A lesson in business success from the Dragon’s mouth

What did the 19-year-old internet upstart with his own successful website say to the established operator with a thriving empire? Move over granddad? Not exactly. In fact, when Tom Mursell, founder of notgoingtouni.co.uk met computer millionaire Shaf Rasul at a youth jobs panel show on Radio 1, he wasted no time in asking the BBC online Dragon’s Den star for a job.

“He just came up and said ‘Shaf, can you teach me to be an entrepreneur?’” says the Edinburgh-based businessman. “I was quite surprised, but I could see where he was coming from.”

Rasul is used to people asking him for a job, but Mursell, whose award-winning site offers career tips to young people who opt out of higher education, was hardly in need of a career boost.

“He’s a bit of a media darling,” says Rasul. “He’s won a host of awards and it didn’t seem like he needed my help.

“But I really admire the fact he said ‘I could be so much better if you helped me’. I told him if he ever sold his business, I would mentor him for a year. A few weeks later he phoned me up and said, ‘I’ve sold the business Rasul, when can I start?’”

They agreed on a 12-month apprenticeship beginning in January 2010. When Rasul mentioned the idea to his board of directors, they liked it so much they told him to take on three more apprentices. The Scottish Alan Sugar was born.

But this is no vanity project. The latest government figures show that youth unemployment hit one million in November. The crisis has been compounded by an estimated 300,000 graduates and 400,000 school leavers trying to find work in an already overcrowded pool. With this in mind, Rasul has decided to concentrate his search among graduates and school leavers.

The apprentices will be taken on at a yearly salary of £18,000 plus bonuses, with the possibility of a job in one of Rasul’s myriad companies at the end of the year. From the 3,000 candidates who are expected to apply, the applicants will be whittled down to three after a series of rigorous, top secret tests designed to identify those with most potential.

“I’m not doing it out of the goodness of my heart; there is method to my madness,” says Rasul. “I’m sure we will get a couple of really good entrepreneurs from those who apply. In the grand scheme of it, £18,000 is not a lot of money to pay for that kind of potential.”

The successful applicants will join in a hectic schedule of theory classes and practical exercises.

“I’ve had a lot of fun drawing up the curriculum,” says Rasul, who made his own millions in computers and property. “It’s funny, because Tom will be doing something that’s not completely dissimilar to going to university.

“We’re going to give them real-life businesses to work with, whether it’s one of my Dragon’s Den investments or core businesses.”

Mursell, 19, was stacking shelves in his local Sainsburys in Southampton when he decided that the university life wasn’t for him.

“I went along with the crowd during sixth form when everybody was talking about uni and I just accepted it as the next logical step,” he says.

Despite winning a place at Bournemouth to study law, Mursell had the nagging feeling that a future in a wig and gown was not for him.

“Working at Sainsburys, I met other students and I realised that university wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. They liked the lifestyle but they didn’t always see studying as much of an investment. There seemed to be a real lack of direction at an age when you should be bursting with enthusiasm and ambition.”

But he had no idea where to start looking for alternatives to three years of tutorials and beans on toast.

“Unfortunately, at school you’re not given the same level of support if you choose to not to go to university,” he says. “It wasn’t until I began to draw myself away and rethink what I wanted, that I realised my passion. The only thing I know is that I want to be a serial entrepreneur; I want to be running businesses for the rest of my life.”

Mursell sold notgoingtouniversity.co.uk in November for “a nice little nest egg to move up to Edinburgh with”. He is keeping his options open, but by the end of his apprenticeship he hopes to be prepared for any business opportunity.

“It’s not about the money. I’m doing it to learn from Shaf,” he says. “I want to come away having taken on board all of Shaf’s knowledge, and to be able to walk into any environment and set up a business in any area. It’s a lot to learn, but it’s a good place to start.”

Applications for an apprenticeship with Shaf Rasul, including CV, must be submitted to Neil Irvine at Head Resourcing,NIrvine@headresourcing.com, no later than 5pm, Monday January 18