(Risky Business: in association with Brighter Business)

Christopher Columbus stumbled upon the Americas, and achieved immortality. He was entrepreneurial in every sense, putting life and reputation on the line, refusing to accept ‘no’ for an answer and bouncing back from every misfortune. He used everything at his disposal to get what he wanted, and he earned his own luck.

Raised in Genoa, Columbus spoke the Genoese variant of Italian and is said to have written in a non-standard form of Spanish with Portuguese and

Catalan phonetics. When it came to finding a backer his linguistic skills were to prove crucial. His idea – to travel west across the ocean in a bid to establish a valuable new trade route to the Indies – was far removed from common wisdom. There was no guarantee a ship could make the distance westward and sustain its crew with food and water.

Like many optimistic entrepreneurs he underestimated the challenge, wrongly calculating the circumference of the Earth by close to 15,000 kilometres. But perhaps his ‘business plan’ was deliberately ambitious. After all, his belief in his abilities was unfl inching. He seized on others’ passions.

Hit financially by war, the Spanish were eager to seize back some initiative through trade with the East Indies. The art of knowing who you are pitching to and what will provoke a positive outcome was not lost on him.

He played potential backers off against one another, sounding out the King of Portugal and the King of England, Henry VII, before eventually convincing Ferdinand II of Spain.

Equity was crucial too. Columbus wasn’t prepared to do it for the glory. He created a wish-list of titles, revenues and rights over new lands discovered.

The King of Portugal’s aides twice dismissed his route as folly. Henry VII deliberated too long, and in 1492 the Spanish stole in, having at first also questioned his ability to deliver. Further funding came from a coterie of private

Italian investors. The ‘earn-out’ negotiated was impressive – the Spanish monarchy considered it a punt with little prospect. It’s a salutary lesson, however, that on his return he was arrested and stripped of his titles, with the increasingly wealthy

Spanish crown turning on the conqueror whose discoveries had recaptured their status.

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