The Entrepreneur Within: Beer Hawk co-founder Mark Roberts on how big businesses can learn from Nike and build a 'start-up mindset'

He then led the latter company’s efforts to develop its PerfectDraft beer machine business and subsequently served as the interim chair of Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership.

Mr Roberts is now an angel investor and board adviser and says that his different experiences in the business world have given him a detailed insight into the varied challenges organisations of different sizes face.

He has now penned a new book called The Entrepreneur Within which sets out the “innovation paradox” facing businesses, with larger companies tending to be “constrained by processes and long-standing culture, red tape and stakeholder management” with a focus on short-term profits that makes delivering change difficult.

In parallel, he says smaller companies wanting to scale up often struggle to match the “rigour and efficiency” of larger businesses when it comes to staying sustainable.

His book sets out a theory he has developed to overcome these twin issues called the FORGE methodology which has five strands he says companies should focus on to; Focus, Originality, Results, Growth and Ecosystem.

Mr Roberts said a large part of the book’s target audience is businesses that should try and grasp the entrepreneurial spirit and can-do attitude of start ups but sometimes lack the willpower and ability to do so.

In his pre-Beer Hawk days, Mr Roberts was head of innovation for HBOS and said he knows from experience how hard it can be to drive change within large organisations.

"I was responsible for thinking about things differently – I did everything you should do on paper but I didn’t really achieve what I wanted to,” he said. "I wrote this book for people who are trying to innovate within established businesses. It is one of the most challenging things you can do.”

He says in contrast during his time with AB InBev he was given the latitude and support to innovate within the PerfectDraft business – quickly leading to impressive results.

"I was told that if I’m not getting at least three complaints about you a month, you are not doing enough. I had to think like an entrepreneur and it is amazing what you can do. It got such good results and became a $200m revenue business.”

As part of his book research, he visited Nike’s LeBron James Innovation Centre in Oregon and spoke to innovation leader Michael Steen who said the sportswear giant has a willingness to experiment and allow some ideas to fail if they don’t meet the right criteria. He says Mr Steen said Nike “had cancelled products that 100 companies could have been founded on”.

Mr Roberts said a similar outlook is needed by more businesses in the UK.

"If you go back to the heart of why we as a country are struggling for economic growth, red tape and bureaucracy and being safety-first get in the way of that.”

He said the book has had a really positive response since being published late last month.

"I found the writing really hard and if anyone had told me what it would entail, I might not have wanted to do it. But I could probably say the same about starting a business – the harder things are to do, the more you appreciate having done them. The initial feedback has been genuinely overwhelming."

Call for more angel investors in Yorkshire

Mr Roberts says more successful Yorkshire entrepreneurs should help fledgling businesses to scale up.

"Yorkshire is the best place to start and grow a business. I find the spirit and community and lifestyle and ability to get out into the amazing countryside really ideal for me. Within Yorkshire we have one of the most supportive business communities who cheer each other on.

"One of the frustrating things is we don’t have enough significant funders in the region. If you are looking to scale, most of the time you need to go to London or look at America.

"We perhaps don’t have the level of ambition some places do. There are some amazing exited founders in Yorkshire but I think too many are quite quiet and not as vocal as they could be.”

He is part of a new Leeds Angels group to help correct that with angel investors taking pitches from fledgling businesses looking for financial support and expertise to help grow.

"It is that private sector mindset that is going to get the economy growing.”

The Entrepreneur Within by Mark Roberts is published by Unicorn Publishing and is available now. He will be speaking about the book and his career at Waterstones in Leeds on March 26, with tickets on sale now.