You spent 20 years in China and 20 years in England. Why have you decided to come back and why this area?

I grew up in and around Cambridge and worked a little bit in London before jetting off to Hong Kong when I was 23 years old. Once I arrived in Asia I feel like I woke up to the real world and the opportunities. I then started building companies. Then a few years ago, one of my companies, a agency called Fluid, was bought by PwC. In many ways it was a trigger to suddenly feeling very homesick. I was having so much fun in Asia but the sale of my company came at about the same time of the Brexit referendum result. I was shocked by the result and felt I had lost touch with my home. I felt compelled to come back and help somehow. I thought about getting into politics but when I arrived back I realised how toxic it had all become. So instead I decided to just help founders and focus on grass roots support for those that want to innovate and make the world & UK a better place. London has a lot of very smart people living here and I felt I could help my country by helping these people succeed.

Where does your desire to help other founders comes from?

I left school at 15 and was also kicked out of home by my mum at the same time. I was thrown into a situation where I had to survive and my escape to a better life was becoming an entrepreneur. I then spent the next 7 years making every mistake there is. Wrong hires. Wrong partners. The list goes on. So now when I reflect on all the knowledge I have gained starting 17 companies myself, in a way I want to go back to my 15 year old self and help. Hand over all the knowledge so that that 15 year old can struggle less. In reality, most of the people I help are much older than 15 years old but that’s where my passion for helping innovators comes from.

2020 is the year of the Metal Rat according to the Chinese zodiac. What does this mean for a business?

Metal Rats are unique. The have one special power that everyone can also leverage in the year of the Metal Rat and that is being able to turn unlucky events in good fortune.

You recently launched a podcast where you share entrepreneurs stories. Why is the concept of Luck and where can people listen to the podcast?

I felt 2020 (which I take as having a vision), and it being the year of the Metal Rat meant it was a good year to try something new. So I decided to launch The Good Luck Club podcast, to try to give insights into what makes people succeed or fail.

I have a theory that luck plays a huge part in every story of success or failure. I myself contribute my success more to luck than skill. Yet people don’t talk much about luck much because it can take away from perhaps our hard work or genius as successful people. I decided to explore this and see if by listening to people’s stories around this subject would help others be lucky, get lucky and learn to be like the metal rat and even see the benefit to bad luck.

You can follow me on Twitter @simonsquibb or check out our new podcast on YouTube or SoundCloud or connect via www.simonsquibb.com