“Business owners and I always talk about the fact that we have navigated difficult paths that very few other people would have managed. A recurring theme is the struggle to find somebody who actually understands the process of selling a business from start to finish . Most business owners have appointed me to sell their companies because I sold my own company, Cardpoint plc. During that time I encountered many advisors who failed to appreciate I had to continue running the company throughout the process. Now when I advise others I always appreciate that they must be given the space and time to continue to run and grow the company whilst the process is underway.”
Mark Mills, Entrepreneur, Business Owner and Senior Partner
Born in Scotland in 1847 Alexander Graham Bell was a scientist, inventor and engineer who created the first practical telephone. His mother and wife were both profoundly deaf and this influenced Bell's experiments with hearing devices which led to his great invention. Bell had to fight hard in the patent courts to secure his invention but he succeeded and in 1876 offered to sell it to Western Union for $100K. This was rejected but two years later in 1878 the president of WU offered $25M and this time Bell refused. Bell was a man of great insight. In 1920 he prophesied on producing methane from the waste of farms (widely used today) and the use of solar panels on roofs to heat homes. He also invented data transmission using light as the transmission medium (now fibre optics) and patented it in 1880. The image shows Bell making the first call from New York to Chicago in 1892.