18th January 2026.

Opening Reflection

There’s a strange illusion about retail. Customers walk into a shop, see the shelves stocked, the lights on, the coffee flowing, and assume the business is simply there — stable, solid, predictable.

They don’t see how close it often is to tipping.

And January, without fail, is the month that tests that illusion hardest.

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January: When the Drama Always Arrives

I sometimes wonder whether I’m jinxed. Every January, without exception, something happens that makes me question why I chose this path in the first place. Just when cash flow is tight, footfall is down, and customers are in hibernation mode — bang — a major drama lands.

This year’s drama?
A fire at one of our major suppliers.

They’re out of production and it’s going to take time to get back up and running. That single incident wipes £250,000 a week off turnover. When something like that happens, your mind goes straight to the same brutal question:

How in God’s name am I going to fill that gap?

When I first started out in business, this sort of scenario would have caused weeks of sleepless nights. I would have replayed every worst-case outcome on a loop. But after years of disasters, near-misses, and genuine scares, I’ve learned something important:

There is always a way through.
It may not be the way you planned — but a way appears.

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What Customers Don’t See

Customers see a shelf with sausages on it.
They don’t see:

• the supplier whose factory has just burned down

• the sudden £250k-a-week hole in turnover

• the frantic recalculations behind the scenes

• the cashflow conversations nobody wants to have

• the contingency plans being rewritten overnight

• the quiet fear that something you’ve built over years could unravel

Retail looks calm on the surface.
Underneath, it’s controlled chaos.

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Entrepreneurship: Romance vs Reality

I read on TikTok this week that one of my favourite broadcasters, Amol Rajan, has decided to leave the BBC and take the plunge into entrepreneurship. Anyone with the courage to do that has my vote. It’s a brave decision.

But it also raises a question I’ve thought about for years:

Is entrepreneurship something you can learn — or is it something you either have or you don’t?

In my experience, many people coming from corporate environments struggle when they step into entrepreneurship. Not because they’re not intelligent or capable — but because they try to recreate the infrastructure they’re used to.

Big teams.
Committees.
Processes.
Safety nets.

Startups don’t work like that.

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The Street-Fighter Mentality

Starting and running a business isn’t strategic chess — it’s a street fight. And unless you have a street-fighter’s mentality, you’re doomed to fail.

Entrepreneurship requires qualities that aren’t celebrated in polite company:

• irrational optimism

• stubbornness

• selfishness

• disruption

• an ability to ignore advice

• a willingness to look foolish

• an appetite for uncertainty

There’s a lot of romance around startups. Pitch decks. Success stories. “Founder journeys.” The truth is much uglier. You have to be prepared to keep going when logic says stop.

Why I Made the Jump (And Why It Worked for Me)

I’ve been running my own business for over 20 years now. Before that, I worked at the BBC as a producer-director. So if I could make that transition, so can Amol.

But there’s an important difference.

I always felt I had no choice but to run my own business.

I’m unemployable.
I hate being told what to do.
I’m not a team player.
I’m disruptive.
I challenge convention instinctively.

Even at the BBC, I was known for being difficult. I only survived because a few smart bosses realised the best way to get good work out of me was to leave me alone.

My concern for many corporate professionals is this:
the very skills that help you survive in a corporate environment are often redundant in entrepreneurship.

Hierarchy. Consensus. Risk avoidance. Process worship.
None of that saves you in a street fight.

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Why I Still Do It

With all the chaos, the pressure, the January disasters, and the moments where it feels like everything could collapse — people still ask why I do it.

The answer is simple:
because I wouldn’t survive any other way.

This life demands obsession, resilience, and a refusal to quit. And for all its brutality, it rewards honesty. Retail tells you immediately whether you’re getting it right.

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Closing Reflection

So when customers walk into a shop and everything looks calm, remember this: calm is usually earned the hard way.

Behind every stocked shelf is a founder doing mental arithmetic at 3am.
Behind every “open” sign is someone making peace with uncertainty.
Behind every independent business is a street fight you never saw.

And if you’re still standing in January — you’re doing something right.

Onwards.