George Bevis

Published: 06/02/2019

George Bevis is a highly successful entrepreneur and the founder of Tide, a platform providing financial services to business banking customers across the world, that employs over 800 people in the UK, US, and India. He now runs CanDo, a venture incubator for commercial and non-profit ventures with a social mission.

How it started

Much of George’s entrepreneurial skills have been self-taught, learned on the job as he has built companies from scratch. However, there is one piece of childhood advice that has become a lifelong guiding principle for George.

When he got into little scrapes growing up and became worried about getting told off, his father would often tell him: ‘Get up. Dust yourself off. Go again, son’.

These eight words challenged George to re-evaluate the possible consequences of his actions and think about ‘What’s the worst that could ever happen?’.

Of course, not every risk pays off, and George also learned what it’s like when an opportunity doesn’t pan out successfully.

One notable example, a start-up called Speedsell that was going to sell second-hand goods for a large catalogue retailer, left George broke when it wound up. But, without this experience, he wouldn’t have gone on to have the ingenious idea of founding Tide.

The Creation of Tide

By the time he was ready to launch his next venture, George had seen first-hand the poor quality of business banking, and the considerable administrative burden it put on time-poor businesses.

In his view, business banking was an afterthought for the large high street banks. As a result, business customers received poor service and support, and the accounts they had access to were essentially consumer ones with added fees.

This led to the spark that prompted him to found Tide, a business banking platform built around the needs of entrepreneurs. It provided shorter account set-up times, better access to credit, and didn’t require long, time-consuming in-person meetings.

George recognises that Tide had a massive advantage by being a first mover and being prepared to take a risk that others weren’t ready for. The company was also able to win some government funding that several younger financial start-ups weren’t in the position to access. A large chunk of this funding helped Tide with their initial customer acquisition costs which helped the business get off the ground.

What he’s learnt

To the next generation of entrepreneurs, George passes on his father’s advice to get up, dust yourself off and go again. This mentality partnered with his practical business advice has been invaluable in building Tide.

Through synthesising this mindset and experiences, he was perfectly placed to avoid past mistakes, and harness the lessons he learned and opportunities that arose along the way.