The rise of a young and restless executive
Financially secure at 21, Andrew Butt is managing director of a software company that counts Goldman Sachs among its clients.
Andrew Butt cannot relax. During his interview with the Financial Times, he fidgets continually with a BlackBerry e-mailer and a mobile phone. Or he sits bolt upright, his arms pressed stiffly against his sides in a battle to control restlessness.
Mr Butt, managing director of Enable Software, has been a full-time entrepreneur for seven years. He is 21. He left school at 14 to concentrate on his domain registration and website support business. He hired a tutor to coach him through GCSEs.
“School was taking up too much time,” he says. “I was spending ￡5,000 a year on private tuition. The business grew from turnover of ￡10,000 to ￡800,000. It was just me, with lots of ideas and energy but no backup.”
Fascinated by flight, Mr Butt spent the weekends helping out at a helicopter charter business at Wellesbourne airfield in the west Midlands. He qualified as a pilot on his 17th birthday.
In 2000, Mr Butt went into partnership with another entrepreneur, Denys Shortt, then a comparatively wrinkly 36, who had set up his own household and beauty products business.
Mr Shortt's business, DCS Europe, began trading in 1994 after he branched out from his father's traditional business distributing goods to corner shops. It now fills a sprawling site near Stratford-upon-Avon and is on course to turn over ￡75m this year. Enable, which has 10 staff, occupies a small building in the shadow of DCS's warehouse.
Mr Shortt knew Mr Butt from a helicopter pilots club.
“Learning to fly a chopper costs about ￡10,000 and there was a wow factor because Andrew was 15,” he says, recalling the time he first met his business partner. Mr Butt also had something Mr Shortt wanted: knowledge of IT and a flair for business.
In 1998, Mr Shortt had visited Richard Branson's house for an event celebrating fast-growing enterprises. He says: “Everyone was in software or recruitment. In the back of my mind was the idea of starting a software company.”
Enable, the business that he and Mr Butt established, was created in response to the difficulties many businesses faced in changing the content of their websites. The company provides software and support allowing unlimited alterations for ￡2,000 a year.
The two are a double act: Mr Shortt opens the doors and Mr Butt makes the pitch. This, he says, is “very exciting I like going into new companies and seeing how they tick”.
He must be good at it. Enable's customers include Delphi Automotive, Goldman Sachs, GKN, Hunting and Sage. The company, owned 51 per cent by Mr Shortt and 49 per cent by Mr Butt, is set to make sales of ￡1.5m this year with a profits margin of 25 per cent.
Nigel Griffiths, the small business minister, is another Enable client. That might seem appropriate given the government's heavy emphasis on youth in its campaign to promote entrepreneurship as a means of raising national productivity.
But it is impossible to imagine Mr Butt pursuing any career other than business, even if the government was intent on shooing the young into civil service jobs.
“I can't relax or switch off,” he says. “Even when I am asleep, I dream that I am working.”
When he was a teenager, he aimed to be “financially secure” by the time he was 21, a target he has achieved. He owns two homes, a Range Rover, an S-Class Mercedes and, inevitably, a helicopter.
He says: “Money is a good short-term incentive but now I thrive on customer satisfaction and creating genuine customer value.”
Mr Butt says most of his friends are older than he is. In the week of his interview, he was attending two black-tie events for entrepreneurs. Other people his age would be out clubbing.
Mr Butt shrugs: “Business and pleasure are the same thing.” Work, he admits, “has taken me over for the last few years”.
The entrepreneur believes Enable in its current form should be able to lift sales to at least ￡5m. He talks enthusiastically about a side venture in computer games. It is hard to shake off the impression that he is already planning the next big thing in his career.
Mr Butt is phlegmatic about how contemporaries might view him: “The stereotype is that I've been lucky but there is a lot of work and worry in running a ￡1.5m business.” He fiddles with his BlackBerry, scrolling through all the messages to which he is itching to reply.
14岁 我当软件公司老板
安德鲁?巴特（Andrew Butt）是个闲不住的人。在接受《金融时报》采访的过程中，他不时要用手上的黑莓电子邮件收发器和移动电话。有时候他坐得直挺挺的，两臂紧贴着身体两侧，费力地控制着自己的躁动不安。
巴特先生是促能软件公司（Enable Software）董事总经理，他已经全职当老板当7年了。他现年21岁。他14岁那年离开学校，专门从事域名登记和网站支持服务。他聘请了一位私人老师，帮他完成中等教育课程。
“上学太耗时间，”他说。“我每年花5000英镑聘请私人教师。我们的业务额从每年1万英镑上升到了8万英镑。我这个人就这样，创意很多，精力旺盛，可是后劲不足。”
巴特先生非常热衷于飞行。所以周末的时候他去英格兰中西部的韦尔斯本（Wellesbourne）机场的直升机出租公司帮忙。他17岁生日那天拿到了飞行执照。
2000年，巴特先生和另外一位创业者丹尼斯?肖特（Denys Shortt）结成了合作伙伴关系。当时肖特已经36岁，和他一比，有些年纪了。肖特创办了一家家用产品和美容产品公司。
肖特先生的父亲是个传统的商人，从事分销业务，面向街头商店。肖特先生的公司名叫DCS欧洲公司（DCS Europe），是1994年从父亲的业务中剥离出来的。现在占了埃文河畔斯特拉特福的一大片地盘，今年营业额可达7500万英镑。促能软件公司一共10个员工，在DCS 大仓库附近的一幢小房子里办公。
肖特先生是在直升机俱乐部认识巴特先生的。
“学开直升机费用高达1万英镑，听说他15岁就来学，我不禁大吃一惊。”肖特先生回忆他和业务伙伴第一次见面的时候说。巴特先生也有一些肖特先生所想要的东西：IT知识和商业才能。
1998年，肖特先生去理查德?布莱信(Richard Branson)家，参加了一场为快速增长企业举办的庆祝活动。他说：“参加的人不是做软件的，就是做猎头的。我脑子里就突然闪出了个想法，我要创办一家软件公司。”
促能软件公司是他和巴特先生共同创办的。它的产生背景是，很多企业在网站更新上遇到了困难。在向促能公司交纳2000英镑的情况下，可以全年使用该公司软件和支持服务，无限制地更新网站。
这两个人是一对黄金搭档，肖特先生接活，巴特先生做活。他说，“这非常令人振奋，我很喜欢进入新的企业，看它们是怎么运作的。”
他这一点应该很擅长。促能公司的客户包括德尔福汽车系统公司(Delphi Automotive), 高盛（Goldman Sachs）, GKN, 亨廷与塞奇公司（Hunting and Sage）这些客户。公司股权51%归肖特先生，49%归巴特先生。公司今年销售额预计能达到150万英镑，利润率达25%。
英国小企业部部长里奇?格里菲思(Nigel Griffiths)也是促能公司客户。这也非常合适，因为政府为提高全国生产率，正在开展创业推广，特别强调青年人。
就是政府不倡导创业，而是呼吁年轻人去做公务员，他也还会选择商业的。很难想象巴特先生会去从事商业以外的职业。
“我闲不下来，也停不住，”他说。“我就是在睡觉的时候，梦里还会在工作。”
才十几岁的时候，他就幻想自己到21岁的时候就能拥有“财务安全”，这个目标他是达到了。他现在拥有两处住宅，一辆陆虎（Ranger Rover）, 一辆奔驰S级车。迟早，他还要拥有直升飞机的。
他说：“金钱是短期的激励，我现在是靠客户满意，靠创造客户价值而不断进步的。”
巴特先生说，他的大部分朋友都比他大。就在接受我们采访这一周，他还参加了两场为创业者举办的正式活动。他的同龄人都还在逛着夜总会呢。
巴特先生耸了耸肩膀说：“商业和娱乐是一回事。”他承认，工作“占去了他过去几年的时间。”
这位创业者相信，在目前状态下，促能公司能够把销售额提高到500万英镑。他还激动地说起一项电脑游戏的分支业务，你会强烈感受到，他似乎是在规划着职业生涯的下一个大动作。
对于同时代人对自己的看法，巴特先生的头脑比较冷静。“人们的成见是，我特别幸运。其实管价值150万英磅这样的企业，是需要做很不少事，需要操不少心的。”他坐立不安地把玩着手里的黑莓电子邮件收发器，看着屏幕上滚过的邮件，恨不得立刻就回。
