BUSINESS PROFILE: GUS O’DRISCOLL, WET ‘N’ WILD OUTDOOR STORE, LETTERKENNY
Donegaldaily.com: What is your career and what do you do?
Gus: I own & run an Outdoor Sports Business in Letterkenny called Wet n Wild that offers a decent selection from all of the top Outdoor Brands specialising in Outdoor Clothing & Footwear, Watersports Equestrian & Camping
Donegaldaily.com: Tell us about your first job and how much were you paid?
Gus: £5 per day working to a farmer in Galway PJ Costello a real legend. Taught me most of what I know and the lessons I learned with PJ have stood me in good stead down the years.
Donegaldaily.com: What was your first success in business?
Gus: Having the balls to face down a devious Kerryman and Corkman at my first (post graduate) employment and not backing down as they thought I would and going on to “win the war”!
Donegaldaily.com: Name the one local or international business person you look up to?
Gus: Michael O Leary no question about that. A much maligned genius who had the acumen vision and balls to take a fledgling airline in its infancy that was pitted against a semi state leviathan (Aer Lingus), Government ineptitude, Irish begrudgery and British condescension and within 20 years instead of it being laughed at in the Brit & Irish tabloid press for having an aircraft detained at Birmingham for late payment of fuel to becoming one of the biggest airlines in the world far bigger than BA and all because Michael doesn’t do BS!
Donegaldaily.com: What has been your biggest mistake in business?
Gus: Working for 1 year longer than I should have for two incompetent men when I should have pressed the eject button earlier to “plough my own furrow”
Donegaldaily.com: What is the most valuable piece of advice you have ever been given?
Gus: There is nothing wrong with making a mistake as long as you learn from it.
Donegaldaily.com: What advice would you give to someone starting out in business today?
Gus: You have to speculate to accumulate but the trick is in managing the risk.
Donegaldaily.com: What one item would you take with you to a desert island and why?
Gus: A Leatherman Multitool – a product with a lifetime guarantee that is a knife, pliers, scissors and hundreds more things (available at Wet n Wild!)
Donegaldaily.com: What item can you not do without?
Gus: A mug of good coffee in the morning to “Fire up the day”
Donegaldaily.com: What item would you prefer to do without?
Gus: Shop Mortgage!
Donegaldaily.com: What do you do in your spare time (if you have any)?
Gus: Scuba Dive, Horse Ride, Mountain Climb, Kayak – but if I had more free time I could squeeze in a few more.
Donegaldaily.com: When will you retire?
Gus: When I am 90 the way things are going in Ireland at present !
Donegaldaily.com: What’s your tip to surviving the recession?
Gus: Remember a man can eat an elephant but only in small bites.
Donegaldaily.com: What one thing would you do if you were Finance Minister to help business?
Gus: Abolish Dole and set up instead a massive community employment scheme so that anyone who wants to work can and in return for a reasonable weekly wage there would be no rubbish on the back of Errigal Road, Beaches would be clean, Letterkenny would be tidy with no rubbish on streets and we would get a bit of pride back into our country and any able bodied person who doesn’t want to work for a wage should be given a free ticket to Nigeria or Albania or wherever and sign on there instead!
