nicko williamson

July-August 2011

CONTENTS

www.exceptionalmag.com

Cover photo by Grey Hutton Photography

Extraordinary Profiles

56

Cover Story—

Nicko Williamson–London’s Green Entrepreneur Achieves Success with

Climatecars

63 Susan Ellis—From Challenge Comes

Knowledge and Triumph Inspiration

68 Doors of Opportunity Usually Swing Open on the Hinges of Adversity

70 Stacy Hawkins Adams in Profile

72 Turning Challenges into Opportunities

73 Summer Self-Care

The Lighter Side

75 Water, Water, Everywhere

79 Profile Resources

80 Writers and Contributors

Focus intently upon your life's passion. Focus intently upon your life's passion. Focus intently upon your life's passion. Focus intently upon your life's passion. Don't lose sight of your goal.Don't lose sight of your goal.Don't lose sight of your goal.Don't lose sight of your goal.

Dear Friend,

Welcome to the July-August 2011 issue of Exceptional People Magazine.

The Mind. An ingenious tool that, when used constructively, will allow you to conceive ideas of gold, and lead you to

endless possibilities.

What’s on your mind today? Are you allowing what’s happening in the economy to motivate or drive your thought processes?

Why do some people seem to succeed, regardless of their circumstances? How do they go from nothing to obtaining remarkable

results? How are they able to turn their adversities into victories?

It’s because of their mindset. They envision themselves moving beyond their circumstances and they take action to bring about

change.

Many of life’s circumstances are not within our control but how we react is within our control. Success is a choice that is within

your reach. To achieve it, you must often remove negative thoughts and views and negative people that are blocking your success.

How you react to life’s circumstances and the results you obtain, are a direct correlation to your beliefs. According to your beliefs,

so shall it be. Clearing your mind of negative thoughts is an ongoing process. I often compare it to cleaning a home. You don’t

clean your home once and say it needs no additional cleaning or maintenance. You must maintain it daily, or at least weekly, to pre-

serve its appearance and provide pleasant surroundings.

What are you thinking right now?

Susan Ellis didn’t allow her child’s fight with autism keep her from finding a solution to helping him learn how to write. As a re-

sult, she turned her solution into a viable business that is helping thousands of children.

Just before graduating from college at age 22, Nicko Williamson made the decision to become an entrepreneur. Almost four years

later, his business has grown tremendously.

These are just a couple of people in this issue from whom you will glean a wealth of knowledge and insights to help you build your

ideas of gold and lead you to endless possibilities.

The Mind. An intangible source which lets you choose your destiny.

Exceptional People Magazine is not just a magazine. It is a life-changing experience.

Send us your letters at www.exceptionalmag.com/contact.html. Tell us what you want to read in Exceptional People Magazine.

Sincerely,

Letter From

The Founder

\

The Mind. A masterpiece, when molded and sculptured to focus on success.

How manyHow manyHow many of us can say that

at age 22 we

wanted to become

an entrepreneur?

Londoner Nicko

Williamson did

just that. While

attending Marlbor-

ough College he

envisioned himself

becoming his own

boss, but more impor-

tantly, he wanted to

make a significant con-

tribution to his coun-

try’s environment.

Nicko is beginning

to see the fruits of

his labor after three

years of hard work

that he spent to begin

his company Climate-

cars.

Not only is he fulfilling

his dream as an entrepre-

neur and contributing to

changing London’s environ-

ment, but Nicko’s entrepre-

neurial endeavor has become

an asset to London’s economy.

He employs 60 plus employees.

In today’s world that’s a major

feat, especially for the 27 year-

old entrepreneur extraordinaire.

Nicko’s dream behind Climatecars

was to introduce a vehicle that

would have lower levels of

emissions, thereby helping to

create a greener environment.

He is succeeding, and his goal is

to become the first company to

provide a 100% emission-free

taxi service within a few years.

Nicko Nicko Nicko

WilliamsonWilliamsonWilliamson

London’London’London’s s s GreenGreenGreen Entrepreneur Entrepreneur Entrepreneur MMMakes a akes a akes a Success Success Success withwithwith ClimatecarsClimatecarsClimatecars

Extraordinary ProfilesExtraordinary ProfilesExtraordinary ProfilesExtraordinary Profiles

Monica: What was your vision behind starting Climate-

cars?

Nicko: My vision was an eco-friendly taxi company. I

could see that everybody was using taxis. Taxis are in-

credibly popular in London. I thought why not make this

green? I couldn’t see a reason why it couldn’t be green. I

started looking at gas conversion as my first idea. I was

going to convert them to run on LPG, liquefied petroleum

gas, which has a lower emission than petrol or diesel. I

then decided that really wasn’t the way because I couldn’t

get it to work or make the emissions savings stack up.

About that time the new generation of Toyota Prius came

out and it was the obvious thing to use.

We didn’t have to convert the Toyota Prius. If you com-

pare a Prius to a standard black taxi, which are what most

people use to get around town, the emissions on the new

model Prius is around 89 grams per kilometer. The black

cab is around 230 and at the high end 260 or 270 grams per

kilometer. So the savings are vast and there’s no difficulty

in doing it. We didn’t have to charge more for our service.

Although there is no lower level of service, I wanted to cre-

ate something that was better than our competitors.

We have leather seats in all of our cars and we give away a

special environmentally friendly branded bottle of water in

all of our cars. We’ve got magazines and smart drivers

who deliver great service.

I want to be the car company that people or companies will

use while feeling good about themselves while sharing and

caring about the environment. But we’re also giving them

great service.

Monica: I would imag-

ine that you had to

acquire

fund-

Climatecars has changed the tone of London’s taxicab

industry. Nicko saw a need and quickly began to find a

way to fill it. As the top green cab company, Nicko

wanted to ensure that his customers would not sacrifice

comfort and convenience. As a matter of fact, Climate-

cars offers enhanced customer service, from the time that

the customers are picked up until they arrive at their des-

tinations.

Let’s take an interesting trip into Nicko’s entrepreneurial

dream as he shares his experience with Exceptional Peo-

ple Magazine.

Monica: Tell me about yourself in terms of growing up

– your high school years.

Nicko: I went to school called Marlborough College in

Wiltshire, which is a boarding school. From there I grew

up in the countryside and I had a rather nice upbringing.

At about age 18 or 19 I went to Bristol University and

studied Modern History which of course is a bit unrelated

to what I’m doing now.

But that was my main degree and when I was there I was

always thinking about what I was going to be doing while

my friends were applying to become investment bankers

and entering other professions. I wanted to start my own

business, so it was while at Bristol that I actually had the

idea for Climatecars.

It started during my last year at the university while I was

writing my dissertation. I was scribbling down ideas

about Climatecars and it progressed to the point where I

began writing a business plan.

Upon leaving Bristol University I began to focus on Cli-

matecars in 2006. It took me a year after leaving

Bristol to start the company.

July-August 2011 | Exceptional People Magazine | 57


ing. How were you able to get the funding and what

challenges if any, did you encounter in trying to fund

your idea?

Nicko: Lots of challenges. When I left the university, I

was 22 years old. I had never run a business, never

worked for anybody though I had participated in some

internships. I didn’t have a lot of credible experience

behind me. I knew a lot of entrepreneurs and I sought a

lot of advice. One of them told me to go work for a taxi

company in London, pick apart the business, to under-

stand and build myself a bible, as it were, on how to op-

erate this type of business. So at age 22, I went off and did

that. I really came to understand the process. I went back

to the entrepreneur and he was quite surprised that I did it.

He began advising and mentoring me. By this time I was in

a good position because I had a business plan and I had also

attended London Business School which is the business

equivalent of Harvard or Yale in the United States.

I approached them with the idea and asked for help. They

put two MBA students on it, and we actually entered a

business planning competition. It was called a Global So-

cial Venture Competition which is a competition for busi-

58 | Exceptional People Magazine | July-August 2011


nesses with an environmental or social impact. These

two individuals were able to help me with the numbers

and I was able to build a solid, robust business plan. I

then approached a network of people who I knew had

funds they may want to invest. I explained what I wanted

to do -- I was trying to raise £200,000 to start the busi-

ness.

A number of them said yes. I submitted the plan and it’s

amazing. The first person that I sent my business plan to

contacted me and said he would give me £50,000. An-

other person came along and gave me £25,000 and an-

other gave

£20,000. I was

over half way

and suddenly

the rest of it

kind of fell into

place. I man-

aged to get a

few relatives to

contribute as

well.

It was all equity

funding and I

sold 30 percent

of the company

back in 2007.

That allowed

me to be ade-

quately capital-

ized. I also

leased vehicles

and that gave

me capital that

I needed to

start.

Monica: When you were

learning how to

run a business

by working for

a rival taxi

company, how

long did that

process take?

Nicko: About

three months. I

was young and impatient, so I literally crawled all over the

business, spoke to everybody, trying to identify their weak-

nesses. I could have spent more time and I probably should

have spent more time, to be honest. I probably would have

avoided some mistakes. It wasn’t a very well-run business,

so I didn’t want to shape my business based on that busi-

ness. I just wanted to learn from their mistakes and under-

stand the market.

I had a timeframe in my head that I wanted to get this done

within a year from leaving the university. It was just before

Christmas that I left the company and allowed myself a

couple of months to raise cash, get an office and hire peo-

ple. It was a bit hurried but I feel when you have momen-

tum you need to push on with it.

Monica: What makes your eco-friendly car different from

other eco-friendly cars?

Nicko: There are other companies doing a similar thing in

London. We were one of the first, but now other compa-

nies have realized it’s a sensible move to use the Toyota

Prius technology.

The differentiating factor with us is that we offer a really

great service with lots of extras and added value beyond

what other companies offer. We offer more of a corporate

car service than a normal taxi service at a very competitive

price. So it’s not just the eco-friendly side. It’s the little

things such as when you get picked up from the airport,

there’s a cold bottle of water waiting for you and a driver

meeting you in a suit that looks smart and will help you

with your bags. It comes down to great service. It’s the

core of our business.

Monica: Your goal is to combine ecology, economy and

innovation to provide the most comfortable service.

Nicko: That was one of our initial goals. We’re now

working on new innovations. I’ve hired a new operations

director this year who has mostly taken on the day-to-day

operations which has freed up a lot of my time to allow me

to focus on strategy. So what I’m doing now is looking at

the next stage of the business, which is going to be running

a fleet of totally electric cars and also combing that with

range extending hybrids. We’re going to be using the U.K.

version of the Chevy Volt and Renault bringing out a range

of electric vehicles as early as next year. By this time next

year we’ll have a much better range of vehicles and a wider

range of services, again with lower emissions while striving

to be the greenest car or taxi company around.



Monica: Who are your customers or clients?

Nicko: Corporate clients mainly. Ninety percent of our

revenue comes from business customers and they range

from one very large U.S. Investment bank, to Unilever,

radio stations, ad agencies and others. We have a very

diverse client base. My goal has been to spread our cli-

ents as widely as possible and not have too many clients

taking up too much of our turnover. Our largest clients

are no more than 15 to 20% turnover. That gives us sta-

bility so that if we were to lose a client, we won't go bust.

Monica: Your service is becoming a luxury taxi service?

Nicko: I wouldn’t use the word luxury because I don’t

want people to be put off by price. We are very cost-

sensitive and we offer services at a good value price. It’s

no more expensive than any of our competitors. It’s actu-

ally often cheaper than the black cab over about two

miles. We offer high quality

and good value car service.

We have a lot of cash and

credit card customers, so if

you’re ever in London and

you want to book one of our

cars, you can ring us up 24

hours a day or book online.

Anybody can book our cars.

Monica: The average per-

son can use your service?

Nicko: Yes, they can call

anytime, 24 hours a day, 265

days a year.

Monica: Your vision is to

provide first class service. Your customer service has

several components. I'll outline a few of them for you to

expand on:

The first one is reliability – how do you provide reliabil-

ity to your customers?

Nicko: We use a lot of technology. We’ve invested very

heavily in very good software and hardware so that we

have vehicle tracking. All of our vehicles are dispatched

through our computer system which means that the jobs

the drivers get are sent through PDA, and we can see ex-

actly where the driver is. If the customer is running late,

we can quickly change things around. We are able to

monitor every part of the process, which means we are able

to provide reliable service.

Monica: What value do you bring to your customers?

Nicko: We give great service at the right price and at the

lowest possible emissions you can get for this type of ser-

vice. We’re not providing limo service but a very comfort-

able service that’s going to show up on time to get you to

your destination on time.

Monica: What about comfort?

Nicko: Again, we offer things like leather seats, mineral

water, nice clean cars, drivers who will turn the air condi-

tioning to whatever temperature you want, generally good

quality service. It’s all about comfort and service. People

who decide to use us will use us often because of our green

credentials.

Monica: How have Climatecars impacted the economy in

London? Have you been able to measure the success that

the car is having on London’s economy?

Nicko: Not particularly in relation to the economy as a

whole. We’ve grown tremendously. I would say it’s the

whole product or service that we’re providing. We’ve been

going for four years and last year for example, we did £2.2

million of turnover. It’s been growing really nicely and

we’re planning on doing over £3 million next year. Assum-

ing things continue to go well, I think it’s having a very

positive affect on the economy in London.



Nicko: A lot of hard work and pretty good marketing. It’s

a solid idea and decent product. We’ve gone into an exist-

ing market and tweaked the product so that it works better

and is different and interesting. I think that’s where the

success comes from. We’re not trying to invent something

new and revolutionary; we’re tweaking an existing product

and it allows us to enter a market and receive decent market

share fairly quickly because people need this service.

We’re very proud of our brand.

Monica: From a business standpoint what are some impor-

tant lessons you’ve learned since starting the company?

Nicko: Oh, lots of things, just being willing to try things.

The first is cash flow. It’s obviously a very cash-intensive

business. We’ve been profitable for quite a while now but

to begin with, it was very tough to run the business when

you’re not making money and lots of companies are delay-

ing payment terms, and things like that. One of the key

things I’ve learn is managing cash. I think you have to

keep innovating. I think you have to make sure you have a

good story that’s well marketed, and a good sales team. I

started off doing all the sales myself but we now have two

people who also do sales and marketing for us. That’s very

important.

Also, along the cash flow line, make sure you have a very

good numbers person. We’re lucky to have a finance direc-

tor who is very helpful and it means we’re very much on

top of the key metrics of the business. It’s extremely im-

portant that if you’re going to run anything operational that

Monica: Absolutely. You’re putting people to work.

Nicko: Yes. We have over 60 drivers as well as an of-

fice staff. It’s becoming a big business but we’re scaling

it up. We’re not going to continue to do the same thing.

We’re going to keep innovating ,and there will be other

services that are complimentary to this one.

Monica: Your aim is to be the first zero emissions car

service. How far are you from reaching that goal?

Nicko: We’re getting quite close. We’ve got the electric

vehicles coming early next year and these cars will gener-

ally be zero emissions. There’s always the part of where

we get the electricity from. There’s a lack of renewable

electricity in the U.K., which is a bit of a problem. But

we will be providing cars that do not emit any CO2 at all

when they’re driving around town. They’ll be purely

electric.

We’re within a year for part of our fleet to get to that

point, but we’re quite a ways off for the whole fleet be-

cause we need to do some longer distance trips as well.

The issue you have with electric vehicles is range. The

ones we’re using are going to have about a 100 mile

range to them, so we’re only going to be able to have a

portion of our fleet solely electric. The remainder will be

range-extending hybrids and other new technology.

Monica: What do you attribute to the success of your

company?



difficult to say how we would have done it, looking back.

The right people are generally attracted to some form of

success, but when you’re starting a business from scratch,

you have no success or track record, and it's quite difficult

to get the right people involved in the business. I think that

would be the key thing. We’ve made many mistakes and

have learned from all of them. It’s part of the learning

process. It’s managing while learning. If you’ve got the

determination to make it succeed, it’s possible.

Monica: I want to congratulate you on your success. You

have achieved a lot in such a very short period of time.

Nicko: Thank you.

Monica: When you first started with your idea, what did

your parents think?

Nicko: They thought I was nuts, quite honestly. I remem-

ber going out to dinner with my dad and he asked, “You’re

really serious about this business?" He listed all the rea-

sons why I shouldn’t do it, and I paid no attention to him.

I said I was going to do it and we changed the subject.

After a while he saw how determined I was to get it done,

then I got a tremendous amount of support. So he began to

introduce me to a lot of people that he thought could be

potential investors. Both of my parents became incredibly

supportive. I‘m lucky enough to come from a family that's

pretty liberal. They weren’t focused on my becoming a

lawyer, a doctor or some other profession. They encour-

aged me to do what makes me happy. They saw that I had

the grit and determination to do it. I’ve always been a de-

termined person.

I’ve taken a different route and I have complete control

over my life, whereas a lot of my friends who are working

in the corporate world are working very long hours for oth-

ers and not necessarily enjoying it.

For me, I’ve had to work tremendously hard, but I’ve actu-

ally gotten somewhere, some place where I have control.

I think it's an incredible place to be.

Monica: What do you think about the economy today and

the impact that entrepreneurs will have?

Nicko: I really think entrepreneurs are going to rebuild the

world economy, and I believe with a little determination,

hard work and building good teams, anything is possible. ♦

you absolutely need to know every little number that’s

going on within the business and driving different areas

of the business.

Monica: Obviously one of the main keys to operating a

successful business is a solid marketing plan and team.

Nicko: Absolutely. We are not of a size where we use

advertising but we use public relations to generate press.

Our cars are branded quite subtlety, we do e-campaigns

and cold calling as well. We’re not re-inventing the

wheel. We’re doing a lot of search engine optimization

and other related things.

Monica: Within a short period of time your company

has grown tremendously.

Nicko: Yes, thankfully. We've got to keep it going now.

Monica: What advice can you give other young entre-

preneurs about starting a business?

Nicko: I would say one of the key things is assembling a

good team. Whether it’s a team of people to work with

or a team of people to advise and support you. I was very

lucky with my London Business School associates and a

few other people I involved in the business. Although I

was running it myself, I was able to pick up the phone

and get advice and help from them. Without it the busi-

ness wouldn’t be where it is today.

I would say don’t get put off but make sure that any new

business you think of going into is well-researched. I

think people dive into things without really understanding

the market and the players and competitors. I did a lot of

competitive analysis before I started, so I knew exactly

what I was up against, what other companies were charg-

ing. I researched everything about the car and taxi mar-

ket in London. I think those are the key things to do.

Make sure the planning process is well done. If you miss

something, the business can be completely and funda-

mentally flawed.

Monica: Looking back on everything that you’ve done

so far, is there anything that you would do differently?

Nicko: It’s very easy to say in hindsight. I think proba-

bly staffing. We had a lot of difficulties with early mem-

bers of the staff. I think I would probably have spent

more money on recruitment rather than advertising. It

took a while to assemble the right team, but it’s really


nicko williamson

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