Episode 2 Peter Jones Meets...

Big business is tough. But I believe there are certain factors that give us all

a fighting chance of turning our dreams of success into reality.

I'm on a mission to get inside the minds of some of Britain's

most successful entrepreneurs and find out how they made it.

I always knew I was going to make a few quid, do you know what I mean?

I don't remember really being content. Enough is never enough.

I will be studying their personalities

just as hard as their business models.

Maybe I need the business more than it needs me!

In a bid to unearth what drives these diverse characters,

I will also be asking some difficult questions.

Have you been told that you are mad?

Well, I think there has always been a very fine line between insanity and genius.

And I will be finding out how they survived

when they faced their biggest challenges.

I was so busy, and I had had this lump in my breast...

-So you realised you had a lump?

-Well, yeah.

-And you did nothing about it?

-No.

My goal is to find out if it's our individual DNA that

controls our destiny or whether there is a blueprint for success.

Tonight, two successful entrepreneurs with completely contrasting backgrounds.

They have both faced commercial crises, where one wrong move

could have destroyed all they have worked towards.

I will be meeting millionaire plumber Charlie Mullins.

What's it say?

A Londoner who has learned to control his business the hard way.

-So what happens if an employee doesn't adhere to something in this Bible?

-They go.

And Lord Karan Bilimoria, the Indian owner of Cobra beer, whose battle

to save his business from collapse came at a massive cost.

Was there a point when you ever felt, this is too much?

Several times you feel it's too much. But you never think of giving up.

Never ever.

Plumber Charlie Mullins is not your average handyman.

In fact, with an estimated personal wealth of £55 million, Charlie

is more likely to wear a Savile Row suit than a pair of plumber's overalls.

-Charlie.

-All right, Peter?

-How are you?

-All right, mate. How are you?

-Fantastic.

-I can't believe how tall you are!

-I bet if you fell over, you'd be halfway home.

-I would, but it's a good job I've got size 14 boots.

'In London alone, there is

nearly £500 million worth of plumbing business up for grabs.'

Employing over 200 people,

Charlie manages to turn over £17 million a year.

You can achieve things in life, it's just about, you know, believing

in yourself, putting something into it, and unfortunately, working hard.

Because there ain't nothing comes without hard work.

But Charlie's success is not just the result of hard work.

He has faced some serious crises and I want to find out

how he survived and how he is making millions from U-bends and toilets.

I like this, all the number plates.

We have got about 150 vans on the road.

And I think about 140 plumbing-related number plates.

What would that cost?

-I think it was about £25,000.

-And what's the line-up?

We have a system here, we are a clean and tidy outfit.

We portray ourselves as being the best in London.

You ain't putting no dirt on there, are you?

That is cleaner than my car!

The thing is, we have got about four people doing the valeting.

There is nothing worse, Peter, then a plumber turning up

in a dirty old van, his arse hanging out of his trousers.

Know what I mean? That's the wrong image.

So we send presentable people, nice tidy vans,

we're a very transparent company and offer a quality service.

And one day, I will hopefully be a successful as you.

I wouldn't say that, but wow!

I don't know, though. He seems to be doing pretty well to me.

But is there any substance behind that cheeky patter?

I had expected to be immersed in pipes and plungers.

-Watch your head, mate.

-'But this plumber's yard looks more like a van showroom.'

I think we have about four or five mechanics here.

And why do you do this yourself?

Well, you know yourself what mechanics can be like.

This way, we are in total control of it. We can work 24 hours here.

If we have got something off the road, fellers come in at night,

get it going again.

You quite like to keep everything tight, don't you?

-Close to you.

-Well, we run a pretty tight ship...

Is it tight, or is it...? Is it controlling?

Organising, I would call it. You know what I mean, organising it.

Walking around, I couldn't help feeling that it was all a bit too perfect and pristine.

I'll show you round to our... Unfortunately...

-This is your spray area?

-Spray area. Yes.

-Which I assume is immaculate as well?

-Um... What do you want me to say?

No, no, I'm starting to get the feeling that there is a little bit of OCD creeping into the business.

We're a tidy outfit, that's all I can say, Pete. Pete, this is Mark.

Fortunately, it wasn't

just me willing to give the boss a hard time.

This is probably the cleanest garage operation I have ever seen.

Well, this is still ongoing as well. We haven't finished yet.

Bringing it up to standard, his standard,

-in between doing the vans.

-And what do people say behind the scenes?

Behind the scenes?

I've heard people call him nutty, but how can you call a man nutty when...

When he's gone to such a high level of business, built a business out of nothing?

Would you want a dirty plumber in your house?

-Well, you wouldn't, would you? Of course not.

-There you go.

We have standards, know what I mean? It's either our way or the highway.

Charlie's personality is stamped all over his business and its staff.

He is controlling, organised, and obsessed with image.

But the strategy is clearly working.

And as well as eliminating the muck, he is clearly making a lot of brass.

People have asked me, did you expect to get where you are today as a plumber?

The answer is no. But it can be done.

Charlie draws a £1 million annual salary from his company.

He has got homes in Kent and Marbella,

where he is also expanding the business for the expat community.

This is a water feature we had done.

Our fellers here, the English fellers done all that.

All the pump is all in there and all the plumbing.

I know you think that's boring, but it's not.

I don't know that the word proud comes into it,

do you know what I mean? I just think that...

you have got to work hard

and the end result is that you earn a few quid.

It's all about believing in your own product and making it work.

And I'm telling you now, if you put hard-work into anything,

you'll be successful.

Before I dig deeper into Charlie's roots

and the reasons for his success, I've got an appointment with

an entrepreneur whose background could hardly be more different.

But like Charlie, Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea has also faced some

difficult business decisions.

Success is not a destination, success is a journey.

And it is a journey with lots of ups and downs.

As long as the trajectory is an upward trajectory, you will still have those bumps.

Karan Bilimoria started a beer company that today turns

over £50 million a year.

But it's not all been plain sailing.

My mission is to find out how he has adapted in difficult times.

To get a taste of Karan's product, I have travelled up

the M1 to the UK's biggest brewery in Burton on Trent.

-Lord Bilimoria, nice to see you.

-Very good to see you. Welcome.

-How are you?

Thank you. Well, this is a huge complex, isn't it?

It is. Welcome to the Burton brewery.

The biggest brewery in Britain and one of the biggest in Europe.

And this is where Cobra beer is brewed.

It has been brewed here for the last three years,

along with being brewed in Belgium and in India.

An Indian beer in Britain?

Sounds interesting. Shall we go through and have a chat?

Beer in Britain is big business.

This massive plant alone can produce over 150 million cases a year,

contributing to a market with an annual retail value of £16.5 billion.

This is the actual production line now, coming off...

-This is the production line.

-This is all Cobra?

-All Cobra.

-What does that make you feel like, when you see that?

-Oh, I love it.

I love the sound of the clinking bottles.

Karan seems very at home in his overalls as he proudly shows me

round the factory that now produces the beer he invented 20 years ago.

Born in India in 1961, Karan's father

and grandfather were both officers in the Indian Army.

Luck is when determination meets opportunity.

He is public-school educated, a Cambridge graduate,

and a fully qualified accountant.

I would say that I'm an entrepreneur and I would like to think that

I am an entrepreneur with a conscience and try to practise business

with the right principles.

I wanted to make not just a beer that was different, but the best Indian beer ever.

It was at university that the idea for a new beer was born.

The beer idea really started from the time when I came as a student,

when I took an instant liking to real ale.

I found very quickly that ale is delicious on its own in a pub,

but hopeless with food because it's too heavy and too bitter.

I found fizzy lagers were just terrible to drink on their own

and particularly bad to drink with food.

That's when this idea evolved that I would produce a beer which I would make in India that would have

the refreshing qualities of lager and the smoothness of ale combined.

Whatever business you go into, it is going to be against all the odds.

The way you practise business is important.

A favourite saying is that it is not enough to be the best IN the world, but to be the best FOR the world.

I think most of us would claim to have good principles in business

but the profits must be good, too,

or there is simply nothing to give back.

During my time with Karan, I will be finding out why he is

so keen to balance good ethics with good economics

and how for him, that comes with a £70 million price tag.

-This is our call centre, Pete.

-All right. OK. Looks busy.

Thank God it is.

Back in Pimlico, I wanted to get under the skin of who

Charlie really was.

And who better to ask than the call centre manager,

who also happens to be his wife of 41 years.

Peter, this is my wife.

-Linda, this is Peter.

-Nice to meet you.

What is he really like? To live with?

He is a workaholic and if we're not working at home,

we're working here, so we are working all the time.

-But, you know, we got family.

-We have had children.

There's loads of family. We got eight grandkids...

He don't find a lot of time with the younger ones.

Do you, because you're too busy?

But the older ones, because they can work as well.

Then he is fine with them. But the younger ones, a baby -

we've got a five-month-old one,

you don't didn't spend so much time, do you?

But she can't pick the phones up, or wash vans, can she?

-That's what I mean.

-No, but you know what I'm saying.

This is what I deal with all the time.

But it's not just his wife that Charlie employs.

He has got two daughters and two sons, all on the payroll.

And even the grandchildren chip in.

-Hi, guys.

-These are me two grandsons, Pete.

-Your two grandsons?

-Yeah.

-Ashley.

-Ashley.

-Charlie.

-Charlie. Charlie Jr.

-Yeah.

-So are you both going to be plumbers?

-Yeah.

Yeah, I'd like to be, yeah.

-Are you going to run Pimlico plumbers one-day?

-Hopefully.

-Yeah.

And one day, you'll be driving one of these?

It's got my name on the back.

PETER LAUGHS

Working with family is not easy, but I was starting to wonder if Charlie

was using his family to reinforce the hold he has over his company.

Combined with his extremely polished corporate image, I was

beginning to sense he was uneasy, desperate not to lose control.

Rooting out the reason for this would take more time,

but I was determined to get there soon.

-God, this is huge, isn't it?

-And there, you see you've got new bottles.

With over 3,000 beers on the UK market, a new brand,

like Karan created, had to have a great USP in order to succeed.

Got one.

I feel like a naughty boy,

I've come into the back of a builder's yard and pinched something.

These icons, each one of these stands for a stage in the Cobra beer story.

This is my father's crest.

I was introduced to beer in the Indian Army messes.

The elephants stand for learning. I came up with the idea for Cobra when I was at Cambridge.

This is a snake charmer in a rice field with the word "beer".

So it invoked... Rice is in the recipe.

-It came out of nowhere, it didn't exist before.

-And the scales?

The scales tipped one way which show it was against all the odds.

And then down here, you have a palm tree and a building with a B on it.

-The palm tree, was that supposed to be...?

-That's Bangalore, my first brewed Cobra was in Bangalore.

I then also started brewing it in Bedford, and now I brew in Burton.

Well, that's quite amazing.

-Is that the finished product apart from labelling?

-That's it. This is chilled, fresh beer. Unpasteurised.

You can feel how cold it is. This is before it goes to be pasteurised.

It is only relatively recently that Karan's brand

has become a household name in the UK.

So this emphasis on a rather slender history and heritage is

actually a clever marketing device in a fiercely competitive industry.

Good PR and marketing is something that seems to come quite naturally

to Charlie Mullins.

He courts celebrity clients.

People describe your looks and say, what does Charlie Mullins look like?

I say he looks like the last balloon at a children's party. You know that?

And he has even hired a publicist to help manage media opportunities

and promote the business in the press.

Peter, this is the reception area.

What is this, Charlie?

Well, a lot of these are customers we worked for.

Celebrities and high-profile people.

-So when you walk in here, imagine I'm a customer now.

-OK.

What impression are you trying to give me?

The idea is to give a general feel of the company and if somebody

is not aware of us, this hopefully backs up the type of outfit that we are.

Who is that old guy there, then?

-That is Buster.

-"You'll never believe how old Buster is!" Who is Buster?

Buster was one of the oldest workers in Britain and he joined us

-when he was 97, Buster.

-97?

-97, yeah.

-We got him out of the old people's home down the end.

-You didn't?!

To be honest, he'd walk up here and have a fag,

and I'd give him a fiver or something to have a beer and then he said,

rather than give me money, give me a job. "So what can you do, Buster?"

He said, "I will wash the vans, I will do anything."

So we took him on at 97. And seven years he was with us.

-It's a shame he is not around any more.

-And why did you do that?

-Was that a bit of a publicity tactic?

-Not at all.

It wasn't about a publicity thing.

He come here, used to do his work, and for us,

-it was value for money, do you know what I mean?

-OK.

Do I look that I'm such a nice, kind fellow to be doing it?

There's always... I think there is method in your madness.

Method in your madness, you're right.

So, recruiting a 100-year-old plumber and getting acres

of press coverage as a result wasn't a publicity stunt?

I'm not quite sure I buy that.

Time to get past the bluff

and find out what is really behind this polished PR-loving plumber.

Charlie founded his business with a second-hand van

and a bag of tools in 1979.

Three years later, he had a team of five working for him

and by 1988, he was closing in on the magic £1 million turnover mark.

But then, recession struck.

The premises he had borrowed heavily to buy lost over three quarters

of its value and Charlie fell into serious amounts of debt.

Pimlico had sprung a leak.

As a company, then, we nearly went bust. We never had it right at all.

We was employing the wrong people, we was offering the wrong service,

it just was a million miles away from it.

We nearly went under. And then when I seen two liquidators then, to...

-Wow.

-That's how serious it was.

One liquidator said, turn it all in.

And we went to get a second opinion, which was a great idea.

And he said, well, you're going to lose your house,

you're going to lose everything anyhow, you might as well fight for it.

And that's what we done.

So from that moment, I sort of changed everything.

I changed the staff, every member of staff went that was with us then.

I think it was such a frightening time.

We never had any dos and don'ts,

we never had no rules or guidelines to go by.

Once that went, I formed the Pimlico Bible, we call it now,

and everything we do, how we operate, it's in the book.

A plumber's with a Bible? This is something I had to see.

-What do you reckon?

-It's a Bible, isn't it?

-Pimlico Bible.

All your working guidelines...

There you go, personal appearance.

It says anything other than the company-issued items of visible clothing.

So that's clear, you got your uniform.

Extreme hairstyles, no ponytails.

You can't have stubble or be unshaven.

Earrings only on female operatives.

All I'm saying is, it's Pimlico plumbers,

you're representing us, you're going in somebody's house,

and we want you to look presentable.

So what happens if an employee doesn't adhere to something in this Bible?

They go.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Cos that is really, really interesting for me.

Because that now makes sense.

Because you have put controls in place in your business,

when your business was out of control.

And now, because you can see that you have got organised

and you have put all these clear,

very black-and-white restrictions on your staff and what you expect,

you've got success from that, haven't you?

Yeah, I'll agree with that. Yeah.

Back in Burton on Trent,

it was almost time to share a glass of beer.

-It's cold.

-That's for you. If you are tasting beer, the first...

-Tilt the glass?

-No, don't tilt the glass.

-What?

You have to keep it absolutely upright

and then pour it very slowly, straight up.

You can see the head of the beer.

Next thing is, what you want to do is test the clarity of the beer.

So you put your finger at the top of there, and you want to look through and see your finger behind.

Next thing, remember, you haven't sipped it yet!

Next thing you are seeing the colour. Is the beer looking quite nice and golden coloured?

Now, one more thing before you taste it. The aroma.

-Now you can taste it. Cheers.

-Cheers.

So I had learned something new about pouring beer.

But I was supposed to be finding out about Karan's entrepreneurial journey.

If I take you back to when you first came up with the whole Cobra concept.

-Tell me a little bit about that.

-I did a law degree at Cambridge.

I loved my time at Cambridge, but I had realised very quickly

I was not going to practise as a lawyer.

What I really wanted to do was start my own business.

And within six months of finishing my studies, I set up my business.

And my business, I had one big idea, and that was this beer idea of mine.

-Right.

-But I started with £20,000 of student debt to pay off.

And so, I started with a business partner Of mine,

a childhood friend of mine from India,

and we started importing polo sticks,

because I used to play polo for Cambridge and I captained

the first ever tour of India with the Cambridge University polo team.

I brought back some sticks with me and I started selling them

to Lilywhites and to Harrods and to the Royal Family saddlers.

All this was getting us experience in sourcing products,

in importing, in raising finance. The basics of business.

-And, all the time, the beer idea was there.

-Still there.

In 1990, Karan and his beer got their first big break,

when a large brewery in India

agreed to produce his new recipe for export.

Timing is so critical when bringing any product to market

and Karan got his right,

because as his beer was being launched in the UK,

the nation's tastes were changing.

The number of new Indian restaurants was on the rise

and lager was beginning to outsell ale.

Within five years, the company was valued at £1.5 million.

Today, it turns over more than 30 times that,

but I know that start-ups rarely come without difficulties.

'I needed to know exactly what economic

'and emotional challenges he faced in the early days of the business.

'Having secured support from the brewery in India,

'Karan started to distribute his beer from a small flat

'he and his business partner shared in West London.'

-So this is it? This is where it all started?

-This is it, yes.

On the second and third floor, up there.

The beer would get delivered by lorry

And drop a palette of beer here

and a palette of beer weighs one ton, literally one ton, 72 cases of beer.

So literally, on the pavement, was your deliveries

-of all your Cobra beer.

-Yeah, all the Cobra, and then my partner and I

would go up all those flights of stairs.

So how did you go about delivering it?

Well, our company car was

this £295 bright green battered Citroen deux chevaux called Albert.

And it needed push starting on most days.

And you could see the road through the holes in the floor of the car

and it could carry exactly 15 cases of Cobra,

-if you put some on the front seat as well.

-And what about money, then?

So clearly, you were literally brassic, you had no money at all?

We would run out of money all the time.

I remember once up in that roof conversion sitting there

and I looked at my wallet.

I pulled my wallet out, literally, pulled my wallet out

and there was no money. I looked in there, there were pennies.

I mean, do you feel like giving up? Do you feel down in the dumps?

-You feel really down in the dumps.

-Yeah.

-So that was really, everything was teetering on a knife edge?

-Yes.

Raising money was impossible.

We had a recession on in those days, like we do now.

It's horrible having to ask people, you know, to give you more credit.

-To go to your bank manager...

-Is that what you did?

And there was a bank manager round the corner here and he used to...

Our overdraft limit was £11,000, he let it go to £26,000.

He said, "Do you know, if you let me down,

"I'm coming to the end of my career, I'm about to get my pension?

"I will lose everything if you boys let me down."

And, of course, we never let him down.

You've got to really believe in your idea and in your product

and in your brand and I knew, from the beginning,

when we got those first reorders, we had something that was going

to succeed and something that could become a global brand.

That's what gets you through it.

'Taking on so much debt at such an early stage of the business

'shows that Karan believed in himself and his product.

'It also hints at an attitude to borrowing and risk

'that would get him into hot water later.

'So far, I'd enjoyed Karan's company. His charm and charisma

'are qualities that serve him and his company well.

'But I was troubled by the fact that Karan's beer is brewed in Britain.

'Whenever I drank it in the past, I'd bought into the idea

'that it was an authentic Indian beer imported into the UK.

'To discover it was, in fact, made in Burton on Trent

'was actually a little disappointing,

'but something I was determined to investigate.'

Later, I would discover something in Karan's history that would

test the mettle of even the most resilient entrepreneur.

'Like Karan, Charlie's entrepreneurial instincts

'have been severely tested.

'His brush with bankruptcy means that he now keeps his family close

'and rules his business with an iron fist.

'The image of his company, and its employees,

'is of paramount importance to him.

'To strip away Charlie's PR veneer, I'd have to take him

'out of his comfort zone and away from his businesses.

'I wanted to dig deeper into Charlie's background

'and discover where, and how,

'he was first inspired to become a plumber and a businessman.'

We're heading now to Elephant and Castle.

The Rockingham Estate is, er, you know, where I was brought up on,

the council estate there, pretty rough estate, you know.

I ain't looking forward to going back, if I'm honest,

-makes me nervous.

-You're not?

-No, no, it makes me nervous.

Um, you know, my time living there weren't good.

I didn't like it at all.

'Charlie was one of four boys.

'His dad worked in a factory and his mum was a cleaner.'

Well, is it safe?

-This is it?

-Yeah, unfortunately.

I used to live right at the top floor, know what I mean?

Right on the very top, number 53, no lift, no lights.

Er... They used to have all bars up at the windows, you know what I mean?

-You've still got quite a lot of bars up.

-Yeah. Although I wasn't sure

if that was to stop people getting in, or to stop you getting out.

-Was it that bad?

-Well, what do you think? Know what I mean?

So how did you then get yourself out of here?

Fortunately, there was a local plumber, er,

a chap called Bill Ellis, and I sort of met him

and he explained to me about plumbing and he had a nice house,

he had a motorbike, he had a car, he had loads of money

and he said to me, "If you go into plumbing,

"you'll have a job for life and you'll earn lots of money," you know?

And, er, fortunately, he was right.

So would you say you've been here, you've moved on,

-but you don't want to ever come back?

-Um...

You're right, and I agree with all of them.

'I may have discovered Charlie's first entrepreneurial role model.'

But 50 years ago, it wasn't plumbing that inspired him to succeed.

This is going to bring back some memories here, you know.

This was my life, boxing, you know.

-So this is your boxing club?

-Yeah, yeah. Started at 15.

'Lynn Boxing Club is one of the oldest in the country.

'It's trained Olympic hopefuls and professional fighters.'

-Probably get over the whole lot.

-Oh, he gets over the top.

I struggle with that at the bottom.

'The club played such an important part in Charlie's history

'that he has donated thousands of pounds to keep it running.'

-So when was the last time a glove went on?

-I think I was about 21.

I started 15, stopped at 21 through head injury.

I got sort of knocked out against London versus Wales and, um,

-unfortunately, I whacked my head on, you know, this bit out here.

-Ooh!

Somehow went under the rope, whacked there

and wound up in hospital for a week.

But, you know, the good thing that came out of it, I suppose, is, um...

You know, I then really concentrated on work.

I probably became a workaholic because of the not being able to box.

-Tell me when you're ready.

-I'm ready, yeah, yeah.

PETER LAUGHS

Yeah, you can feel that.

-How does it feel putting the clubs back on?

-It feels good, actually.

-Does it?

-I think I could make a comeback.

You put a nice little dent in there. But you know what's interesting?

You can see it in your eyes. It's a bit of a passion.

-You still love it.

-Oh, I love it!

Never been near boxing for about 30 years, because, er, I think

it hurt so much not to be able to do something you love, you know.

And you always think, you know, how far would you have gone in boxing?

And how far do you think you would have gone?

Er, I'd have won a lot more than what I would have lost, that's for sure.

And look where you ended up. You could be, what now, a...?

-Contender.

-You could be a contender.

I could have been a contender! Um... No, if I'm being honest,

give me a choice - boxer or a plumber - I'd be a boxer.

-Really?

-Yeah.

This was my passion, this was my love, and, um, you know what I mean,

I think it was cruelly taken away from me,

if I'm being honest, know what I mean.

'Finally, Charlie's starting to let his guard down

'and slowly revealing who he really is.

'Charlie's head injury was a turning point in his life,

'but from an early age, he'd shown he was a fighter,

'not afraid of hard work, and hugely aspirational.

'Key traits of every successful entrepreneur I know.'

'For my next meeting with Karan Bilimoria, I wanted

'to go back to the place where his business really got started.

'It was here, on Brick Lane,

'that the fledgling entrepreneur sold his first bottle.

'Very few Indian restaurant owners drink alcohol,

'so convincing them to sell a new type of beer

'posed a unique business challenge. I was keen to meet

'one of the company's first sales reps - Samson Sohail.'

-Karan?

-Ah!

-How are you?

-Good to see you.

-Good to see you.

-Welcome to Brick Lane.

-Thank you.

-This is Samson.

-It's a great pleasure to meet you.

-Same here.

Samson has been with me since 1993. 19 years.

-Wow.

-It's been a long time.

-19 years.

-Wow!

-So will you give me a tour of Brick Lane, then?

-I will do.

-Thank you.

-Let's go.

-Let's go.

'Karan told me that employing Samson was a masterstroke.'

-This is Aftob.

-Hi. Aftob, I'm Peter.

-Hello.

-Hi, good to meet you.

'He was so desperate to prove himself that he initially

'offered to work just on commission only.'

What was it that Samson gave you

that you thought, "I'm going to go for that"?

-He's a good persuader.

-So it was him?

-It was him.

-We only sell Cobra beer here.

-You only sell Cobra?

-That's the only beer we sell.

-What about this man, what do you think of him?

-He's very nice.

LAUGHTER

Good to see you, how are you?

'Samson apparently smashed all the sales targets he was set and,

'two decades on, is a millionaire and a shareholder in his own right.'

What was it that persuaded you to buy the beer?

It was a new idea.

That was something that you always want to know.

You know, if customers are happy, we are happy to serve the product

which customer are willing to go for.

And the fact that it was an Indian beer -

-did that make a difference to you?

-Of course.

Yeah, it was Indian beer,

plus it was better than other beer, they told me. The customers.

'But I still had some issues to tackle with Karan.

'I wanted to explore his entrepreneurial ethos

'and whether he feels he used his ethnicity and cultural connections

'to get the beer onto the market.'

Wasn't there just a little bit thinking,

"This is an Indian beer for an Indian community, please help me,

"please endorse it, please support another fellow Indian?"

rather than, "Buy my product, because it's great"?

The most important thing was the product.

It all came down to the product being genuinely different,

genuinely better, authentic, and doing a fantastic job

in terms of customers loving it.

But if you're selling something

that doesn't deliver what you're saying, you're a conman.

You sold your product into a community

that I think one of the USPs is the fact that it's an Indian beer.

-Yes, very much so.

-But it's very, very clear to me now that, actually,

it's an Indian beer made in Burton on Trent.

I came up with the idea for Cobra as an Indian in Britain.

I created it in India with Indians.

And for the first seven years, we exported Cobra from India.

The fact that the Cobra we consume here has not been produced in India,

and shipped over from India, does not stop it being an Indian beer.

This is a beer of Indian origin.

Is the fact that you are eating this food over here not Indian,

because it hasn't been cooked in Delhi and flown over from there?

Is that not really conning the public?

No-one has ever tried to con anyone.

One's got to be absolutely... Integrity is a keyword.

And, very clear, it says where it's brewed on the bottle.

It is an Indian beer, a beer of Indian origin, created in India.

It is an Indian product.

'It was a bit of a political answer from Lord Bilimoria.

'Clearly, an inspired mix of clever marketing

'and dogged determination got his beer off the ground.

'But I know that his journey from Brick Lane

'to multimillionaire businessman was not easy.

'I was about to unravel the secrets of Karan's business past and

'discuss a make or break deal that tested everything he believed in.'

'Back at the boxing club, Charlie had already revealed

'how he'd been forced to make a life-changing decision.'

Let's go and have a rest. A well-earned rest.

I think I'd have got you in the last round, though.

I think you got me in the first.

'What I now needed to know was when and where

'Charlie first recognised his instinct for making money

'And whether he still has the drive and determination

'to take his business to the next level.'

Whilst you were in that Rockingham Estate, did you

realise at that time that you were going to become an entrepreneur?

I always knew I was going to make a few quid, you know what I mean?

Whether it would be a bit of ducking and diving or a bit of work

and a bit of this, but, um, I'm not sure about the word entrepreneur,

I've never heard of it before, you know what I mean.

Certainly on the Rockingham.

I don't think it was out there then, but, um...

Yeah, I suppose, being honest, I knew I would always get a pound note.

-What was your average day as a teenager?

-I don't know.

We'd just go to the youth club...

Go boxing. I mean, boxing was the thing that, um,

really got you away from it.

That was wonderful. It makes you stand up for yourself.

It makes you want to achieve things.

Where I am today, I actually think it's a lot to do with the boxing.

Where I missed out on the boxing, I just became a total workaholic,

you know, and I thought, "There ain't no-one's going

"to knock me away on this, that's for sure."

So you've come from nothing

and now look at what's happened to your life.

-That's inspiring, isn't it?

-Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it is inspiring.

I'm a normal fellow, know what I mean, sort of, you know,

come from South London. And I'm a plumber.

-I can't be making out I'm someone I'm not.

-Come on, Charlie.

-You're about as normal as a dodo, aren't you?

-I'm a plumber!

Yeah, but you're a... you're not a normal plumber.

No, I'm an expensive plumber.

There's things inside you that are very different

to the average person on the street.

The average person on the street isn't,

you know, a complete control freak. The average person on the street

isn't as determined and passionate about starting their own business.

You are anything but average.

I... Well, I don't know. For me, I'm just a normal person.

I mean, as I said, I haven't changed much.

I don't speak any better than what I used to speak.

And now, what's important to Charlie now?

What's the next few years hold?

Get a bit more of the plumbing share in London,

a bit more of the market share in London.

'Where Charlie came from is clear,

'but it's not as clear to see where he's going.

'I have to say, I was just a little bit disappointed

'by his lack of ambition, because most of the entrepreneurs I know

'have plans for their business to take over the world.

'It's something I want to tackle with him

'before our time together is up.'

While Charlie was fighting his way out of poverty in South London,

Karan Bilimoria was enjoying the high life at public school in India.

On the face of it, his career has followed a privileged path,

from private education to Cambridge and now Parliament.

But Karan could rightly say there's a difference between being

presented with opportunity and actually making the most of it.

'My task is to find out who inspired him and what drove him on

'when making those crucial first steps into business.'

-Hi, Peter.

-Karan, how are you?

-Very well, thanks, how are you?

-Nice to see you.

-And you. Welcome to Parliament.

-Well, thank you!

Yeah, here we are in the central lobby in the Palace of Westminster.

-Beautiful.

-This is the centre of it.

If you stand on that spot, you are right in the middle of Parliament.

-So this is the middle of Parliament?

-This is it.

-This is the centre of the universe.

-The centre of the world!

'Karan Bilimoria was made Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea in 2006.

'He's a crossbench peer

'and one of the youngest to sit in the House of Lords.'

Every time I walk in here, I feel privileged to be here

and I feel lucky and I just pinch myself often and say,

"Is this real? This is so beautiful, this is so fantastic."

So you seem to me, coming across, you love heritage, you love history.

-It's important to you.

-History is so crucial,

because you've got to learn from your past.

My family, on my father's side, are a military family,

and on my mother's side is more of a business family.

Although my grandfather served in the Royal Indian Air Force,

he was from a business family,

and my great-grandfather was a member of the upper house in India,

the Rajya Sabha, the equivalent of the House of Lords.

And he was an entrepreneur, he was a philanthropist,

he was someone who looked after his family really well

and he has been a great inspiration to me.

'Walking through Parliament with Lord Bilimoria

'may have been an honour...'

-Where are we?

-Here we are.

-Oh, you're here?

-Yeah.

'..but getting into his slightly less impressive car

'didn't fill me with quite the same emotion.'

I've had this car for 16 years.

I've driven each of our four children home from the hospitals

-when they've been born.

-In this car?

-In this car and taken them home.

Because I must say, when I came out and saw this,

I wasn't quite expecting a car like this.

I mean, it will get us where we're going, will it?

LAUGHS: Yes.

It's very clearly quite a privileged background that you've had.

Have you used any family contacts

that have helped you in business in any way?

Yes, the family connections have always been there.

For example, as how I knew my business partner, Arjun Reddy,

because our families had known each other for four generations.

It was Arjun Reddy's uncle, Keshow Reddy,

who was our mentor here in London.

He was the one who introduced us to our first bank manager...

-Wow.

-..who gave us the £7,000 overdraft. And, in those days,

to get an unsecured £7,000 overdraft was a big deal

and it was through Uncle Keshow that we got the introduction

to Mysore Breweries, who we created Cobra with.

Do you think that you would still be able to have achieved

what you've achieved without that family background?

At that time, 30 years ago, there's no question

that this country, Britain, had a glass ceiling.

I was told by my family and friends very clearly,

"If you decide to work in Britain after your studies,

"remember you'll never get to the top, because you'll never be allowed to as a foreigner.

"There will be a glass ceiling." And there was a glass ceiling.

And what has changed, um...has been, over these last three decades,

is that that glass ceiling has been well and truly shattered.

I really believe this is a country now where there is opportunity

for all, regardless of race, religion or background and anyone can

get anywhere, depending on their abilities and their aspiration.

'It was fascinating to hear Karan reflect

'on the cultural challenges he faced,

'but all entrepreneurs face obstacles and I can't help feeling

'his family connections were crucial to his early success.

'Where earlier I'd discovered the roots of Charlie's fighting spirit

'lay in a boxing gym in Camberwell,

'Karan's was to be found

'in the slightly more auspicious Constitution Hill.'

So... Here we are...

at the Memorial Gates.

The beautiful sandstone columns with the names of the countries

whose citizens served in the First and Second World War.

And we're talking about nearly 5,000,000 individuals

-and it's absolutely remarkable...

-I can read some of the things here.

Predominantly from India and India alone, in the Indian subcontinent,

2.5 million, including 132,000 Gurkhas.

My father was head of all the Gurkhas in India before he retired.

And do you think, when you look up there, your dad is

looking down on you thinking how proud he is of what you've achieved?

I think of him all the time when I'm here.

Yes, so we have the three Victoria Cross winners.

Netrabahadur Thapa, who was posthumous.

And Gaje Ghale and Agansing Rai,

both of whom I was brought up with from childhood.

And if you hear of Gaje Ghale,

who was wounded in the attack that he was involved in,

but continued to lead his men, refused to go for medical help,

until he had won that battle,

and only when he was forced to, completely wounded,

but still fighting was he taken away.

With Agansing Rai, inspiring his men, leading from the front,

defeating the Japanese and then going single-handedly to a bunker

and overpowering a whole group of Japanese on his own.

Bravery that is unbelievable.

Inspirational beyond belief.

Has this motivated you personally to succeed

with your own life and mission?

Often, when I think of any problems or challenges

I might be going through, in business, in life...

it is nothing compared with what

these individuals faced in battle.

And my father faced going to war. Nothing!

It just puts everything into context.

'For the first time, I felt I'd broken through

'Karan's political persona and witnessed some real emotion.

'I'd discovered that, for completely different reasons,

'both he and Charlie Mullins' pasts

'have motivated and inspired them in their business battles.'

'The time had come

'for my final meeting with Charlie at his home in Kent.

'I was still curious about what I saw as a lack of ambition.

'Estimates suggest his plumbing business

'owns 6% of the market in London

'and Charlie is developing his interests in Spain,

'but, if I were him, I'd be pushing the company even further

'by rolling it out across the country

'or even developing my own branded products.'

-Hello, Charlie.

-Peter!

-I've got my kit for a game of tennis.

-Good man.

-All right?

-I'm ready.

'I was eager to tackle these tough issues with Charlie,

'but I hadn't forgotten the beating he gave me in the boxing ring

'and it was time to get my own back.'

Ooh, lovely pool.

-I like this.

-That's me phone. I've just upgraded it.

PETER LAUGHS

-This bit you'll like. I'll show you this bit here.

-A detail?

-Follow me.

You'll like this bit.

-The old Pimlico Bible.

-Give me a break!

-I'm telling you!

-You've put Pimlico Bible on your mural...

-Yeah.

-..in your pool?

-Yeah, you have to risk your life to see it.

-Right, I'm going to...

-Changing room there, mate.

I'll go and get changed, go and prepare yourself for defeat.

CHARLIE LAUGHS

-Do you want a game or a lesson?

-No, a game, let's go for it.

-OK.

'Charlie's backyard seemed a long way from the tennis academy

'that was my first entrepreneurial enterprise.'

Come on, Charlie, get on with it!

'But both Charlie and I were finding it hard

'to conceal our competitive spirit.'

Oh, yes!

What can I say? That was some serve, Pete.

Charlie, well done, thank you. Shall we go and get dry and have a chat?

Yeah, you'll start talking to me about tennis, aren't you?

PETER LAUGHS How to play tennis!

As each day has gone on, and I've got to know you...

I'm not going to say that

I completely understand how you are and how you operate,

but I've come to really like you.

I think you're a really, really clever...

You're fairly calculating, you're fairly manipulative,

you know what you're doing, but one thing I really have struggled with

is you don't want to expand this amazing business you've created.

If I was ten times bigger, how's it going to change my lifestyle?

It would probably change it for the worse, know what I mean? I mean...

I'm sitting here thinking... I tell you what I would do.

I'd definitely go up and down the country.

I'd open up a depot in Manchester.

I might even think about a range of different products.

You've opened up in Spain,

but I think that's more to do with the fact that

you're there in Spain, and you like it, because you feel comfortable.

I'm more than happy to work on

getting a bit more of the market share in London

and I think we're heading towards that anyhow, you know,

and the difference is, I'm not going to bust a gut to do it.

-Do you think psychologically has something been...?

-It could be.

-..preventing you from growing your business?

-Um...

It's not fear, that's for sure.

And, you know, I don't have the want or need for...

A few more quid's handy,

but, you know, that ain't what sort of makes me work these days.

Um... Look, I think I've got, I've got a nice business

a nice family, nice lifestyle, what more do I need?

-So you're happy with your lot?

-Yeah, course I am.

I've just got to let my face know. PETER LAUGHS

I think that sort of sums you up.

-Is that fair?

-Yeah, I mean, you know,

I don't want to be the richest man in the graveyard.

And I think I might have taken a little bit away from that as well,

because I know what I'm like.

I'm running at 400 miles an hour,

trying to do so many different things

and certainly spending time with you has made me realise

that maybe it's time that I should take it a little bit easier.

Yeah, well, you know, Pete, a day without learning is a day wasted.

Yeah.

-You know what I mean?

-Right. And, Charlie, I've got to ask you this.

Plastic surgery or no plastic surgery?

-You can be honest with me.

-Oh...

-A little bit?

If this has cost me money, I'd want my money back, Pete.

HE LAUGHS

That's what I love about you - you're very, very good.

'Success in big businesses is rarely achieved without conquering

'some serious obstacles and I wanted to dig deeper into Karan's story.

'Before our final meeting,

'I discovered that his business had experienced turbulent times

'that seriously tested both Karan's personal and business ethics.

'It was time to find out how he coped when the chips were down.'

'Identifying allies in the battlefield of business

'is a key part of almost every successful entrepreneur's skill set

'and Karan is no exception.'

-Iqbal?

-Hi, Karan.

-How are you doing?

-Peter Jones.

-Nice to meet you.

-Great to meet you.

'Iqbal Wahhab was a journalist and PR expert who played

'a massive part in marketing Karan's beer in its early days.'

And you've known each other for a long time?

I had a PR company in the late '80s, early '90s.

Karan and I also had a business together in the mid-'90s.

-Yeah, which was a magazine...

-Yes.

-..directed directly

-at the Indian restaurant business?

-And still going.

-Very clever.

'Tandoori Magazine was founded in 1994.

'On one level, it was a vehicle

'through which the Asian catering industry could communicate.'

-Lovely to meet you, enjoy your lunch.

-Thank you.

-Thanks, Iqbal.

'But it was also a genius idea

'that gave Karan a free platform from which to promote his beer.'

Great location.

When we were building Cobra, we had no money to market.

How do you reach out to 6,500 restaurants?

We looked out for a trade magazine that went to the Indian restaurants

and there wasn't one, so we started one.

OK, so it wasn't really the opportunity in terms of the fact

that you thought there was a real business in the magazine world.

You thought that, as a result of introducing a magazine,

your Cobra brand would benefit?

I wanted it to be an objective magazine,

where Cobra could advertise - of course, would advertise regularly -

and I was financing the whole thing.

But it had to be objective and that's why the magazine became

THE trade magazine for the sector from the time it started.

'Owning both the magazine and a beer brand meant Karan was walking

'a fine line between editorial interest and economic gain.

'A risk that backfired with disastrous consequences

'when the magazine featured an article criticising the service

'in Indian restaurants by claiming all waiters were miserable.'

There was an article written in the late '90s

which upset the restaurants, because of the way it was written

and it was quite critical and, as a result of that,

there was a boycott of Cobra beer.

-What, the Indian restaurants just boycotted it?

-Boycotted Cobra beer.

-Wow! OK, so that's a real...

-It was a terrible experience...

-It backfired.

..that we went on, and it took a year for the boycott to be lifted.

And it is the most awful, awful experience you can ever go

through as a business, where business was booming.

We were growing at over 70% year-on-year.

We had opened up depots all round the country and suddenly,

-everything just stops. And then...

-Horrendous.

The way we won through in the end was by literally communicating

with the restaurants and explaining that we would never ever wish

to harm them, our own customers

and it would mean sometimes being called to visit a restaurant

in the West Country at ten o'clock at night - getting there,

and driving straight down and seeing them at 1am.

Being with them till 2am or 3am and coming back to London at six in the morning.

And a year later, the boycott was over, and we've never looked back.

Having put his business in jeopardy once, Karan managed to win

his customers back through sheer hard work and determination.

Then growth of over 50% between 2000

and 2006 attracted some serious investors and together,

they adopted an aggressive debt-funded expansion plan.

But in 2008, Karan looked like he was about to lose it all again.

The global recession meant that those investors

wanted their money back.

He was forced to put his business up for sale.

You were in sinking sand as a business, then?

-You have expanded at a rapid rate...

-We had a lot of debt.

..and now you are in a situation where that debt can't even be refinanced.

And now you are going to a point where

-you are about to lose everything you have worked for your entire life?

-Yeah.

-Tell me how you felt at that point.

-You feel absolutely terrible.

You feel absolutely awful. But you realise that you have to survive.

You have to get through it.

And you have to have that faith and resolve within yourself that

you are going to get through it, and be determined.

Did it not put a strain on your family relationships, on your marriage?

Of course it does. Of course, it affects every part of your life.

Was there a point that you ever felt, this is too much?

Several times, you feel it is too much.

-But you never think of giving up. Never, ever.

-And no tears?

I can't remember crying, but I could have easily cried if...

-it was almost beyond tears. It was so bad, it was terrible.

-Really?

Throughout all that, I said to myself, one thing you are going to do

is behave with dignity through this process.

And seeing everyone else around me losing it, behaving awfully.

Karan needed to find a solution,

one that he hoped fitted with his values.

It came in the form of American brewers Molson Coors.

They formed a joint venture with Cobra

and brought it back from the brink by selling the company's assets

through a controversial pre-packaged administration.

Pre-packaged administrations have a bad reputation because sadly,

they are misused and that bad presentation is justified.

But with a pre-pack, you are trying to save as much as possible.

That is whole idea of a pre-pack. But unfortunately, pre-packs are often conducted in a manner

where they happened very quickly and the next day,

the same business starts in the same premises,

the same people, in the same way,

having wiped out all their shareholders,

having wiped out all their unsecured creditors,

having wiped out all their employees.

And they start again. And there is no way I could have done that.

I said, I'm not going to take advantage of this mechanism.

A, I'm going to look after all my employees, B,

all my shareholders, I'm going to take along with me.

Next, secured creditors will all be looked after

and the next thing I said is, I will also make sure that all

the unsecured creditors are settled, however long it takes me.

-How are you going to do that? Because the...

-I am doing it, as we speak.

-And the amount is...?

-It's a huge amount of money, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Reportedly £70 million.

It's a huge amount of money.

And you're still going to repay every penny?

That is what I'm going to do. I am going to settle the whole lot.

For Karan, opting for a pre-pack was apparently the best

option in the circumstances.

Sadly, many people lose money when a business

goes into administration, but Karan believes he is different

because of that promise, to pay back everyone that lost their money.

It's almost like your military heritage

came into play in that business environment.

It's a bit like having your wounded infantry that have come back from

a war under your leadership and now you're looking after their families.

You could make that analogy. I just feel you can't let people down.

You can't...

You know, people have had the faith to back you in whatever way,

whether as a supplier, whether as an investor, you can't let people down.

I can see Karan is determined to keep the promises

he has made to his old creditors, but he faces a real uphill battle

because he doesn't own all of the company

and £70 million is a huge amount of money to try and pay back.

However admirable, I'm not convinced it's achievable.

Charlie Mullins and Karan Bilimoria are intriguing individuals

from totally different backgrounds.

While they may have completely contrasting cultural roots,

they both have made their dreams of success a reality

and now I know how they did it.

Both Charlie and Karan are acutely aware of the importance of image

and work hard to push the profile of their brand.

Yet there is substance to much of their spin.

Is it safe?

Charlie came from humble origins, but was determined to better

himself and he has made millions by working hard.

I believe that the more you put into something,

the more you get out of it.

I'm a great believer that by giving something your full whack,

you can get an end result.

It's just believing that you can succeed in life.

But Charlie is also work-smart, learning from his mistakes

and changing his ways when disaster loomed.

I'm really pleased and I do value things.

And I value the fact that all your family can enjoy them things.

Also faced with downfall, Karan made some tough business decisions.

Success is not a destination, success is a journey.

And there is no question about it, the real test of leadership is

leadership in adversity, leadership in a crisis.

How do you come through the tough times?

Karan has kept his company alive without losing sight

of the most important thing to him, his principles.

Our vision is to aspire and achieve against all odds with integrity.

And that's what I think entrepreneurship is all about.

Coming up with an idea, wanting to get somewhere with the idea,

having all the odds stacked against you, having little or no means,

and going out there and making it happen.

It's this do-or-die, adapt and survive attitude that has made these

inspiring entrepreneurs who they are today.

-'Next time...'

-Hello, Peter.

-Laura, hi. Good to meet you.

I will be meeting Laura Tenison,

whose brush with death changed her life.

I had this terrible head-on collision, I broke my ribs,

my jaw bones, my cheek bones, a couple of legs.

But I survived, come on.

-Michael. Great to meet you.

-Great to meet you, too. Welcome to our HQ.

Wow, what a place!

And Michael Acton Smith, who wants his computer game for kids

to turn him into the Walt Disney of the Internet age.

I think we can build a multi-billion dollar business here.

-You think you can go to multi-billion dollar?

-Absolutely.

-We call it a B-HAG, a big, hairy, audacious goal.

-A B-HAG?

-Exactly. Yeah.

I don't quite know if I've met anybody that dreams quite as big as you!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd