“The Beatles themselves were entrepreneurs [....] They developed an Elevator Pitch (‘like Elvis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry, only better…’) found a Mentor (their manager Brian Epstein), and then a First Customer, (producer George Martin, who signed them to EMI).”

During the 1980s Southon co-founded The Instruction Set, a computer services company, which he later sold to what is now Cap Gemini. He worked with 17 start-up ventures during the 1990s, two of which, Riversoft and Micromuse, later listed on the stock exchange. He writes a column for the Saturday FT on entrepreneurship and delivers over 100 presentations every year.

Southorn is also an experienced broadcaster and has released over 80 podcast-friendly interviews with famous industrialists, entrepreneurs and business experts. Tune in here to hear him in conversation with Allan Leighton, Sir Robin Saxby, SpinVox’s Christina Domecq and Nixon McInnes’ Will McInnes, amongst others.

An entertaining interview on stage at Thinking Digital (#tdc) between entrepreneur and FT columnist Mike Southon and Red Bull’s former-UK CEO Harry Drnec on the marketing strategy he developed for Red Bull.

• Identify – segment market audiences – in the case of Red Bull people that burn the candle at both ends
• Find them – determine channels to audiences
• Touch – provide products to audience when they need them – Red Bull did this via experiential marketing
• Thrill them – ensure product delivers and delivers on its promise

This simple strategy increased sales from three million cans in 1996 to 300 million cans in 2006 and combined with strong brand and channel management enabled Red Bull to maintain premium pricing.

Drnec is now CEO of the Broadband Computer Company developing a hassle free computer due to be launched later this year.