Something About The Beatles
By Mike Southon I am not a big fan of entrepreneurial business programmes on television. We have one in the UK called Dragon’s Den, which I consider to have as much to do with entrepreneurship as X Factor has to do with The Beatles.
This got me thinking. The Beatles themselves were entrepreneurs, following the model we laid out in our book The Beermat Entrepreneur. 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).
They had plenty of upsets and rejections along the way, including being famously turned down by Decca, but eventually they were at the right place at the right time, specifically the Ed Sullivan show on February 9th 1964, when Paul McCartney counted in All My Loving and 73 million people simultaneously got the point.
The Beatles themselves were entrepreneurs … they developed an Elevator Pitch, found a Mentor, and then a First Customer.
There was inevitable competition, but they innovated themselves clear of the pack with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. They were at the peak of their powers, also releasing All You Need Is Love and probably the best double A-side of all time, Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane.
But in August 1967, the Beatles hit a critical moment; their manager Brian Epstein died. The Beatles decided they could manage themselves, but their next project, Magical Mystery Tour, while containing great music, was a critical flop. ‘The White Album’ featured great songs but recording it was a less than pleasant experience (producer Gerorge Martin vowed to never work with them again). The making of Let It Be was another difficult experience, and the music was shelved.
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