Simon Woodroffe: 'I think AI is going to bring enormous wealth into the world'

Welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. Today’s guest is Simon Woodroffe, former Dragon and founder of YO! Sushi.

We’ll be discussing how to build rapport with clients and when ego works in business.

Listen to it in the media player below.

Alternatively, you can watch the full interview or read the interview transcript further down the page.

You can find out more about Simon at yo.co.uk.

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Simon Woodroffe podcast transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Simon Woodroffe. You may recognise him as one of the original panellists on Dragons’ Den, as well as the founder of YO! Sushi.

Simon: Hi Anna. Very nice to be here.

Anna: Lovely to have you. How are you doing?

Simon: I’m good. I just flew in from Girona, in the north of Spain, where we’re just opening this new hotel. Not YOTEL, actually, but one called Off Grid Girona, which is what it says on the can. I hope all your viewers/listeners are going to come and visit us.

I’m sure they will. Okay, so I’m just going to dive straight in here today. You left Dragons’ Den after series one because you said that you didn’t like the way that the entrepreneurs were being treated.

You’ve also said that ego is damaging in business. I’d love it, to kick us off, if you could expand on those two things.

Simon: I left Dragons’ Den and ego in business. Look. Dragons’ Den was actually a TV show in Japan and was a very kind of low story. And the BBC bought it and reformatted it. And I remember turning up to the first show and none of us really knew what was going to happen, and it was filmed cinema verité, ‘as if life’.

So, there was no editing done during the show. We didn’t stop along the way. It was really cinema verité. And yes, I suppose it is true that there’s only one word for ‘business’ in the world, but it means lots of different things. And the world that I live in is small businesses and start-up businesses and all of that.

I’m really somebody who applauds anybody who goes out and does anything, you know, who stands up and puts their head above the parapet and goes and does anything. And that’s why I think people used to say, ‘Oh, he was the nice Dragon’. It was about the time that, all the music TV shows were going on and then Simon Cowell was dissing everybody. I think they [the BBC] wanted it to be a bit like that for Dragons to be, really, Dragons. And it’s not me. I was the nice one. Did I tell them that they should do it differently? Knowing me at that time, I wouldn’t have done now, but I think I probably did.

I said that they should get better investors. I mean, look, I’ll tell you something. If you want to get really good investments in this world, don’t go and ask the BBC. The thing people always ask me is, on Dragons’ Den, give me some advice. ‘I’m going on Dragons’ Den, what should I do’?

The thing to remember is if you’re going to raise money, is that Dragons’ Den is showbusiness, it’s not business. There are five people sitting there and they’re all thinking of themselves: ‘I wonder what my performance is going to be like’, rather than ‘Am I going to get a great investment here?’ So yes, I probably did say that and don’t think I would do it now.

It’s their show. It’s not my show. I was a guest. I was a contributor. And actually, love them or hate them, the Dragons’ Den and Big Brother and The Apprentice and all of them. What they have done, I think, for our culture, is to show people that these things are doable. Business isn’t that complicated.

I’m sure there are an awful lot of people sitting at home going, ‘I could do better than that.’

Ego in business. I’m not sure. It’s a funny thing, ego, because it’s like self-confidence. I’m here, sitting here with you, and I appear confident. Well, I hope I appear confident, And I feel confident because I know my subjects.

But it wasn’t always like that. When I started out, I remember I had quite low self-esteem. I didn’t, but I put the grunt work in and I got to this stage and it’s much more comfortable. So, do you need ego in business? I think that in the very early days of a new start-up business, megalomaniac control, obsessive, not life-work balance – just doing everything yourself – is a really good way to get things started.

But once you’ve got it up and running, that’s when you have to back off and let other people do things their way, not your way. That’s the theory, according to me.

How do you know when you’ve reached that point where you’re ready to let go of the reins a little bit?

Simon: I think when you are ready to get rid of your TV set, get rid of Instagram, turn off social media or whatever your version of that is, and are willing to work the 16 hours, seven days a week that an entrepreneur works. Not because you want a pile of money, but because you’ve got to a stage where you’ve got obsessed with doing something.

I always say take a notebook or a phone, or whatever it is, and start writing down things as they occur to you and start developing it. And never, ever think, ‘Shall I? Shan’t I? Shall I? Shan’t I? Shall I? Shan’t I?’ That’s standing on the starting line. Instead put in the work of researching, and famously I’ve always said to give yourself three months if you can possibly find the money to do that, to actually go and research something if it’s coming to the fore in your notebook. At the end of three months, nearly 100 days, if you have 1% improvement a day at the end of three months, that’s 100% improvement, and then you’re in a position to decide whether to do it. Even if you spend a bit of money; you spend a bit of time. You can say no at that stage, but you’ve got to get to the point where you actually start to believe in something.

And once you are obsessed, I think it’s what happened with me, then you can go through the pain it takes to do it. After all, why would you want to go and be an entrepreneur, which involves sleepless nights and lots of worry and not so much time for your friends and your family that, well, if you if you’ve got a very nice social life and you’ve got a nice job, why would you want to do that?

You’d be crazy to do it. But I think us entrepreneurs, or people who go and do difficult things, all sorts of different sorts of people, but there’s always a bit like with the grit in the oyster, the bit chippy or angry or difficult. If you’re one of the difficult ones, it’s a good place to be.

That’s so interesting to me, because I have read previously that you don’t agree with market research when starting up a business. Perhaps the research that you do in that three-month period is almost like a form of market research, or an alternative. What would you say to that?

Simon: It’s a good line, isn’t it? Throw away the marketing budget and spend all your money on doing something great. So, that word of mouth, or word of Instagram or whatever it is goes out and everybody takes it. And I think there’s a point to that. But yeah, I could pretty much argue the opposite of anything that I say.

We live in a world where everybody seems to have these very precise opinions. I’m on this side or that. I can argue the opposite of most things. I could really argue that you should do lots and lots of market research. So, maybe my 100 days is market research. But I think people sometimes do too much, rely too much on what the stats tell them.

And if you’ve got a gut instinct – I had with sushi. I’d lived in California. I knew that very often fads that happen in America translate into the UK about five years later. I love sushi, I know lots of people who did, and that was enough for me. If I’d gone out and asked you, ‘Would you like to eat raw fish off conveyor belts with robots serving the drinks, or even sleep in a seven square metre room in our hotels with no natural light because the window’s facing the corridors?’ that market research would not have said yes. But of course, when I did it, I heard what I call the ‘magic words’, which are, ‘If this is so great, why didn’t somebody do this before?’

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think there is a tendency in business to play it a bit safe, like I’m a vegetarian. And if you go out for a sandwich, you’re basically limited to egg and cress or falafel and hummus.

I guess it is about taking those risks but measuring those risks and how you differentiate between the two, what is a calculated risk and what is just a bit daft.

Simon: I never really thought I was a risk taker, and clearly, I was. I put everything I had, which wasn’t a great deal, in 1997. I put everything that I had on the line, and I suppose for 90 per cent of the time I really believed it, and for 5 per cent I wobbled and for 5 per cent was sheer terror.

Clearly, I was a risk taker, but I was pretty sensible. I have always been pretty sensible. This was no sort of, ‘Let’s just give it a go. To hell with it. Let’s just do it’. I crossed every ‘T’, dotted every ‘I’, and eventually got to the stage where I thought, well, look, even if I lose everything, I so much want to see this thing that’s in my mind come to fruition that I’m going to do it anyway.

I see a lot of the younger people now who are starting internet companies or whatever they are, and they’re a group of people who have a collective subconscious, if you like, where they all want to see this happen and they’re willing to put everything on the line. The younger you do it, the more recovery time you’ve got and the more risks you can take.

I never met the person who went out to do what they really dreamed of doing when they had that obsession and regretted it, regardless of whether they succeeded or failed. Because of course, if you do fail, you’ve learned an awful lot, and the next time you’re going to be better at it.

It’s a good education. But I met a lot of people who later in life looked back and said, ‘You know, I wish I’d taken more risks when I was younger and put my head above the parapet and tried things out. It would have been a more interesting life.’

Anna: That’s apparently one of the top regrets of the dying, from what I understand.

Simon: I didn’t know that that is, that’s the thing researched. Yeah, it’s the famous, ‘I wish I had spent more time in the office.’ That’s the thing, isn’t it?

If we’re looking in practical terms, that 100 days you’ve got there, you’re improving by 1% each day. Give us some practical examples of what that might look like.

Simon: Cast my mind back to the beginning of Project YO! Sushi. All the food was out in the open, so we had to deal with health and safety people. We had to deal with fire people because we were cooking in the open, because all the kitchens were out there. People said that you put food on the conveyor belts and people are going to pay by the number of plates you have at the end of the meal.

People are going to steal the plates, all of those things. Of course, too, when I first started, it was pre-internet. You couldn’t really research. And I have some very expensive phone calls to Japan, and indeed to the Japanese embassy, which was really quite so flabbergasted, a bit like asking the English embassy where you can start a fish and chip shop here to happen.

I went to Japan and I did the research in the end, but that those things were all taking risks and, you could say 1% a day, but it’s really it’s bit by bit, getting to know more. Dotting the ‘I’s, crossing the ‘T’s, you get to know more.

You’re talking to people. And I say when you’re talking to people, be quiet enough to really listen to what people are saying and don’t say, ‘No, no, no, no, they’re there. You’re wrong, you’re wrong.’ You want to hear everything people have got to say. And then you filter it as it comes in.

Some goes in the rubbish bin, some is useful, some is put aside that could be used later on. It’s just getting to know your subjects and what it is and all the things that could happen. And I think another thing is that when you do see a glitch rather than glossing over it

to put your hand deep into your pockets and pull out the problem and actually look at it in a bigger way. And I think that what you’re also trying to do, is trying to visualise what it will be like, for example, what it will be like on the first day that you launch your product, whatever that is. Because if you can’t visualise it, it’s probably not going to happen.

And you’ve got to visualise why people want to come and get what you’re offering. And to make that as attractive as you can. And the longer you go on, funnily enough, in Spain, where we’re opening this new hotel Off Grid Girona. He was saying the other day, it’s amazing, every time I start doing something or putting one of the parts of the experience in place and doing the rooms up and doing the building up, he said, ‘Every time I pause and think, I’m not quite sure about that and wait and wait and wait, there’s always a solution comes up.’ And one of my things is there is a solution to everything in this world.

You’ve just got to find it. Whatever difficult predicament you could be in at any point, however stuck you are in your life. However unsure you are of where to go next. Most problems, if you do nothing, go away. If you keep looking for solutions, most problems go away. You don’t have to do anything about them.

An example of that is, you know, if you look back over the things you worried about last week or last month or last year, you can’t even remember what they were.

Anna: Yes.

Simon: There are other things that require massive and immediate action, and it’s knowing which ones you have to take action on and which ones you can let fade away.

You’ve talked about learning a lot from Japanese culture, and rather than the sort of ‘go, go, go’, make every decision very quickly. There is a culture in business in Japan where they have, you said, seven meetings. They get to talk to each other, they get to learn how other people work, what their characteristics are, strengths and weaknesses and so on.

Especially in today’s business world, it’s quite a contrast.

Simon: Yes. In Japan, what you’re talking about, they call it nemawashi. It’s the art of forming rapport with the person you’re talking to. Of course, in America, you go to a meeting, they go, ‘Okay, Simon, so what’s the deal?’ The English are terribly over polite, but, I like the idea of actually just building more rapport.

Business is relatively simple. Getting yourself, for the people who are thinking of starting something or the early stage, getting yourself ready, getting yourself in a good position so you’re comfortable with yourself, you’re comfortable what you’re doing, and also your interpersonal relationships with people. Business is easy.

It’s people that’s hard and the hardest person

Anna: Is yourself.

Simon: Is yourself. So, I think the preparation for business is not so much on a spreadsheet or even on a business plan, but it is getting yourself ready. And people say, ‘How do I get started?’ So often I’ve heard people say, ‘We’re still writing the business plan’. And I know you help people do business plans, and it’s important to do that, but they are just imagination, they’re nothing to do with reality.

There were a couple of points I really loved there. It made me think of how in the den when you gave people feedback that you wouldn’t give now, and perhaps that was maybe your ego. And before you knew yourself better, that maybe you were giving advice that you wouldn’t give now. But also, this piece about the changing world of business, and you’ve thrived through forming relationships and getting in touch with people.

And I think in any business that is absolutely solid and absolutely key. But maybe the thing that’s changed is the people that you’re looking to speak to, maybe having less time, less energy, less capacity, to, I guess, help you in the way that you’re looking for. What would you say to that?

Simon: I remember saying to myself when people didn’t answer my phone calls, when I was trying to get in touch with people. I thought if I ever get into that situation, which I am in now, I would always return people’s calls. And to date, with a bit of help from my friends, and people I work with, I do respond to everybody who writes to me and that’s an absolute pleasure to be able to do that, insofar as I can be of any help. I think everybody’s got to find their own way. And we hear a lot that way about children having too much social media. And everybody’s get tied up in just sending emails. One of the things that I’ve learned in this world is to do differently to what everybody else is doing, how to stand out in the crowd, do it differently.

There’s nobody who doesn’t like being flattered, listened to, told that they’re interesting. And I think one of the things I’ve learned is I thought that you had to just talk a lot if you were the leader of something. And as I’ve got older, I find that the more you listen, the quieter you are and the less you say, the more people listen to every word.

So, whatever your glitches – and you already know what the glitches are – I suggest, think about practicing behaving differently to how you would normally behave and just see what reactions you get when that happens.

This feeds into one of my other questions. So, when you were a roadie for various rock acts, so you left school with a couple of O-levels. One of the biggest changes we’ve seen in the business world and in the wider world is massive competition, competing not only with people locally but globally, having to have qualifications for jobs that traditionally didn’t have qualifications.

If somebody finds themselves in the same position now that you were then, what advice would you give them about developing a career and starting a business?

Simon: Well, if you’re going to be an airline pilot or a brain surgeon, please, please go to university to get trained properly. But if you’re not, business is relatively simple. I’m a big fan of a guy called Felix Dennis, who wrote a book called How to Be Rich. And he also wrote a poem, which I’ll do for you just quickly.

I think it really says it all. It says how simple business is. You’re the difficult bit. So, this goes:

Ideas we’ve had ‘em
Since Eve first met Adam
But take it from me
Execution’s the key
Good fortune
The truth is
The more that you sweat
The harder you work
The luckier you get

The money
Go find a likely investor to get what you need
You toady to greed
The talent
Go find it
But first wine and dine it
It’s tedious work
With a talented jerk
To win it
You’ve got to be in it
But never be late to quit and cut bait
Expansion is vanity
Profit is sanity
Overhead begs and it walks on two legs

The first step just do it and bluff your way through it
Remember to duck
Godspeed and good luck

And if you’ve got an idea. Don’t go to university. Don’t go and get training. I mean, not least because you’re probably going to be ahead after three years; you’re going to be ahead of your compatriots in terms of street life and actually being out doing things.

You’re going to be £50,000 better off and, you’re going to be in it. Get out there, do whatever you need to do – over-deliver. Think about what you can do for them, not what people can do for you. That took me a long time to understand, that thought process. What can I do for others rather than what can they do for me?

Go out there and do that, you can do that if you’re going to work for somebody. But you have to save up a little bit of money. And that requires not having so much pleasure. When things are difficult, when you’re out of your comfort zone, actually, it’s not a bad place to be.

We’re trained that, when we’re feeling uncomfortable, that we quickly get back to a place where we feel comfortable again. But stand outside it, be uncomfortable for a period. A reasonable period of time is what successful people do. The pebble dropped into the water. The ripples go out and you get more comfortable in a difficult world or with difficult things.

Something that does make people feel a bit uncomfortable, depending on where you stand on it, is AI and its emergence. I’ve read in another interview that you like sticking to business where you’re working with physical creations. How has that been influenced by AI (if at all)? What role does AI play in driving innovation?

Simon: Well, I mean, I’m passionate about this new world that we’re going to live in and what’s going to happen with AI and all the rest. I just happen to have done the opposite when everybody was going on the internet. I went and did physical things. I might have a theory to do the opposite to everybody else, that there’s less competition.

But I think that AI and all the rest of it, what it’s going to do for a kick-off is it’s going to bring enormous wealth into the world, but at the same time, it’s going to put not just the people who are struggling at the bottom of the society, but vast swathes of people in the middle, out of a job.

How we as a society reshape ourselves so that the wealth that that brings into the world, that AI brings into the world, could be more fairly distributed across the whole world to have. I think in a hundred years’ time, people will look back and say that they had that disparity of wealth between the very rich and the very poor.

I can see some kind of form of universal wage coming in so that people can still have vision and passion and do things in this world. I think you may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. And I think that the world in 100 years will be an absolutely amazing place, because we’ll be solving all the problems that we see.

Look at the wars that are happening at the moment and the shoots of possible solutions. But the realisation amongst so many people, that it’s just so old-fashioned, having wars. I’ll tell you what I’m waiting for. I’m waiting for the glasses, which are the precursor to having implants.

Anna: The Google Glass type thing?

Well, I could sit and talk about this all day. But unfortunately, we do have to wrap up there. But before we go, there has been a theme that runs throughout your social media content and the Book of YO!, and running throughout this podcast episode, too.

What tips do you have for small businesses listening or watching about, dare I say, self-mastery or really getting to know yourself?

Simon: Go online and read the Book of YO! Read my new autobiography when it comes out next year, YO! Man. Go and learn and listen to other people, filter what comes in, take what you need and leave the rest. And learn to be a better person. And once you do that, people like to do business with people they like and trust.

You can only be trustable if you trust yourself. So, look at yourself first before you look at other people.

Anna: Well, that’s a brilliant note to end on. Thanks so much for coming on, Simon. Thank you and thank you for watching. We’ll see you next time.

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Simon Woodroffe: ‘I think AI is going to bring enormous wealth into the world’