Multimedia from the Entrepreneurship Centre

Many new ventures never use venture capital. So how do they get the money to start and grow their business? The answer lies with the customers. Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Banana Republic′s Mel and Patricia Ziegler all used customers to develop their iconic companies. In this session, Dr John Mullins talks about his pragmatic thinking on business and what entrepreneurs need in the early stages of a venture.

Dr David Cleevely knows a thing or two about building businesses. A serial entrepreneur and investor, he has worked at the heart of the Cambridge Cluster on numerous ventures including telecoms consultancy Analysys, web based antibody company Abcam (ABC.L); and G femto base station company, 3WayNetworks. Abcam, which he co-founded in 1998 and was Chairman of until 2009, currently has a $1.5bn valuation – not bad for a company that starting selling antibodies door-to-door on a bike! David tells the Abcam story and looks at other billion dollar companies that have come out of Cambridge.