If you look after your staff, they'll look after your customers. It's that simple.

In the same way that I tend to make up my mind about people within thirty seconds of meeting them, I also make up my mind about whether a business proposal excites me within about thirty seconds of looking at it. I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.

A successful business must have a sound knowledge of its market and work on how its product or service will be different, stand out and improve people's lives. If you can ensure it responds to a real need in the market place, your business can punch well above its weight.

So I became a publisher by mistake - well, not quite by mistake, because I wanted to be an editor but I had to make sure the magazine would survive. The point is this: Most businesses fail, so if you're going to succeed, it has to be about more than making money.

You need lucky breaks to be successful.

You shouldn't be looking for people slipping up, you should be looking for all the good things people do and praising those.

When I was 15, I left school to start a magazine, and it became a success because I wouldn't take no for an answer. I remember banging on James Baldwin's door to ask for an interview when he came to England. Then I got Jean-Paul Sartre's home phone number and asked him to contribute. If I'd been 30, he might have said no, but I was a 15-year-old with passion and he was charmed. Making money was always just a side product of having a good time and creating things nobody'd seen before.