Losing My Virginity

RICHARD BRANSON

Reviewed by Jack

Richard Branson is arguably the most successful entrepreneur of the past half-century, creating 360 different companies and brands, from Virgin Cola to Virgin Music to Virgin Atlantic. Some failed, like Virgin Cola, and some set the industry standard, like Virgin Atlantic. But don’t think that Branson is done: he calls this book Volume One of his autobiographies. It covers the first forty-three years of his life, though the first chapter begins with one of his around-the-world balloon flights that failed in 1997. The book ends in 1993, when he was forced to sell Virgin Music to save Virgin Atlantic—a move he refers to as the low point of his business life. The overall theme of the book is survival, and this book is chock full of survival stories about his life, his remarkable entrepreneurial spirit, and his successes and his failures, which offer both inspiration and caution to those who would like to follow in his footsteps.

As with most autobiographies, we begin at the beginning, and Branson recounts his childhood, telling tales about family and school. Faced with the challenges of dyslexia and a rebellious spirit, Branson had an extremely hard time with authority at school. He had ideas about reforming some of the more arcane rules, and out of this desire came the student/youth newspaper called the Student that he started with his friend, Nik Powell (who would be a cohort of Branson’s throughout, enabling Branson to explore new ideas while Nik made them work on the front lines). The first issue was published in January 1968 when Branson was seventeen. Branson retells stories about how he and Nik called banks and large companies to get advertisers, and his methods reveal his ingeniousness. The pair called Coca-Cola, saying Pepsi was in the paper, and then reversed the tactic when calling Pepsi. Also he was fearless in pursuing the big story, and his interviews included subjects like Mick Jagger and John Lennon. Lennon almost put Branson out of business when he promised him an unreleased song to be put in the paper as a flexi-disc. Branson ramped up the print run, expecting a land rush of sales, but Lennon didn’t deliver. That story reflects just one of the misfortunes that Branson did not let push him offtrack.

In 1970, the Student employed almost twenty people—all earning £20 per week. But by that time, Branson had identified another avenue to explore. He knew how important music was to the readers of the Student. He also saw that regular record shops didn’t discount music, so he ran an ad in the Student offering cheaper mail-order records. The response was huge and a business was born. Of course, he knew they needed a clever name, and Virgin was suggested because they were all novices at business. Virgin Mail-Order Records took in bags and bags of mail orders, but the boom didn’t last. In January 1971, the Union of Post Office Workers went on strike for six months.

That obstacle put Branson once again in survival mode . . . a state which seemed to stimulate his creativity. He saw an opportunity to sell music in an actual retail store. At that time, record stores were dull, formal areas owned by people who knew little about what was new or exciting. The first Virgin record shop, located on Oxford Street in London, created an environment where customers could hang out, talk, and hear new music. While Nik was running the record store on a daily basis, Branson discovered that he could save some money by selling records that were for export and therefore cheaper. The decision to sell those records caused him to spend a night in jail, and his mother had to bail him out of the pokey. He ended up having to pay a fine of £60,000. Branson had always been a worker of the angles—looking for shortcuts—but that night he vowed he would never do anything that would cause him to be jailed or embarrassed again.

“But, unlike losing your virginity, in whatever world you make for yourself, you can keep embracing the new and the different over and over again.”

Branson soon realized that the margin at the retail level was small and that the real money was made behind the scenes. He found a run-down manor outside London in which to set up recording studios, and bought it for £30,000, borrowing £20,000 from a bank and the remainder from friends and family. Since mainstream recording studios were not very friendly to young bands, Branson was determined that the manor would be different. It had rooms for musicians to stay in while they recorded in the state-of-the-art studio constructed in an outbuilding. Eventually the studio would be world-famous for its state-of-the-art production facilities and ambiance. In 1992, Branson regretfully sold the Virgin label to EMI for a $1 billion to help subsidize Virgin Atlantic Airways, which he launched in 1984.

These are just a few of the stories that keep you turning the pages in Losing My Virginity. Branson’s every decision is an example of his continual search for the next big thing. And his ability to recognize it and learn from his failures or stumbles can be a model for all readers. He tells people, when asked to describe his personal business philosophy, “It’s not that simple: to be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running, and if you have a good team around you and more than a fair share of luck, you might make something happen.” JC

Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way, Three Rivers Press, Paperback 2004, 9780812932294

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