Nick Wheeler founded Charles Tyrwhitt with just £99 and a Morris Minor with a hole rusted through the floor (and zero understanding of how you make a shirt!). Today, it’s a £400m global empire – but his story is one not short of tragedy, with the loss of his mother aged just five years old, bankruptcy, and a catalogue of mistakes which meant he nearly lost everything.

In this episode of Crisis What Crisis, I sit down with the man who revolutionised British menswear. Nick Wheeler shares the raw, unfiltered reality of building a world-class brand.

If you want to learn about entrepreneurial resilience, business scaling, and the power of dogged self belief, this masterclass is for you.

POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY:

I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters and build real resilience when the pressure is on.

This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley, visit www.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.

SIX BUSINESS LESSONS:

1) Build to be loved. Nick's motivation has always been simple: to be loved. By his team. By his customers. It's made him £400 million.

2) Never give away a share of your business. The minute you do, someone else has the right to tell you what to do.

3) Be the best in the world at one thing. Not two things. One. Going bust taught him that.

4) Cut early. If something isn't working, be brutally honest with yourself about why. Don't wait.

5) The only real job of an entrepreneur is choosing the right person to run your business.

6) Be a tortoise, not a hare. Grow 10% every year. It's boring for the first 20 years. Then it becomes extraordinary.

CHAPTERS:

01:19 – Introduction

02:54 – The entrepreneurial gene

15:29 – From failed shoes to Charles Tyrwhitt

23:31 – Mistake one

31:07 – Mistake two

36:15 – The hardest lesson

39:31 – The pandemic

44:04 – Cracking America

50:37 – Building a brand people love

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Website – https://www.charlestyrwhitt.com/uk/home

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