HOW IMADE ITJonathan ShortFounder ofEco Plastics

After taking a businessdegree at Bath Univer-sity, Samantha Lottshunned the chance toclimb the corporate

ladder. “I wanted to controlmy owncareer but had no clue how to goabout it,” she said.Lottwanted to start her ownbusi-

ness but realised she needed experi-ence to add to what she had learntfrom textbooks. “I had studied busi-ness but I didn’t know anythingabout how to start one,” she said.Then she discovered the New

Entrepreneurs Foundation, whichplaces budding business mindsinside entrepreneurial companiesfor a year.As an intern at the consul-tancy Iris Concise in London, Lottshadowed staff who were advisingcompanies such as Shell, Sony andthe hotels group IHG on how toincrease their sales and profits.“It was obvious you might over-

come a hurdle but soon after there’sanother huge hill to climb,” saidLott, 24. “I now know that is animportant lesson.”After completing the programme

in June, Lott started working onBirdie List, a website that sets up agift registry to allow marrying cou-ples to collect cash presents for big-ticket items such as holidays, oreven a mortgage deposit, ratherthan toasters and cutlery.Lott dreamed it up with Daniel

Gillespie, a fellow intern. They weregiven £2,500 by the foundation tostart the business, and the websitewas launched last month. “Youoften don’t know where to startwhen youhave an idea. The founda-tion taught us a lot,” said Lott.The foundation has placed 30

fledgling entrepreneurs a year withcompanies such as TalkTalk, BetfairandTravelex since itwas founded in2010 by the bankers Oliver Pawle

and Lord Davies, the industrialistSir Nigel Rudd and the headhunterDee Stirling.The programme is heavily over-

subscribed, with more than 1,000applications for each intake —evidence, perhaps, of the lack ofhands-on experience available toaspiring business owners. Eachintern receives a £20,000 salary,paid by the host company.The scheme, which says it has

helped to start 26 businesses, hasbeen hailed by some of Britain’sbest-known entrepreneurs as excel-lent preparation for “the real thing”.

“It is the best way to learn,” saidBrent Hoberman, who co-foundedlastminute.com with Martha LaneFox in 1998 and sits on the founda-tion’s advisoryboardwithchief exec-utives from the host companies.Hobermanmet Lane Fox at Spec-

trum Strategy Consultants, wherethey decided to team up for theirventure. “I wanted to start a busi-ness and didn’t know enough abouthow to do it. My plan was to do anMBA too, but I didn’t need to afterthat,” he said. Lastminute was soldfor £577m in 2005.“The time spent working in

someone else’s business gives

people the chance to meet thefounders,” said Hoberman. “They arenot just sitting theremaking tea.“There is an ‘anyone can do it

with no experience’ ethos but Ithink that’s a bit extreme.”Neeta Patel, the foundation’s

chief executive,has started twobusi-nesses that failed, so she knows thevalue of experience, support and anetwork.“We try to teach that failure isn’t

the end,” said Patel. “Entrepreneursfail at least once, if notmore times.”

She wants to increase the num-bers accepted each year but thisdepends on funds from 24 sponsorsincludingTesco, Virgin andDeloitte.“We want more small and big com-panies offering to take applicants.”While on the scheme two years

ago, Mike Bandar started Probox,a fitness supplement service, withJames Vardy, another candidate.However, they soon discovered theyhad made a wrong move. “We triedto sell a product before we knewwhat it really was. Then we realisedit wasn’t right for us,” said Bandar,24, who lives in Birmingham.“The foundation taught us that

it’s about starting a scalable venturethat is right for you.”

Six months ago the pair startedTurn Partners, which plans toacquire failing companies andmakethem profitable.They recently bought a dating

website. “Wehave learnt to focus onour strengths. It sounds obvious,but James and I stick towhatwe aregood at rather than patch over ourweaknesses,” said Bandar.Stephan Eyeson hopes to learn

similar lessons over the next year.Since September he has beenworking at the Bright Ideas Trust, aLondon charity that offers start-uptraining and funding for youngentrepreneurs.The trust is a delivery partner for

the government’s start-up loansscheme, which hands out cheaploans to entrepreneurs.“I get to look through applica-

tions and work closely with thestart-ups,” said Eyeson, 24. “I’mlearning every day.”He said that so far the pro-

grammehas helped him to generateideas for his own business, whichhe hopes to launchwhen the courseis finished. “Lessons have taughtme to identify a good opportunity.Through practical experience I cansee how to execute an idea.”

REYCLING runs in JonathanShort’s family. His grandparentsgathered up abandoned rope fromships on the north bank of the Tyneand sold it for use in the paperindustry. His father Danny Shortstarted collecting scrapmetal inthe 1950s.“I startedworking in the

scrapyard during school holidayswhen Iwas 13. I loved it,” saidShort, who joined the familybusiness in 1980.By then his father was focusing

onwastemanagement. A landfilltax introduced in 1996 helped. “Weinvested in equipment to recovermaterials from skips we hired out,predominantly brick, soil andwood,” said Short. “The rest wasplastic, which I discovered could beprocessed into a saleable product.”Short put £15,000 of his savings

into setting up Eco Plastics, whichnow recycles 400,000 tons ofmixedplastics a year at its plant inHemswell Cliff, near Lincoln. Thecompany employs 179 staff and hasoffices in Newcastle. In December2012 it reported sales of £38m and aprofit of more than £7m.Short, 49, was born in North

Shields and attended the King’sSchool, Tynemouth. Hismotherkept the family company’s books.“I didn’t want to do A-levels,” he

said. “But I was happy I did in theend. I studied business, which gaveme a good grounding inprofit-and-loss accounts andbalance sheets.”For almost 20 years father and

sonworked together, but in 1999the business was forced tomakeway for a housing development onthe Tyne quays. Two years laterthey sold the skip hire operationand Short set up Eco Plastics.At first he paid big companies a

small fee for their waste, which hewould recycle and sell. “Wewereparticularly successful in buyingmixed plastics,” he said. “Councilshad been collecting all through the1990s but no one had invested inreprocessing thematerialproperly.”In 2003 Short began

exporting to China, wherethe value of recycledwastewas soaring. Then he openedan office in Hong Kong totackle “spurious” qualityclaims by companies thatpresumed he would notfly over to disputethem. “Qualityclaims dropped andsales went up.”By 2005 Short had

bought equipment to sort plasticsby colour and polymer. He spent£300,000 converting a SecondWorldWar hangar in Lincolnshireinto a processing plant, whichopened in April the following year.“Bits of kit failed to turn up on timeor didn’t work. It was a nightmare.”But teething troubles were the

least of Short’s worries. In 2007 hebegan raising £11m to fundmachines to process quality plasticfor food containers— commonlymilk, soft drink andwater bottles— only to lose £2mwhen thefinancial crisis struck in 2008.“Wewere still relying on the

Chinesemarket, which collapsed.We shut the plant for six weeks,had sales contracts ripped up bycustomers and lost money on thematerials we bought.”Then, in August 2009, the plant

burnt down after an extractor fancaught fire. “But the fire was ablessing in disguise.We had beensqueezing 100,000 tons of plasticinto an old building, having grownfrom 25,000 tons. Nowwe hadthree acres and ninemonths todesign and build a logical plant.”Eco Plastics teamed upwith

Coca-Cola in 2011 in a £15m jointventure to recycle all Coke bottlesfrom the 2012 Olympics and re-usethem for the Paralympics amonthlater. “It was tight, but we did it.Since thenwe’ve been stabilisingbefore the next stages ofdevelopment.”

Short lives inWhitley Bay,Tyne &Wear, with his wife,Anne, a housewife, and sonsTimothy and Nicholas.

He advises entre-preneurs to thinkaboutmore than justmakingmoney.“Choose somethingyou love to do. You’llbe good at it and, ifyou are determined,you’ll makemoney.”

HattieWilliams

School for baby Bransons

You need a lotof bottle to winin recycling

Samantha Lottruns a giftregistry for

marrying couples

PHOTOGRAPH: VICKI COUCHMAN /MAKE-UP: RACHELJONES / DRESS: RITVAWESTENIUS>

Budding entrepreneurs can findprecious experience with go-aheadcompanies, reports Kiki Loizou

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