Most people would despair at losing the wealth they had spent their lives
creating. For Martin Miller, who lost most of his £20m in just a couple of
years during the last recession, it was merely a temporary hiccup.
“I’ve met people who have suffered setbacks like mine who ended up feeling
they had made terrible mistakes they would never recover from,” said Miller.
“I must have strange genes in me. I’m a naturally optimistic person and I’ve
always had the feeling that no matter what happened I can always start again
and make more money.”
Miller has been hatching money-making schemes ever since he can remember. His
early business ventures as a Worthing schoolboy included hamster breeding
and a magazine for local teenagers. Having his own business rather than a
steady job was an early ambition.
“My father was an insurance agent who had never had an overdraft. There was
nothing wrong with the life my parents lived but I wanted to be different. I
knew I never wanted to have a job, so gaining qualifications just didn’t
interest me. I scraped three GCEs more or less by default.”
In the early days, a lack of knowledge was never a bar to creating new schemes
and products, said Miller. “I had my first, small-scale money-earning
success with a mailorder dating book called Success with the Fairer Sex,
which I advertised in the classifieds of the Exchange & Mart.
“I was 14, I had never had a girlfriend, but it struck me as a good title. It
was an etiquette guide telling people to remember to wash, open car doors
and that sort of thing. I sold 50-100 copies a week for two years.”
After the success of the dating guide, and dabbling in photography, organising
pop concerts and a local folk club, in 1969 Miller hit on the idea of an
antiques buyers’ guide and persuaded a local dealer to enter a partnership
with him. To avoid financial risks they advertised mail-order copies of the
guide before printing it.
The Lyle Antiques Guide soon became a success, with annual sales of 100,000
within four years. Miller became restless, however. He sold the business in
1974 to his partner and left his wife with whom he had a daughter. “It was
pretty selfish really, but I was bored. I married at 18 and I thought there
must be more to life.”
After a few years running a bed-and-breakfast in Sussex, and dabbling in
investment properties, he launched a new series of antiques guides, the
Miller’s Antiques Price Guides, the first to feature photographs. The
business grew rapidly until it was producing 120 separate titles.
Partly prompted by his divorce from his second wife, who had been heavily
involved in the business, Miller sold the guides for £2m in 1994.
He continued to diversify into property, buying among other things a 200-acre
country-house hotel in Kent and several investment properties at a time when
prices were rising.
By the late 1980s, after debt, Miller had assets of about £20m. Things changed
fast as the 1990s recession caused property prices to plummet. “We were not
that highly geared, but we still got caught out,” said Miller. “They were
pretty scary times but I can’t say they got to me too much.”
He rented a large period property in London’s Notting Hill and started a small
boutique hotel, Miller’s Residence. “That was a pretty long sabbatical. I
lived off the hotel and went out partying for several years.”
In 1999 Miller decided he needed to make some more money, setting up Martin
Miller’s Gin brand with investor Andreas Versteegh. “Everyone was doing
premium vodkas, but not gin, and I liked the sound of Miller’s Gin. We’ve
taken no money out of it so we can really grow the brand.
“The idea is to sell it in another two or three years, when it should be worth
£200m-£250m. I’ve never had a problem with selling a share to grow a
business and have a smaller slice of a bigger pie. I have a 20% stake in it
now, so it should make a good pension fund.”
Other recent ventures included opening a country hotel in Somerset, a pizza
company and the Miller’s Academy, an arts-and-science lecturing venue in
London modelled on an old Victorian salon.
Miller freely admits to moving restlessly from one venture to another. “I
often come up with ideas but I’m not good at following up stuff and I like
to move on to new things,” he said.
Despite today’s gloomy economic outlook, the internet offers many
opportunities to start niche businesses.
“My way was always to start things on a shoestring,” Miller said. “If you’re
starting out with an idea, try to test the market for it as cheaply as
possible. If you create the right product, you can make it work.”
