Paul Visits Bala

Speciality Bites with

Paul Hargreaves

Chief executive of Cotswold Fayre

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I sometimes wonder about the different motivations behind people who start their own businesses

These drivers of the economy, who, combined, employ more people than the multi-national companies in the UK, sometimes end up running businesses for very different reasons.  There are those that are purely in it for profit, and aim to have a great lifestyle, and then live on the proceeds of a sale later on.  There are some who simply have had enough of working for others and want to be in control of their own destiny.  There are those that have an idea or product that they are so passionate about, their ‘raison d’etre’ is to be evangelistic and “convert” others to their product or idea.  Finally, but not exhaustively, there are those that think of it all as a game that they must win – these are the ultra-competitive ones, and must win at all costs.

Generally it may well be a combination of all these, and probably often is, with, perhaps, one being more dominant than the others.  It is for me.  But recently I have been reminded more strongly of how I got into all this.  I was engaged in charitable work in the inner-city London with churches there who were trying to change their community for good.  It was hard work, and required being fully immersed in the community with all the positive and negatives that involves.  However, the work involved donations from others to make it work and when these dried up, the work became impossible.  Around that time I read of pioneers from other generations who had the same dream of changing communities, but did this through starting profitable businesses.

When I started Cotswold Fayre all this was in my mind, but the first priority was putting food on the table, although it took several years to start making a profit.  In the early days though we did employ a couple of unemployable ex-addicts, the idea being that it was a step back into their integration into the community.  In hindsight, we probably did this a little early and probably should have concentrated in getting into the black first!

The fundamental belief that businesses can be used to change society and the world for good has been there throughout and it has been very encouraging this year to become a founder member of B Corporation in the UK.  B Corps are for profit businesses that believe the most effective way of changing the world is through business, and using business as a force for good.  Business has implications at all levels of society:  who and how you employ, the impact on the local community, how you do business with suppliers and customers, environmental impact and impact on the wider world community.

I am currently writing this off-line at the children’s centre in western Kenya, that has become very much part of the Cotswold Fayre story.  My predominant thoughts whilst here the last few days has been a desire to make my business more successful with the brilliant knock-on effect that we can invest more in the agri-businesses we have started here that could fundamentally change this particularly poor part of Africa.