While their mums and dads watch the latest series of The Apprentice dreaming of running their own business, the nation’s teens are already out there living the dream. A nationwide survey has revealed a generation of teenpreneurs running successful bedroom businesses with 21,000 earning in excess of £60,000 annually online - nearly three times the average UK salary.

They are using sites like Amazon and eBay to get started in but many are also setting up online stores or selling space on forums and blogs to advertisers and sponsors.

The next step is turning a bedroom hobby into a full time career but how do you make that big jump?

One man who should know is Tim Campbell who survived the toughest of TV tests by being chosen as Sir Alan’s apprentice and he is coming into the Webchats studios to give you some tips and advice on starting your own online business.

Tim is following in the footsteps of Sir Alan by helping to mentor the next generation of young entrepreneurs and has been lending his support to the Virgin Media Sparks campaign in search for the next big business idea. So if you want to find out how to make the most of the internet and start your own business then join Tim and ask him for his tips and advice.

H: Mark Ryes, host
T: Tim Campbell

H: Hello and welcome to the Business Show brought to you today by Virgin Media, I'm Mark Ryes.  Now then, have you ever considered setting up your own business? You've got a great idea but you're just not sure of next steps? Well I'm delighted to say that joining me today is former Apprentice winner Tim Campbell, Tim welcome to the show. Tim's here today to offer you some tips and advice on starting your own online business as well as answering your questions, so please do send them to us with the box that's on the screen right now. Tell us your name and where you come from and we will most certainly do our best to get through as many questions as we can. Well Tim, a nationwide survey has revealed that 21,000 teenagers – so not entrepreneurs but teenpreneurs I guess, earn over three times the national average - £60,000 – by creating businesses through their computers, in their bedrooms. That's quite startling really isn't it?

T: Phenomenal, I think it's fantastic and something that should be applauded, particularly in the environment where we get so much negative reaction to young people and teenagers particularly, about being ASBO-generating, hoody individuals. What we've actually found from the research that we've got in conjunction with Virgin Media is that young people are actually very aspirational, very entrepreneurial, and are harnessing things that come second nature to them like the internet and peer-related reviews, and turning those into viable business models.  Some of them are earning more than your local dentist, or individuals on the high street – they're phenomenal

H: Does that mean it's easier than ever before to run a business?

T: I think on one hand there are less barriers to get into business than there may have been beforehand, particularly in terms of knowledge. If you're looking back about 10, 15 years ago you would never have thought of searching for an answer to a question on a website like Google, but you've got that access to information, so young people can get information very, very quickly and turn that into viable business models with that information.  But then you've also got the fact that there's a lot more regulation around, which they have to contend with.  So what we're trying to balance up with the work that we do as part of the charity that I work for, is give them access to information, but then teach them how to navigate those worlds of rules and regulations, which they may not be versed to

H: Well we're getting some questions in already so let's kick off with the first one, it comes from Paul, Tim – Paul says "do you think the current social web trends and networks such as Twitter and Facebook and MySpace and Bebo's the other one – do you think they're the future of business, are they helping?"

T: I think websites, particularly peer-related websites that utilise the internet to link people together are phenomenal and you just have to look at the likes of Facebook and Bebo in terms of if they were countries, they'd be like the third biggest country in the world in terms of the amount of members they've got signed p to them. I think, however, they're not the mainstay of business, the mainstay of businesses are the normal, boring, less sexy businesses, like for example people who lay floors or people who put glasses on people's tables, those are the ones that turnaround £40-50 million every single year annually who are the mainstay of businesses. The reason why the success of those businesses come through is that there's new models of businesses that are approaching, and advertisers see those as very lucrative way, however there's only so many people can play with in that market, and there's not likely to be another Facebook, but there may be a slightly different tweak on that particular model

H: Let's talk about you for a moment. You're very well-known for being the first winner of the Apprentice. What turns you on about business? Why is business good for you? What do you get out of it?

T: For me business is the brilliant ability for anybody, no matter what your background is, not your gender, your race, religion, none of those matter. Business is a great leveller in terms of if the numbers work, you will be supported, and it allows people from very diverse backgrounds to come together for a common goal to create something out of 0-nothing, and for me, that transition from just an idea into something that generates an income, or in the likes of social enterprise where I'm an Ambassador for the government, actually helps communities through the utilisation of business. I think that's what the spark that really turns me on and gets me excited

H: So when did it happen?  When did you first get interested?  Were you an 11 year old who always knew he was going to do that, or was it much later on?

T: It was much later on for me in terms of being turned on to business, because I grew up in a very strict way in terms of going to school, getting your qualifications, going to university, come out, go and work for a big employer, and that was your life

H:  Yes

T: In the short life that I have lived, that's changed where there's no longer a job for life anymore, where you can't go and work for one industry for 25 years, retire and then that's the end of your career. People are now more versed to having portfolio careers, and as I've always maintained, more people are turned on to becoming entrepreneurs, and the potential of starting their own business. And for me I went along a whole journey of doing that normal way through, working for a big public sector employer, then eventually coming out and working for Sir Alan, and that was really my catalyst of somebody showed me that what was possible, and teaching me the ways to do it, and then I could do anything I wanted, and then from that point I'm never ever going to work for somebody else probably

H: There'll be people watching this arguing that because you were an Apprentice winner, in effect you're a reality TV star, and you have subsequently made it big, but you were very in business, as you suggest, even before it came along

T: For me I have no problem with the reality tag, although you'll never see me fall out of a club with a bottle of champagne or anything

H: Ok hold him to that!

T: Hold me to that, if you see me you're allowed to slap me! But it's more so about I'm using my time positively in terms of in business, one of the big aspects is promoting your business, particularly if it's an online business, in PR, and in PR you can generate around what you're actually offering, and I'm using the PR attention, the media attention I have to focus on the business enterprises that I have, and I don't want it to promote Tim Campbell as an ego, I'm more about Tim Campbell Enterprises, as a business model, and I think young people out there who are watching a lot of these reality TV shows, particularly the Apprentice and the Dragon's Den, they should really look about the models and lessons they can take from them, as opposed to the fame and celebrity that comes out in some of the glossy newspapers afterwards

H: We've had quite a lot of questions in suggesting that if you're not very academic, if you're not doing very well at school, is that a real barrier, or can you still make your dreams come true?

T: You see this is the old argument about should you go to -  are the best business people those who have gone to established newspapers, or those who have grafted and taken a risk, left education quite early and gone out and done it, and you've got different characters in those different fields, for example you've got Sir Alan Sugar who left with very limited O Levels from school, and is now one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs, and then you've got the likes of Philip Green out there who have an education and a background who are also very, very successful. Now my take on it is that you've got to do what's right for you. I don't advocate forcing people into education if it doesn't suit them, because all you're going to do is have frustrated individuals who aren't going to get the best out of the system. I think you've got to have a level of understanding of the skills that you can get from education, but then you've got to adapt them for what's suitable for you. The beauty about business, as I've said before is that the only barrier to entry is how determined you actually are, it's not about if you've got A stars coming out of your ears, or you've got degrees from certain Red Brick organisations.  You could have just a real passion for something, and if you believe in it enough you can get through. So don't see your academic ability or lack of academic qualifications as a barrier or something that's going to push you up on a ladder

H: And really how much help do you need? We've got a question in from Chris now who says if you came across a 16 year old with a good idea, would it be something that you personally would invest in, that your charitable trust would invest in?  Is that a route that you would go down?

T: Well I'm all for putting my money where my mouth is, and my trust has set up specifically to work with individuals who are 16-30 who have a good business idea, because I think sometimes, and one of the reasons I've teamed up with Virgin Media in this particular campaign, is that young people sometimes get marginalised and pushed to a side – you're not ready yet

H: Possibly now more so than ever before in fact?

T: Very much so, because in the old days you had apprenticeships, people were told to go out and start training for themselves and become their own business people, whereas today you'll say well just wait your time, be patient, it will come, and I'm like – well why would you waste the energy and verve that individuals have at that young stage, and the passion they're willing to infuse into a business and not harness that at the earliest stage possible. So Chris out there, yes I'm more than happy to sponsor young people, and that's what I do on a day-to-day basis. If you've got a good idea, come to our site and it will help you

H: Does it mean that if – because there are two types of people in the world – there are doers and there are ideas people

T: Yes

H: To run a successful business, do you have to be an ideas person?

T: It really depends because I think to run an entrepreneurial business, you have to have the idea and get people to follow you – have the charisma to follow what you're doing

H: You have to be a bit of both, you have to be an ideas person and a doer

T: 100%. Because at the end of the day the buck stops with you when it's your own particular venture capital and your own reputation, you have to do everything and until you can get to a momentum point where you can get people to follow you, it's all about you on your own. But then I find that people who have great ideas sometimes don't have the enthusiasm to take them forward, and we do research – part of the research is also shown that people are quite scared about starting businesses.  They have great ideas, but they're scared about taking that leap, and the beauty of what we've got with the young people through this campaign is that they're not afraid at all, they're out there doing it and proving that all it takes sometimes is to take a bit of a risk and it's amazing the returns that you'll get

H: We'll talk more about the campaign in just a second's time, but I've got a great question in from Charlie which follows on directly from that. He says "many businesses fail in the first 3 years – how can you ensure that it doesn't happen to you?"

T: Well Charlie if I had the combination why it didn't I probably wouldn't be sitting here, I'd be in some mansion somewhere after selling the idea. I think in order to mitigate for the factors that contribute to why businesses fail in their first 3 years, we usually have this saying where if you can get through the first thousand days of business, then you're going to be well on your way to succeeding. In those first thousand days you've got to do an awful lot of learning, an awful lot of partnership networking and getting your idea out there to the masses. What we say is do as much research as possible before you s tart. Really find out about the market, find out who your customers are, where they eat, what they read, where they are, so you can advertise them directly. Then if you can find out how much you can actually price for this good or service, because as Sir Alan famously once said, it's easy to sell ten bob notes for 9 quid – you're out there all day doing that. The reality is you've got to be able to manufacturer or produce a good or service and sell it for more than it actually took you to do that. So many people forget about that, and in particular in the UK, we're quite adverse to talking about money and that sales transaction

H: It's just not the British thing

T: Not the British thing to do, sod that let's go and make some money and make sure that we can make it profitable. And the final aspect is to make sure that you have something that's unique about your business, a unique selling point about your business idea, which differentiates you from your competitors. Dyson, will their all due respect, is a Hoover – well you can't say that, it's a trademark – it's a floor cleaner. The reality is that he's got a novel idea in terms of no bags. That's what made him different from everybody else

H: And amazingly, now everyone else has copied it

T: Everyone else has copied his exact idea, so therefore if you've got those three different elements – you know what your customers are, you understand what the USP is, and you also understand how much it costs, your business will be successful

H: I understand that.  Penny's come up with a great question on the back of that. She says "how do you know if you've come up with a good idea?" How can you check?

T: Well this is the other thing, the barometer around good ideas differs from who you speak to

H: Yes

T: I think the important thing to do is to take your idea to somebody whose not a family member or close friend

H: Right

T: And somebody you respect and you trust, whose going to give you a very honest objective opinion of what you want to do. Lots of people are afraid of discussing their ideas, because they're afraid that people might steal it or take it, and that is a fair fear, but the more people you talk to the more you're going to get an understanding of is this been done before, has this happened, is this a viable business model? Another easy way to check is rely on the internet, and that's what we're really talking about here today, if you do a quick search down at the British Library or through the Patent's office, you'll find any business that is similar to what you're trying to do, and a quick search through Google will bring up have I invented the new glass that's going to hold water? It will quickly bring up somebody whose either doing it very similarly to you or has done it already

H: And if it doesn't come up, you might be -

T: You might be on to something

H:  Well Tim is following in the footsteps of Sir Alan by helping to mentor the next generation of young entrepreneurs, and he's been lending his support to the Virgin Media Sparks campaign in the search for the next big business idea. Tim, just tell us what is Virgin Media Sparks?

T: Virgin Media Sparks is a campaign with Virgin Media, the big brand as everyone will know, and the Bright Ideas Trust, coming together to really look for young people who have enterprising business ideas which they want to start online

H: So what kind of age are we talking about?

T: We're talking about 13-19 individuals

H: Ok

T: We've been searching the country for young people who have bright ideas which they want to promote and take forward as the next big idea. On the bag of the research we've found those 22,000 people who are earning a substantial amount of money from the internet, we wanted to look for people who may have had the idea, but don't know where to go to get the access to money to start up and the right kind of mentorship to be able to develop their idea.  So our competition was about finding that young person and giving them up to £1000 in competition prize, which is nice money, a free laptop, access to a mentor and whether you see it as a prize or not, a day with me to actually talk through your actual idea. So that's what we've done with the Virgin Media Sparks campaign

H: Now I've got a question in live from somebody who actually entered the Virgin Media Sparks competition, it says "we entered the Sparks competition where we had an online business idea. We didn't win, but do you have any advice for getting us back on track?"

T: Yes. Well without knowing which idea it is it's difficult to say, but -

H: Sure, appreciate that

T: But it's for all the entrants that we saw, particularly in the final stages, we were really blown away by how powerful their actual ideas were, and how focused and passionate they were about what they actually wanted to do. Unfortunately there could only be one winner, but what I'd say to all the entrants who came forward is don't give up, because if you passionately believe enough in your idea, the very fact that you didn't win a competition doesn't mean the idea's not good. And what I'd love to be able to say is somebody to come round and say Tim you didn't pick me, but look at us now! That's the – and a true entrepreneur would take a "no" and turn it into a "yes" and that's what I want these young people to be able to do and say if one door closes, find another one, kick it down and make sure you take it forward

H: It's about beating the door isn't it?

T: It's about having the confidence in what you want to do, but also seeing the fact that you have something that got you through to the competition stage, and that was a good enough idea, but it's just something that we couldn't support -

H: So how many entries did you have, because this was very popular wasn't it?

T: We had 100's of entries, literally 100's of entries that we had to sift down to a top 20, and then eventually -

H: That must have been incredibly difficult

T: So, so very difficult, because not only are you dealing with young people who are really passionate, but you had really commercially viable businesses ideas, and what we've committed to as a charity is to work with some of those young people going forward.  But as I said unfortunately there can only be one winner

H:  And indeed if you're interested in finding out the winner, it's going to be announced in the next couple of weeks, so do make sure that you go along to virginmedia.com/sparks to find out.  That's also the place where you can download a factsheet where you've got a whole bunch of top tips as well for succeeding in business, that obviously is very important to everyone thinking about business?

T: I think the one thing I've always taken away from business, working with Sir Alan and now working in my own entrepreneurial endeavours, is that you never know everything, and the more that you can partner with people and find out little titbits, little pearls of wisdom, the better you're going to be in the long run.  And if you can adapt that knowledge that we've provided on the website as you've already mentioned, and incorporate that into what you're doing with your business, you're going to be more successful

H: Now I heard you talking about business earlier on and you have some top tips that you say are the 5 p's

T: Yes

H: Can I hear the 5 p's?

T: Yes ok – the 5 p's – this is just a general guide for people thinking about starting up a business, but this can also be adapted to people's lives in general. The first thing, you've got to have a plan. Have an understanding of where you want to go, where you want to go with regards to your business and what you want to achieve.  That's just something that's simple in terms of – it may be as extensive as a business plan, but it could be some simple milestones about where you want to go, that could be about research, putting things in practice. Then you've got to have passion. You've got to focus on something that you really believe in because it gets difficult out there, and if you don't have that energy and enthusiasm about what you're doing, not only can you not sell it to other people, but when it gets hard you're probably going to drop it

H: Yes

T: That leads nicely into the next "p" which is perseverance. It's hard being an entrepreneur. It's not easy, otherwise everyone would be doing it, and that's why the majority of people are in normal paid, 9-5 jobs, but the ones who are willing to take that risk and see the return on their investments are the mavericks, as I call them, and those entrepreneurs, so perseverance is very important.  Partnerships is next, in terms of you've got to find people who are going to get you there much quicker than you can by yourself, so in conjunction with partnering Virgin Media and the Bright Ideas Trust you can find people who are going to assist you and get you to where you want to a lot quicker. The final thing is Planetary Assistance, and by that I mean you've got to have a bit of luck. Sometimes it's about being in the right place at the right time and seeing the opportunity, but then having the courage and enthusiasm to take that, grab it with both hands, and run with it

H: I'm surprised that that wasn't up at number one to be honest because Planetary intervention I guess is quite important, if you've got a good idea, but the perseverance really does kick in there. That's brilliant, there are your 5 P's, and I've got a great question in from C M Hewlitt – saying "what's more important" and I think this is a personal question to you "what's more important in business, profits or principals?"

T: This is a very interesting one, for me it's an easy answer, for me it's about principals, because I believe if you focus on doing a good job and providing a good service, the profits will come indirectly

H: So they're linked anyway?

T: They're linked anyway, they're inextricably linked. The ones – the businesses that are most successful are the ones that deliver good customer service, have a brand that's associated with good values, and delivers on their promises, and for me that's about having strong, ethical principals associated with your business. There's a famous saying from Freedman who makes a statement in terms of business's only sole purpose is to make profit, and I think if you go down that line you can miss the fact that businesses are about communities and people within those communities, and actually providing goods and services to those

H: That's fantastic, Tim thank you so much for joining us, it has been an eye-opener. I hope that it's helped you and maybe given you the boost to thinking about starting an online business and thinking about all those ideas you've got buzzing around your head. Well thank you very much indeed for joining us, and thank you for watching. For more advice and top tips, please do go and visit the website, it's virginmedia.com/sparks and we'll see you very soon. Bye bye

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