8 How To Make Money Through Fashion Blogging and Influencing

Top 25 rags-to-riches entrepreneurs

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1. Sir Philip Green

Estimated fortune: £3.88billion

Sector: Fashion/retail

Start up capital: £20,000

Having initially set up his first business with a £20,000 loan, importing jeans from the Far East to sell on to retailers in London, Green went on to become the owner of the Arcadia Group, which owns well-known high street chains such as Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Outfit, Topshop/Topman and Wallis.+11

2. Mike Ashley

Estimate fortune: £3.75billion

Sector: Retail/sports equipment/fashion

Start up capital: £10,000

After leaving school at 16, he became a county-level squash coach. In the 1980s Ashley opened his first Sport & Ski shop in Maidenhead, before hitting the big time with Sports Direct which started from a £10,000 loan. It is now a presence across the UK’s high streets.+11

3. Sir Richard Branson

Estimated fortune: £3.6billion

Sector: Tourism/finance/media

Start up capital: £300

Branson epitomises the self-made entrepreneur. He started off creating a student magazine aged just 16, then in 1970, he founded a mail-order record company – within a year he had opened his first shop on London’s Oxford Street – Virgin Records. Virgin has now become a brand which now covers everything from telecommunications to space tourism.

4. Peter Hargreaves CBE

 Estimated fortune: £2.39billion

Sector: Finance

Start up capital: £500

Hargreaves and his business partner Stephen Lansdown began their investment broker business Hargreaves Lansdown from a spare bedroom, with just £500 and their cars as company assets. In 2007, the company was floated on the London stock market valued at £800million. It is now valued at £4.5billion.

5. John Caudwell

 Estimated fortune: £1.5billion

Sector: Telecoms

Start up capital: £25,000

In 1987, Caudwell became aware of a new technology – mobile phones. From humble beginnings on a factory production line in Stoke, and running a mail order shop in the Midlands to the UK’s fastest growing company, Caudwell built up the Caudwell Group, which included mobile phone chain Phones4U before netting more than £1billon at its sale in 2006.+11

6. Sir Charles Dunstone 

Estimated fortune: £1.49billion

Sector: Telecoms

Start up capital: £6,000

Charles began selling mobile phones out of his flat and became Europe’s largest independent mobile phone retailer from start up capital of £6,000 via his brand Carphone Warehouse. In July 2000 the company floated on the London Stock Exchange and based on an Issue price of 200p, the company was valued at approximately £1.7billion.

7. Sir Anwar Pervez and family

Estimated fortune: £1.31billion

Sector: Retail

Start up capital: £2,200 

Born in Pakistan, the son of a poor farmer, he grew up in a village in Punjab and would walk eight miles to school and back every day. Former bus conductor Pervez built Bestway Cash and Carry and his £1.3billion fortune, from scratch.

8. Chris Dawson

Estimated fortune: £1.28billion

Sector: Retail/fashion

Start up capital: £5,000

Dawson, nicknamed, ‘Plymouth’s deluxe Del Boy’ has shown selling goods from a suitcase can lead to big things, founding The Range (homeware) in 1988. His chain of discount stores made £88million profit in 2014. The group has more than 100 stores nationwide and is worth £1.23billon.

9. Bernard Lewis and family

Estimated fortune: £1.25billion

Sector: Retail/fashion

Start up capital: £25,000

Having opened his first shop aged 20 selling fruit and vegetables in North London, a shop that has been described as being made from corrugated iron and old timber on a bomb site, Bernard Lewis became the entrepreneur behind the River Island fashion brand and clothing chain.+11

10. Lord Ashcroft

Estimated fortune: £1.2billion

Sector: Business services

Start up capital: £15,000

Lord Ashcroft is an international businessman, philanthropist and politician. Started with a £15,000 bank loan, he sold his company just three years later for £1.3million. Ashcroft’s fortune has since come from many sources including selling home security giant ADT, and in 2011, he sold The Priory clinics for £925millon.

11. Richard Desmond

Estimated fortune: £1.2billion

Sector: Media

Start up capital: £25,000

This self-made media mogul is an English publisher and businessman, who used his entrepreneurial skills to build a media empire which started from a small base with a record shop, and now encompasses the Express Newspapers and various celebrity magazines, such as OK! and New!

12. Lord Graham Kirkham and family

Estimated fortune: £1.15billion

Sector: Retail/furniture

Start up capital: £25,000

Yorkshire Tory peer Lord Kirkham entered the billionaire league in 2010 when he sold his furniture company, DFS. Over 41 years, Kirkham grew the firm, which started above a snooker hall in the outskirts of Doncaster, to 79 stores, three factories and more than 2,600 staff. He is worth a reported £1.1billion.+11

13. Jon Hunt

Estimated fortune: £1.07billion

Sector: Property/estate agency

Start up capital: £100

Hunt’s property career began at age 19 when he borrowed a £100 deposit to buy a one-bedroom conversion for £4,500. In 1981 Hunt, then aged 28, founded Foxtons with school friend Anthony Pelligrinelli, who put in £30,000 to fund the business in its first year.

14. Sir Brian Souter and Ann Gloag

Estimated fortune: £1billion

Sector: Transport

Start up capital: £12,000

Sir Brian Souter and his sister Ann Gloag – a former bus conductor and former nurse – set-up Stagecoach, the international transport firm, in 1980 with just two vehicles, having spotted a gap in the market for intercity bus services.+11

15. Lord Sugar

Estimated fortune: £900million

Sector: Technology/property

Start up capital: £100

Having initially started selling car aerials and electrical goods out of a van which he had bought with his savings of £100, Lord Sugar has become one of Britain’s best known entrepreneurs, founding Amstrad in 1968 which specialised in cut-price consumer electronic goods. He is a familiar fixture on television, starring in BBC’s The Apprentice.

16. Steve Morgan OBE

Estimated fortune: £650million

Sector: Construction

Start up capital: £5,000

Working as a site agent for Wellington Civil Engineering when the parent company decided it was to close, Morgan offered to take over the contract, borrowed £5,000 from his father and completed the contract at a profit. Aged just 21, Morgan registered his new company, Redrow, which now employs more than 1,300 people as one of the countries leading housebuilders.+11

17. JK Rowling OBE

Estimated fortune: £570million

Sector: Books

Start up capital: £1,500

While living on state welfare, Rowling was given a £1,500 advance from her publishers to write Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1995. She was advised by her publishing company to get a day job as financial success for the book was slim.

18. Melvyn Morris

Estimated fortune: £500million

Sector: Online

Start up capital: £5,000

A self-made millionaire, Morris left school at 16 and started a handful of businesses including a Spanish property group and a dating agency. When uDate was sold in 2002, Morris established King, the British and Swedish games studio behind smartphone sensation Candy Crush.+11

19. Tom Singh OBE

Estimated fortune: £350million

Sector: Retail/Cash and carry

Start up capital: £5,000

Singh initially founded New Look in 1969 following a £5,000 load from his parents. It has grown to become the third largest women’s wear retailer in Britain behind Marks & Spencers and Next, and the second biggest women’s footwear retailer with a chain of over 1,000 stores worldwide.

20. Sukphal Singh

Estimated fortune: £300million

Sector: Transport

Start up capital: £5,000

A refugee from Idi Amin’s Uganda, Sukphal borrowed £5,000 to start Euro Car Parts when he was just 18 after he spotted a gap in the market. He supplied parts for prestige German car brands such as BMW and Mercedes and landed a £225million fortune after selling the company to Chicago-based LKQ Corporation.

21. Rita Sharma

Estimated fortune: £100million

Sector: Travel

Start up capital: £4,000

The richest female Asian entrepreneur in Britain, successful mother and CEO, the college dropout who built up her business from her garage. WorldWide Travels, her travel agency which focuses on bespoke solutions and its web arm, Bestattravel.com had sales of £100million this year.+11

22. Charlie Mullins

Estimated fortune: £100million

Sector: Plumbing

Start up capital: £25,000

Charlie Mullins was Britain’s first ‘millionaire plumber’. Pimlico Plumbers was started in a basement of a London estate agent in 1979. It now employs 200 people and has an £18million turnover.

23. Charlie Bigham

Estimated fortune: £100million

Sector: Food

Start up capital: £25,000

With £25,000 of savings, Charlie Bigham set up a firm using his name. It is a ready meal business which now employs 200 people across two sites and had sales in the last year of £26million.

24. Sam and Dan Houser

Estimated fortune: £80million

Sector: Gaming/technology

Start up capital: £25,000

The pair grew up near a video library in London watching American crime and cult films and Spaghetti Westerns. In 1998 the Houser brothers founded Rockstar Games and subsequently created Grand Theft Auto, one of the most successful video game franchises of all-time.

25. Linda Bennett OBE

Estimated fortune: £65million

Sector: Fashion

Start up capital: £15,000

Bennett started by first training herself at the Hackney’s Cordwainers College and then went on to practice her trade. With a £15,000 bank loan, Linda Bennett set up her first shop which later became fashion giant LK Bennett making her £65million. 

Source:.thisismoney. co.uk/

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