From prison to Dragon's Den: the man who built Yo Sushi | Simon Woodroffe

Nobody walked into Simon Woodroffe's restaurant on opening night. Two weeks later there was a queue down the block that lasted five years and it started with an idea nobody in Britain had ever heard of.

Simon Woodroffe OBE is the founder of Yo Sushi and Yotel, and one of the original Dragons on Dragon's Den. Before any of that, he lit Rod Stewart's stage show, worked in the rock-and-roll production world alongside acts like Ozzy Osbourne, sold television rights for Live Aid-era concert broadcasts, and spent time in prison in his late teens for dealing drugs.

At 45, with half a million pounds and a government-backed bank loan, he built Yo Sushi, Britain's first conveyor belt sushi restaurant, and turned it into a business with over 100 restaurants and a presence in 600 supermarkets worldwide. He later sold his majority stake to Primary Capital, but says he made more money from a single royalty clause than from either exit.

Chapters

00:00 "I Got Lost" Three Times in His Life


01:51 He Wrote the Book Only When He Felt Like It


05:31 The Dad Who Taught Him to Be a Showoff


08:32 Confessions of a Lost Boy


10:50 Busted for Dealing Drugs With Two Kids and Some Surfboards


12:05 Why Prison Stopped Him Breaking the Law Forever


15:07 A Newspaper Ad Got Him Into Rock and Roll


16:36 Designing Rod Stewart's Stage With No Experience


20:45 "I Had to Get Out Before I Got Found Out"


24:45 Divorced, Broke and Starting Over in Chamonix


25:33 The Idea That Changed Everything: Sushi on a Conveyor Belt


26:25 His 100-Day Rule for Testing Any Idea


32:50 The Envelope That Arrived From Japan


37:43 The Queue That Lasted Five Years


46:07 How He Built a Million Pound Restaurant on Half the Money


50:39 The Contract Clause That Made Him Richer Than Selling the Company


53:03 The ATM Screen He Couldn't Stop Staring At


1:11:24 His Answer to "What Does It Take?"

Buy Simon’s book Yo! Man here:

https://yo.co.uk/yo-man/

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