1. “You have to be arrogant enough to believe you can do it, and stupid enough to keep trying when you fail” Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo. 

2. Persistence is key. Like many of the world’s best, Michael testifies that the ability to keep going is paramount - note: it took Michael around four-years of launching ventures before you can say he had a ‘significant success’ - however it was only a few years after this period that he sold one of his companies for just under one billion US dollars.

3. Whether you have failures (or successes) you have to carry forward the lessons from both.  “From site-to-site we just got a lot better - by the time we did Bebo we launched it taking everything we’d learnt from the previous sites and we hit a million members on day nine” . Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo.

4. To keep cash low at the beginning, just focus on the core things you need to do - focus on the few things that really make the difference (sounds similar to Pareto Law to us).

5. You don’t have to have all the competencies required to run a business yourself, but you should surround yourself with people that compliment you (just like every Chief Executive of whatever size organization).

6. “(on raising capital) focus if you’re in that position on building the business until you’re at the point that you have the credibility to demonstrate it’s a success or it could be a success” Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo. Spending a lot of time before this point CAN lead to a lot of time wasted to no avail - which could be better spent on business development.

7. “Building something you think is really cool is the way to go - if it turns out to be the next big thing then great for you, but trying to spend your entire life chasing the next big thing is probably a bad idea - just do something that you’re passionate about” Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo. If you chase the next big thing it can be like a dog chasing its tail - you just go around and around in circles.

8, “It’s very easy to think that every big idea has been done and then every week you see something and you go: oh yea that’s a good idea” Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo - It’s a good time for disruptive innovation and ideation. “There’s more opportunities today than there ever has been” Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo - We’re living in good times for business and entrepreneurship and it’s never been easier to execute (and try) those ideas in a (potentially) low cost way.

9. Doing everything yourself and on a low cost budget is a great way for an entrepreneur to start - one of the success lessons we can take from Bebo is that we “managed to survive”!...

10. (on why Michael didn’t buy back Bebo from AOL) “It just felt like a step back and I just wanted to do something new and original - I’m more excited about looking forward than what I felt was looking backwards” Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo - Despite Michael agreeing that Bebo was a bargain for what it recently sold for (around US$10m) and that it has an incredibly loyal user-base, he didn't buy it back.  This, to us, demonstrates that he lives by his principle of doing things that really excites him, and keeps his outlook forward looking.

11. You can succeed in a crowded market, but often to get a good foothold you need to be very different: “Twitter succeeded because it was so different”. Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo.

12. On the art of building a global brand - “focus on building a great product - the brand follows the product - the better the user experience, and the more committed you can get the user base, the more crazy they are saying that your product is better”. Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo

13. Large companies can innovate through acquisition however they simply “need to buy the right ones..... I think buying something that is the right product, and is a core fit to what you’re doing, is probably a good idea” Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo.

14. “It's so often that you plan to do things, and you’re doing it because you want the end-goal, but the end-goal is a momentary thing, however the journey getting there can be years - so if you don’t enjoy the process there’s no point doing it. So I take that in everything I do, and I make sure I enjoy what I’m doing, and who I’m with.” Michael Birch, Co-Founder, Bebo.

 An interview between Michael Birch and Anthony Gell - August 2010.