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DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESS IDEAS186

that the only women who broke through her employer’s glass ceiling
were middle-class and well educated. She realised that she would
attain her fantasy of becoming managing director of a company only by
setting up on her own. Her eponymous company, Garlands Call Centres,
generated pre-tax profits in 2004 of £3 million on a turnover of £30
million.136

pioneering the concept of ‘women returners’ Dame Stephanie
Shirley founded Freelance Programmers in order to have an
intellectually challenging job which fitted in with her plans for a
family. One of her many brilliant insights was to realise that she was
not alone in wanting to combine a vigorous professional career with
bringing up a family.

Xansa (the £2 billion capital company which grew from Freelance
Programmers via the FI Group) pioneered the concept of ‘women
returners’ and began as a company of women, for women.

It also began with just £6 of capital.137

what are you able to put into the business? Are you like Jill
Barker, typical of many start-ups in using a £45,000 redundancy
payment to establish Green Baby, or are you like Frederick Smith,
risking a multi-million-dollar family trust to establish Federal Express,
thereby realising a business idea first articulated in a business school
paper?

what will you take out of the business? Are you interested in
securing sufficient regular income to survive comfortably? Are you
interested in securing quick profit? Or are you committed to achieving
significant capital gains from the establishment and sale of a
business?

supporting a way of life If your wish is to generate sufficient cash-
flow to support a certain way of life, then you do not need to create a
business which has an existence fully independent of you. You are in
charge 24/7 and if the business were to grow too large, it might prevent
you from being personally involved in all aspects of the work or from
enjoying your lifestyle.

selling on For those who wish to sell their business in due course,
however, an organisation’s ability to survive without the hands-on
involvement of the founder will inevitably represent a pre-condition for
eventual sale. It also means that the founder will have to learn new