck out and it made an indelible mark in my brain that I think will be there forever.

Richard said, “well, if you say Yes! to everything, you are going to have a far more interesting life.”

In my 41 years on this planet nobody has ever give me such great advice or such a great directive. And it makes perfect sense. How many of us just potter through life and procrastinate. I have only been on the island less than a week, but I am 100% sure you will never see Sir Richard Branson procrastinating. He is a decisive character, who doesn’t stop for breath.

Before leaving for bed, I asked what time we should meet. He said “pop around to the house at 6.45am and just shout me if I am not up.”

I didn’t sleep a wink that night, excited at the prospect of continuing a great conversation with a fantastic philanthropist and entrepreneur.

We have since run for a number of hours together and I have had some solid business advice during my time following in his great footsteps. Advice that once you have heard it appears like complete common sense. However you could read a 100 books and find 50 different ways from a variety of experts which all contradict each other. So to hear it from someone you respect, immediately fills me with confidence. And actually now we have discussed it, I totally understand and I cannot wait to get back to UKFast and start implementing some of these great ideas.

Yesterday I ran with him a little later than before, and I reminded him of what he had said to me and what an impact it had.

I explained that you could have written an essay, yet in one short sentence he summed up just how simple you need to make it.

“If you say Yes! to everything, you are going to have a far more interesting life.”

What a great piece of advice and for anyone setting out as a young entrepreneur, in business, in school, wherever and whatever you are wanting to do, this is good advice. It is a simple strategy that I can promise you Branson lives by. He is a man with a large appetite for life and it grows bigger by the day, and I am sure his positive attitude towards just doing things straightaway, off the cuff without procrastinating has to have something to do with his enormous success.

I am very interested in how he portrays his feelings on this subject, as he decided to use the line as subject matter for a column he is doing for the New York Times. It is definately something to look out for.

Lawrence Jones UKFast

Dedicated Server Hosting, Manchester

But in real terms the journey started way before. And if Richard Branson has taught me anything, the brand experience is truly transferrable between Virgin businesses.

My first encounter of Virgin was Culture Cub. A great band in the 80’s. They wrote a song called Victims, which has truly the best piano introduction of any pop song.

I went on to approach Virgin Records years later with a demo after recording a song called “Whenever the Leaves Fall” on a load of old recording equipment once owned by John Lennon. It was in a tiny recording studio, not much bigger than this cockpit.

I spent months trying to talk myself into an appointment at the old Virgin headquarters on Ladbrook Grove and Harrow road, London.

It was there I learnt the art of instant relationship building and the importance of getting to know the gate keeper. I’d ring back in different accents, and the receptionist would say, “is that you again Lawrence?”

I never gave in and one day after hearing the receptionist ask a colleague “is Danny in?” after I asked to speak with the head of A&R, after getting knocked back again, I rang back 10 minutes later and confidently said, “hi there, is Danny in yet?”

I was promptly put through. This technique and confidence has stood me in great stead for many years since. On this occasion I was quickly brought down to earth with a bump after a lady answered the phone.

I said, “hi is Danny there?” “Danny speaking” the lady replied. I was taken aback as I was expecting a man!

In true Virgin style she was lovely and said on the basis that I had got this far, she agreed to see me.
I remember the meeting well, and she liked the track. The disadvantage I had was that I did not have a readily formed band. She was in the process of signing The Railway Children, ironically my next door neighbours in Salford! What is the likelihood of that?

In my opinion they signed the wrong act, and the Railway Children never left the platform. They spent their advance on MGB roadsters and were dropped after never cutting it.

I went on to get an offer from a chap called Brian St.James Carr, a well known solicitor involved with The Sex Pistols, PIL (Public Image Limited) and Andrew Lloyd Webber. He heard my songs and got me involved with a chap called Lawrence Roman an incredibly gifted classical musician who did all of Lloyd Webbers musical arrangements.

He did the clever stuff in my opinion and made Webber look amazing, however I was young and I thought I’d get loads of opportunities like this and I turned it down.

I then made a decision to make it on my own in business first and pursue my music later. I knew I would either be incredibly poor or incredibly rich but it was highly unlikely to be the latter on the basis of how the industry works.

I had also developed some friends who worked in the arts, and I quickly learned that I was not someone who coveted the limelight. I’d have thrived off a publishing deal, but being a star was not a motivator for me.

To be successful in anything you have to devote yourself to it fully. 20 years later, I am still devoted to the cause and although hugely successful in certain elements of our business I am only on the first few rungs of a very long ladder.

And the music? Well one day! That is if I ever calm down my love for developing people. When I met Gail, I sold my recording studio and focussed on developing UKFast.

Not a bad gamble as it turns out. Especially when you consider the odds that were against us.

If you use the Jim Collins 3 circles principal to identify should we have set up UKFast as a hosting business, I’d have quickly identified that this was a daft venture to embark on. However it does demonstrate that passion and determination can on occasions replace common sense and logic.

1. can we be the best at it?
   Well truly honestly at the time, no way. We were competing with multimillion pound corporations. That being said, we have won 6 years out of 10 the ISPA’s Best Hosting Provider accolade, so it is funny how things turn out
2. are we passionate about it?
   Absolutely. After trying to host our own domain name thegallery.com we had appalling trouble with a business called Newnet. Peter Coates (who recently sold his business for £3m) and his son Gary had huge potential, however they were techy people and appallingly arrogant. My wife just reading this laughed and asked if that was tetchy or techy? They were so bad that when we moved, we simply left our equipment with them as we couldn’t face dealing with them further.
3. is it financially viable?
   Well, if I’d known the difficulties ahead, I would not have ventured down this road. We were self-funded, which is a posh way of saying we had no money; so everything had to work immediately. We had to work so hard around the clock, if we made one error, we were dead in the water. That was the simple truth of the matter. Not something you want over your shoulder, yet that being said, you wont get a bigger driver! If I didn’t sell, we didn’t eat.

Times are very different now. I have 2 wonderful kids and a wife, who is still my business partner, with the added responsibility of a working mum. We have been very lucky. We still have no debt (which is a posh way of saying, now we have money in the business) and we have had numerous offers from competitors to buy UKFast including one for in excess of £50m.

But it is not the money that motivates us, it is the journey that we are on, and I simply love every day and I live for the challenge.
So why Necker? Well, when I was turned down by Danny Van Endon at Virgin, I set a goal. Right, I thought, I will get there myself. One day I will do business with Branson and Virgin in some capacity. I will become successful on my own.

A few years later, I hired a Grand Piano to the Virgin company for a new artist at a place called the Boardwalk in Manchester. I remember the Fax Header, with all of Richard Branson’s businesses and locations. It was incredibly inspiring. It had Necker as one of the destination boxes to tick. It was then that I decided, “I’d like to go there and one day meet the man behind the company.”

Last year whilst staying at The Lodge another property owned by Virgin, I said to Gail, we need to find out who hosts this business and get them as a client. It transpired they are already a customer, and have been a happy one for a number of years. We also host UKTV which is owned by NTL part of the Virgin Group.

And 15 years on from that Fax and that initial goal, here I find myself, mid air on the way to paradise.

view from the main house, Necker Island.

Lawrence Jones

I asked a couple of members of the BA staff, does BA stand for Bloody Awful, after the worst experience I have ever encountered of substandard behaviour by representatives of BA.

I was checking in proudly to my first class seats at the BA counter in Manchester, when I met the second rudest woman I have ever had the misfortune to meet. We had telephoned the night before just to ask advice on the recently introduced ESTA. (An official government document required if you are flying to or through America.) The advice we were given by BA was “don’t worry about it, arrive at check-in in the morning and we will deal with it then as technically you don’t need one as you are not staying in the US.”

We trusted the advice and when checking in, told the lady at the First Class counter why we had not filled out the ESTA as per our instructions from the BA staff the previous night. At this point she categorically refused to check us onto the flight and promptly blanked us. I asked for help, and pleaded with her for someone more senior who could assist.

Enter (stage right) the rudest woman I have ever met. She arrived with a plastic smile that she maintained for the best part of 45 seconds before laying into my wife who was beautiful in her calmness. The BA official told us we should have filled out the ESTA online and that we should have and I quote, “put that you are staying in Miami in the destination box.” I explained that our final destination was the British Virgin Islands, I didn’t dare tell her it was Necker. “we advise people who are traveling through the US to the Caribbean to put down they are staying in the Continental in Miami.”

I explained that this would be incorrect and that this was a US official immigration department document!

Without another word the 2 rude BA staff disappeared.

We were kept waiting 40 minutes. Powerless and no other members of BA staff were prepared to help. When we asked for help, they said, “we are not getting involved.”

It really was like a farce. And if she hadn’t made my 6 year old burst into tears I’d have have been laughing in disbelief. We had turned up to enjoy the first class experience.

Enter Simon, a scruffily dressed man in jeans and a creased polo shirt.  ”Because of the delay at check in and that my staff members had not known how to deal with the ESTA, we are able to board this flight to Heathrow, but unfortunately it was now too late to attach the luggage to the connecting flight.”

He advised us that he had personally seen to it that the plane to Miami would wait for us. He apologised for the behavior of the 2 staff and he assured me we would be met by ground staff and hurried through at the other end.

It was clear this man just wanted rid of the situation. He was working on the principal, Out of Sight Out of mind. (perhaps a new management course BA are running)

My 6 year old asked me , “Daddy, why was that lady so rude?” and I was unable to defend her.

This farce had actually delayed the plane leaving Manchester and stressed 100 or so other people also connecting to Miami and other destinations.

On arrival at Heathrow, there were no ground staff waiting to assist us between the planes. Luckily everyone else just managed to get their flight to Miami, but no surprise, we missed ours waiting for our luggage.

I saw the striking BA logo with the words CUSTOMER SERVICE in massive letters. Fantastic I thought. I’ll pop over and get some help.  The 2 ladies (who reminded me of Les Dawson’s characters) with folded arms grunted back at me when I politely said, “I don’t suppose you can help and tell me where to go, we have missed our flight.”

“We’re baggage.” I continued and the other one piped up, “have you a problem with your baggage?” “No” I replied, “well we can’t help you then. Like my friend told you we are baggage” They carried on talking and I couldn’t help pointing out the irony in how they described themselves.

Walking away I pondered, does BA stand for Bloody Awful. It should do!

Eventually after a series of equally idiotic encounters with various Bloody Awful staff I found someone who was lovely. She was kind and called Jeanette. However the damage was done. The brand was dead in my eyes.

She did start quite hard like the first Bloody Awful staff in Manchester, telling us that as we had missed the flight and it was more than likely non refundable. First class tickets can be as much as £9000 each I didn’t dare ask Gail how much she had paid. I must have turned white with the sick feeling. 4 tickets wasted. 3 demoralised girls, 2 hours extra waiting and 1 missed flight! Jeanette quickly realised what had happened.

She explained the check in staff in Manchester were all agency staff. She fixed the ESTA issue in a few minutes putting “IN TRANSIT” in the destination box.

She went on to explain they had not had a pay rise in 2 years and that they had no idea if their jobs would even be here tomorrow. “The spirit is dead, and I am so sorry you have had all this trouble.”

Every cloud has a silver lining. And thank God, Jeanette booked us on to a Virgin Atlantic seat. One of our daughters, the 3 year old had some sort of anaphylactic reaction on the plane and needed emergency care. 2 doctors on board helped out giving her adrenalin injections, oxygen and salbutamol. Nikki, the Upper Class Senior Cabin Crew team leader was amazing, along with her team particularly Ross and Sacha.

We sat on the floor of the cabin outside the cockpit. The captain regularly came out to check on our 3 year olds well-being and after nearly the entire flight she recovered miraculously as kids do!

So how does something so great, become so Bloody Awful? Fancy not rewarding your staff and undermining them so they don’t know if their jobs are safe. I can’t imagine the people at the top have had similar pay problems?

British Airways is overweight in some areas and anorexic in others.

In our business if you have a potential weakness in an area you invest in it, and you allocate the best, strongest most aligned individuals. You certainly don’t cut back.  The problem with BA is they have multiple areas of weakness, so as fast as you build relations with the likes of Jeanette you have sledge hammer Customer Services or disconnected agency staff with their own challenges. Invariably you destroy the brand value.

I think one of the issues BA also has is whilst they are busy infighting, arguing over pay and bureaucracy, the Virgin Atlantic team is taking conflict very seriously indeed. Going about their business with the Sun Tzu approach.

“He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.”

Well, in my mind BA does stand for Bloody Awful and although I have enough free airmiles to fly around the world 7 times, I’d sooner pay to fly a proper airline. Britain’s best airline Virgin.  And I wouldn’t swap our seat on the floor next to the loo for a BA Experience.

Lawrence Jones
UKFast

Mid recession, with no clear understanding of how long is the tunnel or how dark it might get, I am drawn back to the hypnotic clouds.

There are some things in life you can’t predict or influence, “weather” you want to or not. But do these unpredictable elements stop you from going about your normal business or day to day lives. Of course not. Only in extreme cases, but even these are “blips” and they cannot halt progress.

I am reminded of Earl Nightingale and his anology of the ship. He describes the damage caused by a ship in a harbor cut loose without a captain, crew, charts or destination. He then describes the same vessel, but this time with a captain, a crew a destination and therefore a purpose. The vessel will reach it’s destination every time. It will seldom be on the exact course, the currents and wind will do their best to divert them. However their collective purpose is stronger than the outside elements.

Just like the plane overhead. It’s destination firmly programmed in to the captain’s head and the onboard computers. The elements are constantly changing, but the clear path is set.

I set a path a few years ago, and every day I tread closer towards my goal. Some days slower than others I might add, but I carry on unperturbed. One of my intentions was to continue learning in order to keep myself interested and able to manage our rapidly growing responsibilities. And even though I am forced to change my location as the rain starts to spit, my vision is not spoiled by the change of scenes.

Far from it in this case. One of my goals is to surround myself with successful people so I can learn from them. I think my wife took this too literally and booked us into a place called The Lodge. Sir Richard Branson’s private Ski Chalet in Verbier Switzerland.

Although Richard isn’t here this week it is a real eye opener to meet some of his team and to see how real everything he has created is. And to realise  just how achievable it is to set and follow similar goals.

So we take a couple of hours a day on the slopes carving our future strategies in our heads before cataloguing, discussing, arguing, debating our future in these sumptuous surroundings.

I realise  that not everyone can afford to take time out in such lavish style. However you do need to take time out! However you do it, it can be in a garden shed as long as you get uninterrupted time to yourself. The important thing is you have the time to reflect and think about where you have come from, what you have learned, and where you want to get to and what you might encounter on the journey ahead.

Planning and knowing your outcome in the reverse order are the two most important factors that separate the Bransons from the Brainless.

“So where do I go and how do I do it?”

Personally I always head for the mountains. At home in Wales, we have been lucky enough to find ourselves a house and lake in the Snowdonia National Park. It is a place where mobile phones aren’t banned, they simply wont work!

Before the Lakehouse , I’d put on a rucksack, pack it full of beer, squeeze in a tent and enough provisions and off I’d go. My first weekend away with Gail who is now my wife, was in a serious thunderstorm where we camped at the top lake on Snowdon.

It rained so hard that breakfast turned to soup and we had to pitch the tent on a steep slope to stop it from filling with water.

But I’d set myself a goal years earlier, I’d find the perfect partner when I was still poor and she would be resilient, determined and kind.

I got more than I bargained for. She indeed became my partner in every sense, wife and business. Yes she had all the traits, and my friends who know me would laugh saying, she needs to be resilient and determined to put up with me!

So what do I mean when I say I got more than I bargained for? Well, I’d set the goal to find Gail whilst I was still poor. A fundamental flaw in goal setting.

“You have to be careful what you wish for” my Gran always used to say. She must have been on a Tony Robbins course!

What I should have set was to simply find the perfect woman. As a result, I remained “poor” and unsuccessful until I met her.

This is not superstition. This is simple programming of your brain. Whatever you ask for you get, whatever you focus on you will feel. This is how seriously I take goal setting now.

To give you an example of a goal I set as a child, “one day I will have a house in the mountains by a lake.”  I also set a burning desire to have a home that was big enough for everyone in my family to enjoy.

Gail found the perfect place amazingly less than 2 miles from the summit of snowdon, with an estate that has a 250 acre lake and the properties combined are big enough to sleep 28 people.

Coincidence? No, I don’t think so. I remember not being able to afford the fee at the Snowdon car park, plus I have too many cases of other goals for this to be coincidence.

It is worth noting that every super successful entrepreneur that I know follows the same key principals. Be very descriptive about what it is you intend on achieving, be bold and don’t hold back.

So instead of trying to switch off from your business at the weekend, get in your car or on a plane. Get a note book and pen and take some time out to pat yourself on the back for all that you have achieved and focus on Stage II.

Your business journey consists of many rungs on a very tall ladder. You determine how high you go. You can get off at any time if you get vertigo like Nixon of MoneySuperMarket.com, or you can keep climbing new ladders. Or in Bransons case, when you run out of ladders to climb on this earth, go Galactic. All I can say in his wake, is “Go Branson!”

And to fellow aspiring entrepreneurs like myself, never stop learning, never stop pushing, and certainly never stop trying.

Nothing should distract you from the path you set and don’t be hypnotised by events surrounding the economy. Your purpose will outlive any economic downturn.

I blogged a few weeks back after Rob Williams from Dolphin Music  died on the mountains where we are now.It is humbling to be reminded that life is so short. So get up, stop procrastinating.

All you need is pen, paper and you have a purpose.