Alan Radbourne, who was a speaker at I Have A Dream 2014, is a University of Loughborough graduate who journeyed through a year-long business adventure to discover how much he could earn from a £1 investment. After earning over £20,000 from that small asset, he now runs his own business, tours the country as an inspirational speaker and his book The One Pound Challenge: The Ultimate Entrepreneurial Business Adventure is on the Kindle Business Autobiography Best Seller Charts. Dream Nation interviewed Alan to learn more about his personal life, career goals and even what animal he would compare himself to!
What attracted you to the One Pound Challenge above other crafts?
I wanted to see what I could achieve from just £1 in one year and to see how it could grow my investment. I knew that there was a potential that it could completely fail and I could spend a year struggling and not doing anything particularly productive but I’d much prefer to deal with disappointment if it didn’t work than with the regret of thinking ‘I wonder what would have happened or where would I be now if I had done it’ . So that was the main drive for me to actually start the challenge and give it a go, especially that year of graduating- a year to be able to invest in something. At that time in your life, it’s not a big deal; you’re not gonna be massively behind on your career if it doesn’t work and actually there’s a potential that something could really stem out from it.
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
I have been fortunate enough to have many highlights in my career so far. A key moment was being invited to BBC London studios to appear on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live programme in February 2015 to talk about the One Pound Challenge and my book release. This was a very surreal day and excellent experience. The other highlight was seeing book sales soar putting my book into second placed on the Kindle Business Autobiography best seller charts above celebrity entrepreneurs such as Karen Brady, Alan Sugar, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson.
What is your favourite aspect of your work?
My favourite part is meeting people. I love meeting different people and hearing their ideas. If I can help them to try and achieve that, whether through telling people about what I do to hopefully try and inspire them or whether it’s to give them practical advice or link them up with other people, just to be able to meet people, see what their dream is and try in a very small and make that reality. I don’t think there’s anything better than just seeing people really step into what they want to do and enjoy what they are doing.
What is your least favourite aspect of our work?
I’ll probably get hounded for this with young entrepreneurs nowadays but social media drives me nuts. I really struggle with it just because I’ve not got my head around how important it is so I just find that if I’m tryna send tweets out, I’m just like ‘oh, man, I wish I was doing something else right now, why am I doing this and is it actually leading to anything?’ so yeah. I know Claud [Dream Nation’s Managing Director] would hang his head in despair at me saying that because he tweets about a million times a day but social media is one of the things that I would love someone else to do that job for me. That would be great.
When it felt/feels like your dream won’t materialise, what has kept/keeps you going?
There were many times during my initial year, and still to this day, when I feel my dreams will not materialise. The way I overcome this is to look back over some of my successes to date and how often they came out of the blue when I just kept plugging away, working hard and waiting to pounce when an opportunity arises. This gives me the confidence and motivation to just keep going knowing that the journey so far has been beyond expectations. What is to stop the future being the same?
What obstacles have you had to overcome to get where you are now?
Specifically during the year of the One Pound Challenge, the biggest obstacle I found was learning how to challenge the frameworks of what I thought was possible. When you’re starting off something new, you can get caught up in what other people have done or how other people have succeeded that you get tempted to recreate or try and follow them rather than just taking inspiration from them to launch your own thing. When I first asked people ‘what do you think I can achieve with £1 in one year?’, a lot didn’t really get it. They couldn’t get their head around that I was trying to earn myself a salary and they couldn’t see where it was going but I had to challenge that perception of thinking nothing can be achieved with a pound. It’s very much just constantly challenging what I thought was possible, kind of the old phrase to think outside of the box- why can’t I do something?
Those were the obstacles you initially faced. Do you have any obstacles or fears that you currently face and how do you deal with those?
The main obstacle at the minute is very much time; being unsure of what is coming in the future. There’s lots of different ways that the One Pound Challenge and I personally could go. I don’t know which one is the right path but it’s really difficult to pursue all of them just because I don’t have the time to do that. Trying to manage pursuing different dreams but at the same time being able to actually still live life without just working twenty four hours a day- it’s a challenge at the moment. One of the big things is I’ve started speaking about my challenge in a few different circuit, which is really great and I really enjoy it and would love to do more of it. There [are] different people from across the country that are getting in touch with me to say ‘could you come down and speak in my school, job or business?’ but it would take a lot for me to get down there. Do I go down and speak at different places but it would take days out of my working week or do I try and focus a bit closer to home? Trying to balance that is quite difficult.
Do you practice any daily rituals?
No, I don’t. I find that I work better in the morning if I get up early in the morning with the kind of focus to do some work. Because I’ve forced myself to get out of bed, I tend to work really productively because I’m like well I might as well work otherwise I might as well have just stayed in bed. I always make sure that I finish work at a reasonable time so I’m not one of these people that will burn the candle at both ends and work all night. There are some amazing people out there that do the strangest things to succeed but I think you just have to find the right pattern for yourself and to get up at 3am would just not work for me.
Are there any tools or books, including apps, you would recommend?
The One Pound Challenge book is an exceptionally good read [laughs]. I think good books to read are probably not the ones that are the ‘this is your five-step plan to setting up your really brilliant business’. I find those sort of patterns have worked for that business which is great but everyone’s business is so different and has to grow differently and be led differently so I would probably avoid those. Books about stories of people just for inspiration and motivation to actually do something that can unlock something in other people. The best ones that I’ve read since starting my own thing have been books about people that go on adventures. They get me excited about wanting to go on an adventure and then I channel that through business, through what I wanna achieve. A couple months ago I finished reading Long Way Round. It was about Ewan McGregor and someone that went on a motorbike around the world. It was just amazing to hear about their journey and as I was reading it, it was kind of getting me ready [and feeling like] ‘I want another adventure, I wanna do something’ so that gave me the motivation to actually get up and try to find something and do something that I can get excited about which tends to lead to business for me.
What practical advice would you give to (up and coming business) people in the pursuit of their dreams?
First of all, I’d really want them to keep humility and their integrity in check. When you’re aspiring to things, especially within business because it’s so related to money, a lot of people can just become so focused on that that they lose the main aim of why they’re doing it- because they enjoy the work or they are trying address or help something. To just be accountable to people, so probably to find a group of people that are like minded. The sort of people you can be really nice with, you can be accountable with but also that you can kind of run ideas by and work together. Even if you’re not working on exactly the same project but just to be able to have people that you know will support you and you know will help you when you’re struggling or will celebrate with you when you have a victory. They don’t need to be anything overly special. I think the word ‘entrepreneur’ is quite a scary word for a lot of people but to know that a Geography and Sports Science student that’s never studied business can earn twenty grand a year from a quid, they can definitely earn the £2000 they need to pay off that bill or to go on holiday and so on.
If you had to describe yourself as an animal what animal would you be and why?
I absolutely adore penguins. I would quite happily be a penguin because they’re amazing. I quite like Labradors as well because they’re loyal but they like a bit of enjoyment. They like to run around, do different things and go on little adventures but then they still spend plenty of time lying down and relaxing and enjoying. Dogs they have an amazing life don’t they? They get fed and get walked. Sounds great.
You can find out more about Alan on his website http://www.myonepoundchallenge.co.uk/ or follow him on Twitter @AlanRadbourne.
