Apprentice Winner Shares Biggest Successes And Challenges Of Being An Entrepreneur

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Tom Pellereau has been an inventor from childhood, he struggled with dyslexia but excelled in maths, leading to a mechanical engineering degree. Despite initial success with Stylfile, financial challenges and job interruptions delayed its development. Despite initial setbacks, including unsuccessful meetings with Boots, Tom eventually licensed the product to a U.S. distributor, leading to sales at Walmart and Boots. 

Speaking to Gaberial on That Money show Tom spoke about becoming an inventor : "At school, I was really dyslexic, so I struggled with the kind of classic subjects, the English, the French, like, I really, really struggle with those. But I loved making things, and I was pretty good at maths as well. So that enabled me to kind of get into the product world. And in the end, I studied mechanical engineering, which hugely helped." 

Turning an inventon into a business was Tom's next step: "It took a number of starts and full starts and restarts. So I came up with that in about 2005 I then actually got headhunted and worked for a company in Ireland, so I kind of put it on hold for a bit, but I had this in the back of my mind. And also, as an inventor, you kind of run out of you tend to run out of money. So you kind of design things. You run out of money. You get a job for a bit."

He continued: " I was sort of fine tuning it in the evening, and I was like, actually, I really need to leave this job and go and see if I can make this, this work."

Tom appeared on The Apprentice with Sir Alan Sugar who now works with: "I was literally at my kitchen table, applying for jobs. When I heard the BBC advert for the apprentice saying, The Apprentice has changed when they're looking for sort of entrepreneurs, ready to invest."