innocent drinks is not Richard's first enterprise. In fact, Richard's entrepreneurial career started earlier than most, when he began washing windows for his neighbours at the age of eight.  Following a brief spell of selling Smurf stickers at junior school (until his teachers caught him), Richard retired from the coalface of self-employment, aged 12.  However, a summer job picking up dog biscuits in a pet food factory soon reminded Richard of the joys of working for himself, and led him to set up a summer gardening business called Two Men Went to Mow, employing his school friends.

After graduating from Cambridge University and working in advertising for four years, Richard and his two college friends Jon and Adam, decided to set up a lovely fresh fruit juice company.  After six months of developing recipes in their kitchen, the boys wanted to test their drinks with a wider audience.  To do so, they bought five hundred pounds of fruit, turned it into smoothies and sold them from a stall at a music festival.  They put up a sign that said, 'Should we give up our jobs to make these smoothies', and put out a big bin that said NO and one that said YES.  Fortunately, at the end of the weekend, the YES bin was full so they went in the next day and resigned.