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Steven Beckford: Choose your partners as you would a spouse
Build a team you can depend on, and ask the right questions of those you hire, advises tech entrepreneur Steven Beckford.
After spending a year travelling around the world, Steven Beckford (now 30) fell into a "post-trip depression". With no job or university place, his prospects looked bleak. But a friendship he made in Japan came to the rescue.
A big fan of computer games and the latest technology, Beckford persuaded his new acquaintance to send him and his friends the latest gadgets, including many that were unavailable elsewhere.
Gradually word of his connection leaked out into the local gamer community, and people he hadn't seen since school started to come up to Beckford with various requests.
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As a result of his ability to source high-tech goods at relatively cheap prices, demand for Beckford's services "started to snowball". The turning point came shortly afterwards when people started knocking on his door, asking him for an early version of a tablet.
Indeed, they were so desperate to get one that they were willing to offer more than the cost price. This convinced Beckford of the "value in taking one gadget from one country and importing it to the UK". As a result, he set up ElectroBox in 2007 as an import/export firm, focusing on Chinese and Japanese electronics.
After that, Beckford rapidly began to expand his horizons, realising that the real money lay in developing his own products. Sadly, his first attempt would end in disaster. His combined MP3 player and motion detector would prove a hit with local tech enthusiasts, and was featured in the reward catalogues of several airlines.
However, Apple's announcement in 2008 that the latest version of the iPod Nano would contain "shake shuffle" technology essentially killed the product. This was only days after buyers from Dixons, HMV and Woolworths had shown interest.
Many people would have beendevastated by such a setback. However, although Beckford admits that "the day of Jobs' announcement will always be etched on my mind", he also admits to feeling strangely vindicated by Apple's decision.
After all, he had not only "managed to identify a gap in the market", but had also "designed and developed technology from scratch", beating one of the world's largest technology firms in the process.
Since then ElectroBox has developed multiple products. Beckford is particularly proud of Splash Gear, a waterproof MP3 player designed for use while swimming.
While in the early days Beckford handled everything from packaging to customer complaints, staying up to 3am in the morning, he now has a team of 40 staff split over three offices.
At the moment, annual turnover is £3.5m, although he thinks that this should go up significantly with the launch of headphones branded with the name of various football clubs.
Beckford thinks that potential entrepreneurs need to focus on building a good team, "who are in it for the long term". He warns that "people will bend the truth" in job interviews, which makes it vital to "ask the right questions".
He also thinks that the selection of a business partner is "as important as finding a partner in marriage". Having had several business relationships that didn't work out, he admits that he is now happy to be working with Clint Ippoma, who he views as "a brother".
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