Branson, Gilbert offer advice to Detroit entrepreneurs

Detroit —

Sir Richard Branson, president and founder of the Virgin Group, offered tips for young entrepreneurs in Detroit Friday, telling them to be prepared to adapt and delegate to find success.

“You’ve got to be willing to change course based on circumstances,” he said. “Delegation fairly early on in business is really important. People are terrified of delegating, but then you can start getting a lot more things done.”

Branson was in Detroit to celebrate Virgin Atlantic’s latest venture with Delta Air Lines that will bring daily direct flights between London and Detroit to Metro Airport. He spoke at an event at the College of Creative Studies’ Taubman Center for Design Education as part of a panel on entrepreneurship.

Branson was joined on the panel by Rock Ventures chairman and founder Dan Gilbert, Shinola chief marketing officer Bridget Russo and Fresh Media Group founder Adriel Thornton.

The event also provided an opportunity for four local startups to pitch their ideas to the entrepreneurs. These businesses included The Floyd Leg, a furniture company aimed at city residents that was wildly successful on Kickstarter, Original Stix, which makes phone cases out of broken hockey sticks, Merit, a non-profit which sells apparel to fund college scholarships and Ali Sandifer Studio, a custom furniture shop based out of the Russell Industrial Center. They were chosen in collaboration with the Detroit Creative Corridor Center.

They weren’t competing for money or investment, but they did get advice, exposure to some of the biggest names in business in the city and some other perks.

Branson offered airfare for some of those involved in the business to build connections in other cities. He also pledged to help with marketing for Ali Sandifer Studio and said his foundation at Virgin would help Merit with their efforts to get students into college.

Gilbert offered his services and advice and even bought a table that husband and wife team Andre Sandifer and Abir Ali designed and created that was on display on stage.

Gilbert asked all of the companies to envision what success would look like for them down the road and to work backward to get there.

“A lot of this stuff is like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ where she came to the fork in the road and there was the Cheshire Cat and she asked ‘Which way do I go?’ and he asks, ‘Where are you going?’” said Gilbert. “I remember early on, we would say we have to get past the winging it stage.”

Russo emphasized the importance of quality products with a story.

“It started with food, with people really asking ‘what’s in my food,’ and now they’re asking ‘who made these products,’” she said. “There’s power in people’s products. They want to know where these products are coming from.”

Thornton, who helped start the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, stressed the power of Detroit’s history and how that can be used to market a product.

“As a commodity, I don’t think we at home appreciate how powerful that is,” he said.

The event had a mostly informal feel with plenty of joking. At one point, Branson remarked on how his company is experimenting with year-long paternal leave and said his employees take vacation as they want on an honor system.

“American companies should have longer holidays. Especially if you’ve got a family, you’ll never be able to bring your children up,” Branson said to cheers. “We give people the freedom to take holidays when they want and as much as they want on a trust basis.”

“We have something just as good,” Gilbert retorted. “Free popcorn and slushes.”

lrazzaq@detroitnews.com

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@laurenarazzaq