Who I am
My name is Richard Osborne, born in the Luton & Dunstable Hospital in 1974, and commonly known as Ozzy on many business forums on the Internet such as the UK Business Forums where I am happy to provide business advice and support on many other Entrepreneurs.
Currently I live near Northampton with my wife and two children where I also run my own small group of companies, referred to as The Quick Group of Companies. Companies within this group are Quick Formations, E-filing and New Start Data which are the ones that pay the bills. Other projects that I’m working on include a golf forum, an online divorce service and an online portal/community for Entrepreneurs.
In business circles and online business communities I’m more widely known as the person who built up the UK’s largest and busiest Internet business social networking community, UK Business Forums mentioned above, and then selling it to a media company. In local business circles I’m known for the publicity received for winning a lot of business awards, being an avid networker, and always being happy and willing to help and advise business owners around Northamptonshire.
More recently I have also become a Parent Governor to my daughters school where I am enjoying getting involved and helping the head teacher with anything from fund raising through to the more mundane governance.
In the little spare time that I do have I am also a Northamptonshire Ambassador, on the region board and a volunteer advisor to Young Enterprise, and previously an award winning Business Champion for EMDA before retiring from the Business Champions due to lack of time and unfortunate poor commitment from EMDA.
Speaking of awards, my business Quick Formations has won its fair share of awards ranging for Innovation in Technology through to Best Customer Care. After having a flurry of winning 13 awards we no longer enter business awards because we’ve done it now, it’s no longer the news that it was. We’ve proven we can win awards for what we do, and obtained the high levels of publicity we were after.
My family is very important to me so I make a point of always ensuring that whenever possible I am home by 6pm every
working day, and my weekends are family time also. When I do have my own time I make a choice between either enjoying the Northamptonshire country lanes on my R1 motorcycle, or more often than not now I’m getting on a bit I play golf, such as in this photo of my father-in-law teeing off when I took him for a game at my home club, Whittlebury Golf & Country Club. Since losing my mother-in-law on New Years Day in 2007 I’ve introduced Ray to Golf and he’s taken to it rather well. A bit too well as it was months before I would use my driver when I started and he belts the ball a bit too well for my liking :-). Now the golfers amongst you will notice that he seems to be leaning back, arms bent and not too well balanced, not that I’m worried as it still means I win which is all that counts!
Finally, I actually enjoy public speaking and specifically working with the younger generation in inspiring them to consider working for themselves in the future when they leave school or university. This picture is of me speaking to around 80 students studying Entrepreneurialism at Nottingham University for which I received some fantastic feedback, and truly enjoyed giving. Whether the subject is motivational or based around things I have learnt along my own journey of being an Entrepreneur, I am an energetic individual and share my experiences with passion.
To any other entrepreneurs reading this, I stringly encourage you to share your experiences with the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. If you’d like to know more about doing this please feel free to drop me a line and I’m sure I’d be able to find you an opportunity through either Young Enterprise or similar.