On Tuesday Week Three, managing director of FGH Security, Peter Harrison, delivered a keynote speech to students about setting up a business and the challenges he faced, especially how he managed to slay the infamous dragons of the BBC’s Dragons’ Den. Organised by LUSU Involve’s Enterprise unit in cooperation with Lancaster Entrepreneurs Society and filmed by LUTubetv.
Whilst studying Management Science here at Lancaster University, Harrison started out as a door supervisor at Lancaster nightclubs Revolution and The Sugarhouse. During this time, he met his current partner, Wesley Downham, on the doors and together they quickly spotted an opportunity to provide a better service than what was on offer and approached university colleges to provide security for end of year extravaganzas. This was their first lesson in business as inaccurate forecasting led to them losing £2,000 on the event. It was however the foundation of their business as they “had lost £2,000 that we were determined to make back”.
Jameil Robertson, a Mangement and Entrepreneurship student in County college, said: “I found the talk extremely insightful. The fact that Peter was a student in the management school, like me, also allowed me to relate to him. He managed to create the business from scratch without any support from the university, so he’s really inspired me to pursue my own business ideas.”
FGH Security now provide both manned and electronic security and are proud of their in-house training program as recognised SIA approved contractors, the highest level of recognition within the Security Industry Authority.
Harrison showed emotion upon returning to the University. “It was great to come back to the Management School and give a talk,” he said. “The central message of my talk was that at the time, I didn’t think my degree was useful, but now that my business is growing I’m finding I’m using the knowledge and skills gained whilst studying here.”
