Fame and celebrity. The whole world is becoming obsessed by it.  Reality TV shows giving everyone their 5 minutes of fame, everyone believing that they can be a millionaire in a minute.  Under the shadow of all of this, tens of thousands of brilliant businesses continue to trade.  Happy to be in the shadows and out of the limelight, wanting to be famous in the eyes of their customers, not the general public.

Entrepreneuralism seems to be very focussed on the here and now nowadays.  Businesses that are just starting or have recently started grab the headlines.  Businesses that have gone through fast acceleration or received huge cash injections are the darlings of the media.  That’s absolutely fine and I love to see new businesses start.  I also love to hear the stories of how businesses that are well established – having been started a long time ago.

These are businesses started ten or fifteen years ago, by then, bedroom entrepreneurs, who didn’t have anywhere near the free resources that todays businesses have.  They’ve seen off competitors and challengers who have subsequently disappeared, they’ve stayed relevant, grown organically and remain as passionate about their customers today as they did the day they started.  Their businesses may not be sexy, like cloud computing, biotech or the low-carbon sector, however they do provide fantastic everyday products or services which differentiate themselves from the competition.

They’ve seen the world change and adjusted.  Seen more than one recession.  Seen the intense value in one to one relationships and understand value, more than price.  There is so much to be learned by their past mistakes and successes.  I am lucky to meet businesses of all ages in my job, new and old.  Everyone has a story and there is always a nugget of transferable gold in their start-up story.   So, today I salute the businesses who are over 10 years old, still competing, still doing new things, winning new business and staying relevant.