Richard Harpin: How a Failed Plumbing Business Became HomeServe's £4.1 Billion Success

Richard Harpin nearly lost everything trying to build an emergency-plumbing business. His company had exhausted its savings, struggled to pay taxes and faced losing 23 employees. The breakthrough came when he stopped relying on one-off plumbing jobs and began selling annual home-emergency cover through established water companies.

Three decades later, HomeServe was acquired for approximately £4.1 billion. But the journey involved expensive mistakes: surrendering majority ownership too early, struggling to expand in America and eventually facing serious regulatory findings over how the company treated customers.

In an interview with the School of Hard Knocks podcast, Harpin explained the decisions behind that growth, the business models he now favors and why he believes copying a proven idea can be more valuable than inventing something new. Company records and other independent evidence add important context to his account, including what the sale was worth to him personally and where some of his advice needs qualification.

1. The £50,000 Plumbing Business That Nearly Collapsed

Ten rental properties revealed a problem nobody wanted to solve

Before HomeServe, Harpin worked in marketing at Procter & Gamble and invested in residential property with a business partner.

They bought approximately ten houses around Newcastle upon Tyne, renting rooms to tenants for roughly £40 a week. The investment was supposed to generate rental income, but managing the properties exposed an everyday problem.

Tenants frequently reported blocked drains, leaking radiators and other plumbing emergencies. These problems seemed particularly difficult to resolve on Friday evenings, when finding an available local plumber was challenging.

Harpin saw the difficulty as a business opportunity. Instead of struggling to find tradespeople himself, he could establish a company that provided emergency plumbing services to other homeowners and landlords.

The business was named A1 Fast Fix, partly because the name would appear near the beginning of the alphabetical listings in the Yellow Pages.

Harpin and his partner invested £50,000 of their savings. Within approximately six months, the money had effectively disappeared.

The problem was not a lack of demand for plumbing repairs. It was the economics of reaching customers.

Yellow Pages advertising was expensive, and Harpin estimated that the average household needed emergency plumbing assistance only once every five years. A customer might use the service once and then disappear for years.

The company paid repeatedly to attract customers who rarely needed to return. Without predictable repeat business, the advertising costs were unsustainable.

Bailiffs arrived over unpaid taxes

By late 1992, according to Harpin's recollection, the business was in serious financial difficulty.

Bailiffs arrived at the office because the company had not paid its value-added tax bill. They intended to seize computers and office furniture.

Harpin persuaded them to accept a repayment arrangement.

A friend named Simon Blunt then provided a £10,000 loan, helping the business survive an immediate cash shortage.

Blunt received a choice: take a 20% interest arrangement or acquire 10% of the company.

He chose the interest.

Harpin says he repaid the £10,000 principal together with £3,000 in profit the following year.

Had Blunt held 10% of HomeServe at its eventual £4.1 billion sale valuation, the stake would have represented approximately £400 million.

That calculation illustrates the enormous potential difference between lending money and owning equity in a successful business. However, it assumes the hypothetical stake survived later financing and ownership changes without dilution. The interview does not establish that this would have happened.

Harpin and Blunt remained friends despite the missed theoretical upside.

A £500,000 investment made the losses worse

Harpin's experience with outside capital became another defining lesson.

In April 1993, he says a water company invested £500,000 but received 52% ownership of the business. Harpin had secured enough money to continue operating, but he had surrendered majority control.

The larger capital base initially made matters worse.

According to Harpin, monthly losses grew from approximately £10,000 to £50,000 as the company expanded without fixing its business model.

Within roughly another year, the operation was again approaching collapse.

The distinction became central to his later investment philosophy: money can accelerate a profitable business, but it can also accelerate the losses of an unprofitable one.

2. The 38 Customers Who Changed HomeServe's Future

Copying an existing plumbing-cover business

Harpin discovered a small water company in southern England offering plumbing-insurance protection.

Instead of paying a large emergency repair bill when something went wrong, customers could purchase cover in advance. The company could receive annual payments whether or not a particular household needed a repair that year, while remaining responsible for providing the agreed service when required.

That solved the weakness of A1 Fast Fix.

Harpin did not claim to have invented the concept.

His explanation was straightforward:

"I copied the idea, improved it, and then scaled it."

He adapted the model by offering cover for blocked drains and internal plumbing emergencies, giving customers a broader product than the one he had encountered.

But the most important development was the distribution method.

Rather than advertise independently to every homeowner, the company could partner with a water utility that already had a recognized name and an established customer list.

HomeServe would sell the cover, while the water company received commissions for customers who purchased and renewed their policies.

The arrangement gave HomeServe access to a large audience, provided the utility with an additional revenue stream and allowed customers to encounter the product through a familiar organization.

A direct-mail experiment saved the business

With what Harpin describes as the company's last £10,000, the team prepared a direct-mail test.

They sent an offer to 1,000 households.

Thirty-eight customers responded, each purchasing £50 of plumbing cover.

The results were modest in immediate cash terms:

• 1,000 households contacted.
• 38 customers purchased.
• 3.8% response rate.
• £1,900 collected from the initial test.

The experiment did not generate enough money by itself to rescue an entire company. Its value was that it demonstrated measurable demand for a new business model.

If the response rate could be reproduced across a much larger customer base, the economics might work.

Harpin remembered climbing onto his desk in front of 23 employees who were worried about losing their jobs.

"Yes, we've made it."

An independent Deutsche Bank interview with Harpin corroborates the 1,000-mailing experiment and identifies the breakthrough around 1994. It also records that the company turned an approximately £500,000 first-year loss into about £700,000 in profit the following year. In the School of Hard Knocks interview, Harpin rounded that later profit to £750,000.

The figures come from Harpin's retrospective accounts, rather than an independently reconstructed set of early company financial statements.

Why water-utility partnerships made the model scalable

After the successful experiment, Harpin approached water companies across Britain.

The proposal combined three valuable resources: the utility's trusted brand, its existing customer relationships and HomeServe's annual emergency-cover product.

Utilities such as Thames Water were the kind of organizations he wanted as partners.

The water companies could earn commissions when customers subscribed and receive further payments when those customers renewed.

HomeServe gained access to households without purchasing every customer relationship through expensive Yellow Pages advertising.

This arrangement is known as affinity marketing: a business reaches potential customers through another organization with which those customers already have a relationship.

It also created recurring revenue. While insurance coverage and claims still carry costs and risks, yearly renewals made income more predictable than irregular emergency repair jobs.

The business developed from A1 Fastfix into Home Service Scheme and eventually HomeServe. Harpin found that the word scheme carried unfavorable associations in the United States, making a shorter, simpler identity more suitable internationally.

In the early years, the water companies' names carried much of the credibility. Later, HomeServe built an increasingly valuable brand of its own.

Harpin's preference was for names that were short, memorable and clearly connected to the product.

The company was formally established as a joint venture with South Staffordshire Water in 1993. Its published corporate history records that HomeServe reached one million UK customers by 1997, demonstrating how quickly the new distribution model expanded.

3. What the £4.1 Billion Sale Actually Represented

From a water-company joint venture to a listed multinational

HomeServe continued expanding beyond its original plumbing cover.

It entered France in 2001 through a joint venture with Veolia, launched in North America in 2003 and separated from South Staffordshire Water in 2004.

The 2004 demerger established HomeServe as an independently listed business on the London Stock Exchange, initially valued at approximately £370 million.

Further international expansion followed, including operations in Spain, Canada, Germany and Japan. The company also developed heating, ventilation and air-conditioning services, alongside businesses connecting homeowners with tradespeople.

By the time of its eventual sale, HomeServe had grown far beyond the emergency-plumbing company Harpin originally imagined.

His official biography says the business served approximately 8.5 million customers worldwide.

Its financial statements offer a clearer picture of what that scale represented.

For the financial year ending March 31, 2022, HomeServe reported:

These figures come from HomeServe's May 24, 2022 preliminary results.

They show a profitable, established multinational with substantial cash-generating operations and meaningful debt, not simply a small founder-led company receiving an unusually high acquisition offer.

Brookfield paid £4.077 billion for the company's shares

On May 19, 2022, Brookfield announced a recommended cash acquisition of HomeServe for approximately £4.077 billion.

Shareholders were offered £12 for each share, a premium of approximately 71% over the closing share price on March 23, before the offer period began.

The formal takeover announcement confirms that £4.077 billion represented the fully diluted value of HomeServe's equity.

The transaction was completed on January 4, 2023, as confirmed in Brookfield Infrastructure's SEC-filed financial report.

The distinction between the announcement and completion dates matters: the offer was agreed in 2022, but ownership formally transferred in 2023.

Harpin personally received only his share of the proceeds

The £4.1 billion transaction did not mean Harpin personally received £4.1 billion.

At the time of the offer, he held approximately 7.38% of HomeServe, while his wife, Kate, controlled another 4.76%.

Those two holdings represented approximately 12.14% of the company.

At the agreed acquisition price, their combined shares were valued at roughly £495 million, according to The Guardian's contemporary takeover reporting.

That was still an extraordinary financial outcome from the original £50,000 venture.

But it also illustrates why ownership matters throughout the life of a business. Investors, employees and other shareholders may participate in the eventual sale, while founders who sell equity early surrender part of the future value.

Harpin's argument for bootstrapping until a business model works grew directly out of that experience.

4. The Regulatory Problems Missing From the Growth Story

HomeServe's growth depended heavily on customer confidence, utility-company relationships and selling recurring home-emergency protection.

That model also developed serious customer-protection problems.

The FCA imposed a £30.6 million penalty

On February 13, 2014, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority announced a £30,647,400 fine against HomeServe Membership Limited.

The regulator identified extensive failures in the company's conduct between January 2005 and October 2011.

According to the FCA's official enforcement announcement, the problems included insurance mis-selling, inadequate handling of complaints, weak compliance oversight and sales incentives that encouraged staff to prioritize sales volume regardless of customer need.

The regulator also found that some customers were overcharged or sold duplicate cover, partly because of inadequate systems and controls.

Two insurance products were mis-sold to approximately 69,000 customers because the company failed to explain comparative prices and coverage adequately.

These were not merely allegations raised by dissatisfied customers. They were formal regulatory findings accepted through an enforcement settlement.

Growth created risks that management did not adequately control

The FCA found that HomeServe's board had not given sufficient attention to compliance problems and that management had been reluctant to address customer risks when doing so involved additional costs.

The regulator was particularly concerned that many customers were older and potentially more vulnerable.

HomeServe accepted the need to restore its customer focus. At the time of the announcement, it had already paid approximately £12.9 million in redress and was expected to pay a total of £16.8 million to affected customers.

The £30.6 million penalty included a 30% reduction because the company settled early.

The findings concern the conduct of HomeServe Membership Limited; they do not establish that Harpin personally mis-sold policies.

Nevertheless, the enforcement action changes how the company's success should be understood.

The affinity-marketing model made it possible to reach millions of households efficiently. But the same structure required strong oversight of sales practices, commissions, product suitability and complaints.

A commercially effective customer-acquisition system is not automatically a fair one. HomeServe's history demonstrates both the economic power of the model and the consequences of failing to manage its conduct risks.

5. How HomeServe Expanded Into America and Ten Countries

The problem with assuming the British model would work everywhere

HomeServe eventually expanded into ten countries, but Harpin argues that international expansion should not mean rebuilding the entire business in each new market.

His preferred approach is to establish a proven operating model domestically and reproduce it abroad with limited changes.

Harpin uses an informal 10% rule: avoid international markets that require changing more than roughly 10% of the original model.

Ideally, he believes the differences should be closer to 3%.

A company might require a different brand name, marketing message or local management team. However, the underlying economics, service delivery and commercial relationships should remain broadly consistent.

The percentages are Harpin's management guidelines, not independently established measures of international expansion risk.

He also recommends comparing several potential markets before committing resources. British entrepreneurs may dream of entering the United States, but Ireland, France or Spain could provide more manageable opportunities to test expansion.

The founder should initially travel to the new market, establish the model and demonstrate that it works. Once the operation is stable, experienced local executives should take responsibility.

That creates another requirement: the founder's original domestic business must have capable leadership before attention shifts overseas.

Nigel Morris challenged HomeServe's American strategy

HomeServe entered North America in 2003, but its American operation initially struggled to attract major utility-company partnerships.

Harpin sought guidance from Nigel Morris, the British co-founder of Capital One, who had significant experience building a financial-services business in America.

Morris challenged two decisions.

First, HomeServe had established its American base in Miami. Morris recommended concentrating on the business corridor between Boston, New York and Washington, where he believed the company would find a more suitable environment for corporate partnerships and leadership recruitment.

The East Coast also offered a smaller time difference from Britain, making communication with headquarters easier.

Second, Morris questioned why a British executive was leading a business that depended on relationships with American companies.

His advice was to appoint an American chief executive.

Harpin summarized the lesson:

"Americans buy from Americans."

This was not a universal claim about every American consumer. It reflected Harpin's experience that local commercial relationships, cultural understanding and leadership credibility mattered when approaching major utility partners.

Tom Rusin's appointment transformed the American operation

In 2010, Harpin appointed Tom Rusin to lead HomeServe America.

According to Harpin, the American business was generating around $10 million in annual profit when Rusin took over.

He credited Rusin with developing the company's local leadership, strengthening utility partnerships and substantially increasing profitability.

In the interview, Harpin claimed the American operation had reached approximately $300 million in annual profit by the preceding year.

Public figures establish substantial growth, although they do not independently verify that precise later claim on a directly comparable basis.

HomeServe's FY2022 financial results reported that its North American Membership and HVAC division generated:

• $794.9 million in revenue.
• $159.1 million in adjusted operating profit.
• 4.8 million membership customers.
• An 85% annual policy-retention rate.
• Access to approximately 73 million households through affinity partners.

The $300 million figure described in the podcast concerns a later period and may reflect different accounting measures or business boundaries. Without matching financial statements, the two profit figures should not be treated as directly comparable.

Harpin's broader point is supported by the documented expansion: HomeServe developed a substantial American business by combining a proven service with local utility partnerships and experienced leadership.

Rusin also became a visible representative of HomeServe through its television advertising, helping personalize the brand in the American market.

6. Richard Harpin's Nine Rules for Building a Billion-Pound Company

Harpin has developed his experiences into a nine-step business framework. The ideas are also presented in his book, How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps.

His framework covers business-model selection, capital, leadership, marketing, international expansion and personal development. The same nine themes appear in a separate Deutsche Bank profile of his career.

Copy successful businesses, improve them and pivot when necessary

Harpin's first rule is to copy and pivot.

He challenges the assumption that entrepreneurs must invent something original to build an important company.

His argument is that finding an established competitor can be encouraging because customers are already buying that type of product.

"Copy what they're doing, do it slightly better, and then think bigger."

HomeServe illustrates his approach. Plumbing insurance already existed. Harpin adapted the offering, expanded its coverage, built water-company relationships and pursued a much larger market.

He applies the same thinking to service businesses and franchises, recommending that entrepreneurs study models with proven customers before deciding how to compete.

Copying a business concept does not remove the need to respect intellectual-property rights, contractual restrictions or other legal obligations. Harpin's commercial principle concerns competing with and improving established business models, rather than assuming every element of another company's work can be reproduced.

Bootstrap until the model works, then raise capital

His second rule is to seek substantial outside investment when the company is ready to scale.

"Bootstrap your business until you prove your model, otherwise you need to give away too much of the equity."

The principle comes directly from HomeServe's early mistakes.

Harpin accepted £500,000 in exchange for majority ownership before establishing profitable economics. Additional investment initially increased losses instead of resolving the original problem.

He recommends using personal capital, early revenue and controlled experimentation where possible until the founder understands customer demand and the economic model.

Once that model is proven, outside capital can help finance faster expansion.

However, he does not regard every investment as purely financial.

The right investor can contribute industry knowledge, strategic advice, contacts and confidence during difficult decisions.

Harpin also advises founders to protect their personal finances once a business has become valuable. Paying down debts and securing family finances can make it easier to take calculated risks within the company.

Find coaches and mentors who understand the problem

The third rule concerns what Harpin calls coachment, combining coaching and mentorship.

He recommends using both paid business coaches and experienced entrepreneurs who are willing to share what they have learned.

Mentors should be selected for the problem being solved rather than simply for their fame or wealth.

Nigel Morris was useful because HomeServe needed help expanding in America. Later, Harpin sought guidance from a private-equity executive because he was learning how to manage an investment portfolio.

His view is that experienced people have often encountered problems that younger founders are about to face for the first time.

Combine online marketing, physical presence and direct mail

Harpin's fourth rule is bricks, clicks and paper.

The three elements represent physical retail exposure, digital channels and printed direct marketing.

He believes entrepreneurs have become overly dependent on online advertising and email, where competition for customer attention can be expensive.

Physical mail may attract attention precisely because fewer companies use it.

His original HomeServe experiment was built around a direct-mail campaign. The £8 advertisement for his childhood fishing business demonstrated the same principle: inexpensive marketing can be used to test demand before making larger investments.

For businesses selling consumer goods, he also recommends finding ways to display products physically.

That does not necessarily require opening stores. A business might use an established retailer or department store for exposure while directing repeat customers toward its own online channels.

His recommendation is not that direct mail will always outperform digital advertising. It is that customer acquisition should be evaluated across several channels rather than treating online marketing as the only option.

Replace yourself as chief executive when the company needs different leadership

The fifth rule is to hire a replacement.

Harpin distinguishes between the abilities needed to invent and establish a business and those required to manage a large organization.

Founders may excel at spotting opportunities, creating products and forming partnerships while struggling with administration, operational discipline or managing hundreds of employees.

As a company grows, those weaknesses become more consequential.

Harpin recommends bringing in a proven chief executive when the founder can no longer provide the leadership the company needs.

That allows the founder to spend more time developing strategy, exploring new markets and identifying opportunities.

His own experience in America reinforced the point: appointing a capable local executive was more important than retaining personal control over every operational decision.

Expand internationally without rebuilding the company

The sixth rule is to go global with locals.

Once a business works in one country, Harpin recommends evaluating overseas opportunities where the same model can operate with limited adaptation.

The founder establishes the new operation and verifies demand before handing responsibility to local leadership.

HomeServe's experience in America supplied his strongest example.

Evolve continuously, rather than repeatedly reinventing everything

The seventh rule is evolution, not revolution.

Harpin points to Blockbuster and BlackBerry as examples of businesses whose established positions did not protect them from changes in technology and consumer behavior.

His argument is that a company needs to keep adapting its offering and operations while preserving the elements responsible for its success.

The challenge is to improve the business without repeatedly abandoning its underlying strategy.

Make a not-to-do list

Harpin's eighth rule addresses one of the problems he associates with entrepreneurial personalities: generating more ideas than an organization can execute.

"A not-to-do list is more important than a to-do list."

His point is not that normal planning should disappear. He believes businesses need both.

A to-do list identifies what needs to happen. A not-to-do list records attractive distractions that should not consume resources.

Without that discipline, a founder can keep launching initiatives while neglecting the company's most important source of revenue or competitive advantage.

Build around your strongest abilities

The ninth rule is to hone your character.

Harpin remembers conducting performance reviews in which employees identified their strengths and weaknesses.

He eventually concluded that focusing too much attention on weaknesses could be counterproductive.

Instead, he recommends identifying the relatively small number of activities at which a founder excels and surrounding that person with employees who are stronger in other areas.

A business does not need its founder to become an expert in everything. It needs the right abilities distributed across the leadership team.

7. Why Harpin Uses Jim Collins's Hedgehog Strategy

Entrepreneurs generate ideas; operators protect focus

Harpin's emphasis on discipline was strongly influenced by Jim Collins, the business researcher and author of Good to Great.

He spent two days studying with Collins in Boulder, Colorado, and became particularly interested in the distinction between foxes and hedgehogs.

In the framework, foxes pursue numerous opportunities and approaches, while hedgehogs concentrate on a central direction.

Harpin associates entrepreneurs with foxes.

They frequently generate ideas, see opportunities in unrelated industries and want to begin new projects before existing ones have been completed.

He believes that energy is valuable during business creation but can damage a growing organization if it constantly changes direction.

The solution is to become more disciplined or employ someone who provides the missing focus.

A strong operator can challenge attractive but distracting ideas and keep the business moving toward its agreed objectives.

A business strategy should fit into 20 words

Harpin recommends that companies define a concise hedgehog strategy.

It should answer three questions: what the business is passionate about, what it can become exceptionally good at and what drives its economic returns.

He argues that the resulting statement should fit into approximately 20 words.

The purpose is not merely to produce a memorable slogan.

The statement should function as a decision-making filter.

If a proposed activity does not support the company's core strategy, management should question whether it deserves attention.

Harpin applies this approach to Business Leader, where he describes a team of approximately 35 employees working around a clearly defined mission.

Work that falls outside that mission is supposed to stop rather than gradually expand the company's responsibilities.

8. Why Harpin Prefers Buying Businesses Over Starting Them

Buy existing revenue instead of creating everything from zero

Although Harpin became an entrepreneur at a young age, his present advice is surprisingly cautious about starting a company from scratch.

He prefers acquiring an established profitable business when a suitable opportunity exists.

"It's easier to buy revenue than create revenue."

An existing business may already have customers, employees, suppliers, equipment and a record of profitable trading.

A buyer can inspect those operations before committing capital.

A new venture must usually establish those elements while also proving that enough customers want its product.

Harpin argues that buying an established business can therefore be less risky, although the quality of the acquisition still depends on the purchase price, financial condition and operating risks.

His 97% failure-rate claim is not supported by official figures

During the interview, Harpin claimed that 97% of UK businesses fail within five years.

That figure does not match official business-survival statistics.

The UK Office for National Statistics' five-year survival data, published in November 2025, shows that 38.4% of UK businesses established in 2019 survived for five years.

That implies approximately 61.6% did not survive over the same period, rather than 97%.

The data measures businesses remaining active in employment or turnover terms. It does not necessarily distinguish commercial failure from voluntary closure, ownership changes or other reasons a business stops trading.

Harpin's preference for acquiring existing revenue remains a legitimate business strategy, but the 97% figure should not be used as evidence for it.

Vendor finance can reduce the money needed upfront

Harpin recommends looking for established business owners approaching retirement.

Some may want to preserve the business they have built rather than shut it down or sell it to an owner who will dismantle it.

His preferred acquisition structure sometimes involves vendor finance, also called seller financing.

The buyer provides part of the price upfront, and the seller agrees to receive the remainder over several years.

Harpin suggests negotiating repayment periods of around three or four years.

The acquired business's continuing earnings may help fund those payments.

This arrangement can reduce the buyer's initial capital requirement, but it does not remove acquisition risk. The seller must agree to the structure, the business must generate adequate cash and the buyer remains responsible for meeting the agreed payments.

It is a financing method rather than a guarantee of successful ownership.

Skilled trades may offer opportunities despite AI

Harpin also recommends examining established service industries rather than concentrating exclusively on new technology companies.

He is particularly interested in businesses that send skilled workers to customers' properties.

Plumbing, electrical services, heating installations, solar generation and electric-vehicle infrastructure are among his examples.

His reasoning is that many of these jobs require physical work in unpredictable environments.

Artificial intelligence may improve scheduling, customer support, diagnosis and administration, but he expects continued demand for people who can perform the work at the property.

That is his forecast, not proof that these occupations are immune to automation.

Harpin also encourages entrepreneurs to study successful franchise categories.

Rather than automatically purchasing a franchise, he suggests examining the underlying business model and considering whether an independent company could provide a comparable or better service.

That approach can avoid franchise fees and preserve ownership, although it also means losing the brand support, systems and training that an established franchise may provide.

9. The Childhood Businesses That Shaped His Thinking

A helicopter became the symbol of entrepreneurship

Harpin traces his ambition to become an entrepreneur to an experience at four years old.

Growing up in northern England, he watched a helicopter arrive at a large house belonging to the family of industrialist Lord Hanson.

His father lifted him onto his shoulders so he could see over the wall.

Harpin remembered telling his father that he wanted a helicopter one day.

His father, who worked in the civil service, encouraged him to pursue business ownership rather than accept the limits of his own salary.

At the time, Harpin did not know the word entrepreneur, but he understood that owning a successful business could provide opportunities unavailable through conventional employment.

The helicopter remained a personal symbol of that ambition.

During the School of Hard Knocks interview, he described plans to leave London from Battersea Heliport, travel to Yorkshire for a meeting, visit a portfolio business in Exeter and return to London later.

The childhood ambition had become part of his working life.

Rabbits, kennels and children's entertainment

His first ventures began with a New Zealand white rabbit given to him by his grandfather.

Harpin bought another rabbit, bred them and sold the offspring to school friends.

Once his friends owned rabbits, he identified another source of revenue.

When families went on holiday, he could look after their animals in exchange for payment.

He then worked as a children's magician, performing under the name Ricardo.

The ventures were small, but they established a pattern that appeared throughout his later career: find customers, understand their next problem and develop another service around their existing needs.

An £8 advertisement tested his first proper business

At approximately 12 years old, Harpin became interested in making artificial fishing flies.

He began selling them through a local fishing-tackle shop before realizing that the shop earned money on both the materials it sold him and the finished products it purchased.

He decided to establish a mail-order business supplying fly-tying materials directly.

Before printing a catalogue, he placed a 20-word advertisement in Trout and Salmon magazine.

It cost £8.

The advertisement invited customers to request a free catalogue, although Harpin had not yet produced one.

Approximately 30 people responded.

Only after establishing that potential customers were interested did he print the catalogue and begin operating the business.

The experience anticipated his later approach at HomeServe: test whether customers respond before spending heavily on the operation required to serve them.

Fishing flies became fashion jewellery

Harpin eventually attended the National Game Fair to meet customers directly.

At the event, women accompanying fishermen commented that the colorful artificial flies would make attractive earrings.

He recognized an opportunity outside the original fishing market.

By removing the hooks and attaching earring wires, he could turn a fishing product into a fashion accessory.

Harpin initially considered calling the earrings Danglers.

A marketing consultant instead suggested the name Hookers.

With approximately £100 available for publicity, he printed press releases announcing that the earrings were coming to British high streets.

The unusual name attracted attention, and Harpin recalls selling tens of thousands of pairs through hair salons.

The trend lasted approximately six months before fading.

The experience taught him that strong publicity could rapidly generate sales but could not necessarily sustain a business after consumer interest declined.

Procter & Gamble provided formal business training

After his childhood ventures, Harpin spent nearly four years at Procter & Gamble, learning professional marketing.

He gained experience with brand development, customer behavior and the commercial systems used by large companies.

A separate Deutsche Bank account of his career also records that he subsequently worked at Deloitte to broaden his experience.

The corporate roles were not his intended destination.

He wanted to understand how successful companies operated before establishing a larger business of his own.

Meanwhile, he continued pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities, including the property investments that eventually revealed the emergency-plumbing problem.

10. What Harpin Now Wants to Build After HomeServe

Growth Partner: Investing in other entrepreneurs

Following HomeServe's development, Harpin began investing in other businesses.

He founded Growth Partner in 2015 to provide capital and operational support to ambitious companies.

His investment approach reflects several lessons from his own career: avoid unnecessary dilution, work with experienced people and focus on businesses with demonstrated commercial potential.

According to Harpin's published investment profile, Growth Partner typically invests £5 million to £20 million in businesses with established revenues, significant growth and positive operating earnings.

The investment firm's published criteria include companies generating more than £10 million in revenue, growing by over 30% and producing at least £1 million in EBITDA.

Its stated portfolio comprises 14 brands generating more than £500 million in combined revenue.

These are the firm's own reported figures and investment criteria, rather than independently audited portfolio-performance results.

Harpin describes the role as combining money with practical guidance from people who have already built and scaled businesses.

Business Leader: Helping mid-sized companies expand

In 2023, Harpin acquired Business Leader, an organization supporting British founders and chief executives.

Its programs emphasize structured learning, coaching, peer groups and access to entrepreneurs with substantial scaling experience.

The organization targets businesses that have already developed meaningful operations but have not yet become large national or international companies.

Harpin sees these mid-sized firms as an important part of Britain's economic future.

He believes the country produces many startups but comparatively few businesses that develop into large international enterprises.

Business Leader's published program offers peer forums, coaching, workshops and events based around his nine-step growth framework.

The organization serves founders running businesses with at least £3 million in annual revenue.

His ambition to double the number of large UK companies

Harpin's longer-term ambition is to help double the number of large businesses in Britain.

In the interview, he referred to approximately 7,500 companies as the starting point.

His current published strategy describes roughly 7,500 mid-sized UK firms and sets an ambition to double the number of large businesses by 2034.

Those descriptions use different company-size categories, so the 7,500 figure should not automatically be interpreted as a verified count of large companies.

Harpin's focus is on helping established businesses with approximately £3 million to £100 million in annual turnover expand much further.

He particularly wants more British firms to develop successful operations in the United States, where the market provides opportunities for significantly greater scale.

The objective extends beyond increasing the number of entrepreneurs. It concerns producing more companies capable of sustaining employment, investment and international commercial operations over decades.

What he recommends to the next generation

Despite having wanted to become an entrepreneur since childhood, Harpin does not recommend that every young person immediately establish a business.

He advises starting by identifying a natural professional strength.

Someone interested in sales and marketing should learn that discipline. Someone attracted to finance or operations should develop the relevant expertise.

His suggested route is to join a large, respected company, understand how established systems work and then move to a smaller business to experience a different operating environment.

After gaining that knowledge, the person can consider buying an existing business, ideally one with stable customers and profitable operations.

This advice combines lessons from his corporate career, his unsuccessful early ventures and his later experience building HomeServe.

Developments after the HomeServe sale

Following Brookfield's acquisition, Harpin moved from chief executive to chairman, remaining in that position until 2025, according to the Deutsche Bank career profile.

He continued developing Growth Partner and Business Leader, while HomeServe remained under Brookfield's ownership.

HomeServe's corporate history records further international activity, including a launch in Greece in 2025.

Harpin also received a knighthood in the 2026 New Year Honours. The official London Gazette announcement records that the award was for services to politics.

His attention is now concentrated on helping other founders avoid the financing, leadership and strategic mistakes he encountered while developing HomeServe.

The principles he teaches are closely connected to the events of his own career: an expensive business model that failed, a small experiment that demonstrated customer demand, an early investment that surrendered control, and international growth that depended on experienced local executives.

Those experiences also reveal the limits of treating commercial success as a complete measure of performance. HomeServe created substantial shareholder value, but its history includes documented regulatory failings, ownership compromises and costly operational decisions.

Harpin's current work attempts to turn those decades of experience into a repeatable approach for businesses that have already found customers and now face the more demanding task of scaling.