INTERVIEW Once you're a success you start to develop a different way of thinking James' success only came from hard work and dedication Just having a website does not mean you have a business When you look at the most successful websites in the world, the one thing they have in common is they are all simple. When you overcomplicate a site it's not what the customer wants. Look at Uber and the simplicity of their site. It's the most basic, simple and most effective app in the world. When you are looking to start a business people often come up with a creative brand and name but I'm a great believer in: 'does it do what it says on the tin?' If your brand and your name reflects what you do, you will drive more traffic than if you come up with a name that has no relevance to the business. Easyjet and comparethemarket.com do what they say, you know exactly what they do and those names work. Which industries do you think might fall by the wayside in the next few years? A number of industries will change, that's for sure - look at travel for example. We used to go up and down the high street but now business is delivered through a different mechanism. The music industry used to have record shops but now it's all about downloading. I see more and more industries being disrupted. Consumer behaviour has changed and high streets hardly exist. If you are thinking of starting a business ask yourself could this industry go through a disruptive change? Magazines and newspapers are a perfect example as demand for print media is in huge decline, so what is the likely future of that market and what could change that? Do you still hanker for the days when you were starting businesses from scratch? It was different then because there was very little information on how to start up a business. There was little funding, no start-up loans and the whole concept was less understood. I would much rather be in this environment now where there are so many resources, information, support and know-how out there. Thirty years after I started there are remarkable stories of start-ups doing so well and the motivation is much bigger today than it ever has been in history. Dragons' Den has fuelled the notion about how much fun running a business can be. Around half a million people a year start new businesses and that's because the environment is so much more favourable. 17http://www.comparethemarket.com