Touker Suleyman remembers the moment he almost lost it all. Although he’s now one of the UK’s best-known retail magnates, with more than 40 years’ experience of rescuing British brands such as Hawes & Curtis and Ghost, when he was 28 he nearly went bankrupt. “I’d been convinced to invest in a public company in the era when shares were going up on a rumour,” he recalls. “We didn’t do a proper due diligence. I distinctly remember getting the phone call on a Friday afternoon to say the company’s going bust. It had a deficit of £20m. Like a pack of cards, my businesses went down. I sold my house. I was totally out of my depth.”
After that career low, Suleyman went into business with his brother – investing in property, then growing his fashion manufacturing business to become one of the biggest suppliers to the UK high street. In 2001, he decided to buy struggling Jermyn Street shirt shop Hawes & Curtis for £1. “At the time, they were supplying shirts to Ralph Lauren in Europe and I thought: ‘If they can do it why can’t I do it?’” he says.
“Hawes & Curtis had about £700,000 of debt, so we paid everybody off, launched with a revamp and scaled up to six shops quite quickly. We’ve turned things around – we’ve now got 25 stores.”
Suleyman says that saving Hawes & Curtis, and Ghost – which he bought in 2008 – are his biggest accomplishments. “The thing I’m proudest of is all these businesses I’ve helped,” he says.
These successes are hard-earned. “It takes a lot of sacrifice to build up a business,” he says. “There’s a bit of luck, as well as that passion and determination to make it happen. But it’s mainly a lot of time. People go on holiday for three weeks – I go for three days. When my daughters were small it was hard being away from the family and working all the time.”
A self-confessed “workaholic”, Suleyman says he has no plans to retire. “I’m asked that question all the time and I say I’ll work until I drop dead,” he jokes. “I have a passion for problem-solving and helping people. I get so many people approaching me with business ideas and I wish the government would realise there’s a lot of people with talent, and devise more schemes to help them. We’re a country of entrepreneurs — young and old. If you’ve got a good idea that solves a problem and there’s a market for it then you can start a business at any age.”
Suleyman was able to indulge that passion for helping small businesses when he joined the panel of Dragons’ Den in 2015, investing in a variety of businesses, from baby toys to brownies. “The first thing I look at when deciding to invest is: ‘Can I work with this person?’” he says. “They can have the best idea in the world, but if you can’t work with the entrepreneur then it’s not worth it. One of my favourite investments recently wasn’t on the show – she came to see me personally. She’s a mum of two who had invented a teething toy called Matchstick Money. The business is doing really well, and she was recently offered £5m for it. That’s what makes me happy – there’s this person who lives in the countryside with her kids who’s come up with a great idea and we’ve created value for her.”
As for investments he wishes he’d made, Suleyman has no regrets. “There’s always another deal,” he says.
‘There’s never been a better time to start your own business’
Touker Suleyman was one of the judges for the eBay Doers scheme – where we asked you to share your brilliant business ideas for a chance to be part of a 10-week incubator aimed at helping budding entrepreneurs with funding and expert mentorship.
“All the entries were innovative and people had clearly thought about their product, their strategy and what the market was like,” says Suleyman. For the startups that missed out, Suleyman says the future is still bright. “There’s never been a better time to start your own business,” he says.
And eBay is here to help you do exactly that – just like the eBay Doers, if you’ve got an idea and a bit of go, you’re ready to become an entrepreneur. “If you’ve got a great idea for a product, and you can source it and put it online, you’ve got a business,” says Suleyman. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
Millions of people are using eBay to start a side hustle, make more of a hobby or carve out a career. Find out how here
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