‘I didn’t have £100 to my name – now I have a £4,000,000 business’

Just a decade ago, Dan Miller was a high school student with a dream to help others get their foot into the competitive job market.

In 2016, the high school student from Derby decided to kick-start his idea to establish a business that would connect teenagers not wanting to pursue higher education with companies to secure apprenticeships, graduate and work experience programmes.

His dream has become a reality – with his business Young Professionals now working with over 4,000 schools across the country. In the years since it was started, it’s helped 600,000 students and is now worth an estimated £4,000,000

Dan, 27, was also one of the candidates on this season of The Apprentice,where he was in the running for a mentorship and a £250,000 investment from Lord Alan Sugar.

Although he just missed out on making the final in last night’s episode, Dan told Metro that signing up to be on the show was ‘never about the money’.

Instead, he explained: ‘I was hoping to use Lord Sugar’s name and connections in the business world, but also if I could spread the word of apprenticeships and work experience – that is a big win for me as well,’ he said.

Looking back at his early penchant for developing business ideas, Dan said he always wanted to be self-sufficient.

‘I’ve always been entrepreneurial from a young age and selling things at a market and doing car washes in the village. I’ve always liked making my own money,’ he explained.

‘I’m not from a wealthy family but my grandmother paid for my sister and I to go to a private school.

‘We either had to sell our house and move to a better catchment area or go to a local school, but my parents didn’t want me to do that with my learning difficulties and thought I wouldn’t be given the same opportunities or treated in the right way.’

While his family ‘scarified a lot to send me to a really good school’, Dan was then exposed to an incredibly wealthy environment where he recalled others turning up to school ‘in their Porsches and Ferraris’.

However he believes this made him more aspirational and drove him to want to achieve the same level of wealth for himself one day – but off his own back.

As a student, Dan recalls travelling into London with some of his friends, who would ‘walk into Christian Dior aged 17 and just grab whatever they wanted off the shelves because their parents were paying for it’.

As he put it: ‘There I was with not even £100 to my name.’ Knowing he didn’t want to go to university Dan – who is dyslexic and has Asperger’s – wanted to create career fairs that didn’t just sell high school students degrees and instead helped them get full-time jobs straight out of school.

Armed with his idea, he contacted two locally based companies – Rolls Royce and Experian – who both immediately signed him cheques for thousands of pounds.

‘I was 17 at the time thinking “flipping hell this is a lot of money”. But I put my money in with the company and started working with local schools and doing events across the East Midlands for students and then I made £30,000 in school then I took a gap year before moving to London and I’ve been here almost 10 years now,’ he explained.

Although setting up a business as a teenager might seem ambitious, Dan believes it was hugely advantageous as he ‘didn’t have anything to lose’.

‘If it didn’t go well I’d just build up some skills and would have ended up going to get a job somewhere or getting an apprenticeship. A lot of startups fail, but I believe that because I started so young I didn’t have the financial burdens or a mortgage or rent or children to look after – I was living at home for free with my parents.

It was a huge risk going on The Apprentice

‘So, every bit of money I was making from the business while I was in school, I was saving it to help me pave the way for later down the line for when I did make the move to London.’

When that move eventually came, Dan would spend each day travelling into Canary Wharf armed with a notebook and pen. He’d go through the business district and would write down all the big brand names plastered on the windows and walls outside of office buildings.

‘Most of them, I didn’t even have a clue what they were. But I thought to myself, “If they can afford an office here, maybe they can afford to work with me”.

‘So, I’d write down the names and would go home and go onto LinkedIn and reach out to people at these organisations and slowly but surely it all started coming together and people were getting back to me… but it was a long slog to be honest,’ he recalled.

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‘There were times when I had no money or thought I’d have to move back home because it wasn’t working out. It was difficult and I think a lot of people don’t see that. They just see the company now.’

Although he made it so close to the end of the BBC business series, Dan admits he did have reservations about taking part.

‘To be honest, it was a huge risk going on the show. I’ve built this business up from scratch by myself since the age of 17, and this was the first time I’ve ever stepped away from my company, and it was also for two months,’ he said.

‘We work with some of the biggest companies in the world, like Goldman Sachs and PWC – these mega brands.

If I can open the door to one student, that means the world to me

‘It’s a huge risk going on such a high-profile show like this because if I’m edited in a certain way when I come across as arrogant or disruptive or stupid, I could potentially lose clients because of it.’

Despite his initial concerns, Dan said he felt he was able to stay true to himself while filming, and he learnt some invaluable lessons from his experience.

‘It has made me a better businessman because I had to make decisions so quickly, be able to work with different people from different backgrounds and diversity of thought and also haggle and get better deals,’ he shared.

Since being on the show, Dan has also been approached by more and more students, who have thanked him for the work he’s done over the years.

‘If I can open up the door to just one student and they get an opportunity off the back of it, that means the world to me to be honest.

‘If Young Professionals wasn’t here doing these things for students, so many opportunities would disappear,’ he said.

‘For me, it’s about keeping building the brand and business and keeping helping people, no matter their background or upbringing.

‘Whether you’re at a private school or a deprived school, it doesn’t really matter as long as you have the right attitude and want to achieve things. It doesn’t matter about background or upbringing – if you have the right attitude, we want you part of the network.’

The Apprentice final airs tonight at 8pm on BBC One.

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