The modest maverick who brought the Internet to millions

They say entrepreneurs are by nature mavericks - they don't fit the business norms and don't play by the accepted rules.
That's certainly true of internet pioneer Ajaz Ahmed, a man with no qualifications, who has never done market research and builds businesses on doing things differently, courting controversy and going on gut instinct.
Ajaz , founder of the internet game-changer Freeserve, gave his story and the benefit of his wisdom at the Allam Lecture Theatre at the University of Hull, in an event organised by For Entrepreneurs Only.
And it's quite a story - how Ajaz joined Dixons from school, conquered his self-doubts, persuaded the group chief executive to plunge into the internet in its early days, and built a business worth £9bn at the height of the dotcom boom.
And Ajaz told it in a modest, unassuming, charming manner. A man who has achieved so much from humble beginnings but remains grounded. The event was free and he gave his time for free to an attentive audience of business people and, encouragingly, many students. No doubt they left inspired to pursue an entrepreneurial path.
Ajaz spent 17 years with Dixons rising to be one of their senior store managers, before his "eureka" moment - discovering the potential of the internet while running one of Dixons' PC World stores.
He saw the potential for Dixons to become an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and took the idea to his boss. The idea got kicked into the long grass, but Ajaz would not take no for an answer. He badgered the group chief executive and got his backing.
Not long after, Freeserve launched and became the biggest UK ISP in just three months. Six months later the business floated with a value of £1.5bn. Its value rocketed to £9bn, before the dotcom bubble burst. Three years on Dixons sold the business to France Telecom for £1.6bn as Ajaz went on to become a serial entrepreneur.
As he admitted, Ajaz had made mistakes (all risk-takers do), but he has learned plenty.
Here's just some of Ajaz's pearls of wisdom shared with his audience:

·         Vital to his success was dispelling negative self-beliefs. Early in his career Ajaz wrote on a card: "I'm as good as anybody else".

·         To be successful in business you just have to have a good idea or take over an existing business and do it better.

·         Read about successful people and their traits. Find out how they achieve success.

·         Do the obvious before everyone realises it's obvious, e.g. when CNN's Ted Turner pioneered 24-hour television news when nobody thought viewers would want it. Now we could not do without it.

·         So many businesses are  held back by not knowing people. You have to get into your customer's shoes.

·         Believe in your gut instincts. Ajaz has never done market research, but then neither have Apple or IKEA - they just understand their customers' needs and desires.

·         New businesses can be noticed by getting into the press by doing and saying controversial things, such as when Ajaz launched an Asian restaurant with a friend and booked Bernard Manning for the launch.

Ajaz encouraged the students in the audience but warned them a degree alone meant nothing. Yorkshire's two richest men, Ken Morrison and Paul Sykes, are not graduates. Nor is Bill Gates or the late Steve Jobs.

Ajaz lamented the lack of focus on technical skills. Technology should be compulsory on school curricula and Britain needed to produce more engineers, he said. "Britain is being left behind - we are users, but not creators, of technology." Just one of the world's top 100 websites is British - and that's the BBC.

Ajaz is now working on the launch of Legal 365, a business aiming to exploit "Tesco's Law" which opens up the legal market. Legal 365 will offer fixed-price legal services online and from high street shops. Out goes legal jargon - in a plain English retail approach to wills and divorces.

I can't see it myself ... but that's the point. To Ajaz its obvious - it's an industry ripe for re-invention. Who would bet against Ajaz being the entrepreneur to re-invent it?

Oh, and by the way, what was Ajaz's last job with Dixons before the Freeserve adventure? Manager of PC World in Hull! Yet another example of great things coming out of our city.