Simon Woodroffe

Who is Simon Woodroffe?

Simon Woodroffe OBE is an English motivational speaker and entrepreneur. He started the sushi chain YO! Sushi in 1997, and has appeared as a 'Dragon' on the first UK series of Dragons' Den.

Simon left Marlborough College towards the end of the 1960s, at the age of 16, with 2 O-levels. He went on the road with the likes of Rod Stewart and The Moody Blues before becoming a stage designer.

After a spell in television, he conceived and launched YO! Sushi in 1997. The business established conveyor belt sushi bars featuring call buttons, robot drinks trolleys, Japanese TV, self heating plates and other such novelties.

Woodroffe was able to launch the business without start-up capital. At the time that his first restaurant opened, despite having customers queuing down the block to get in, he could not get financing from his bank – and he preferred not to work with angel investors. Instead, Woodroffe went to his largest supplier and asked them for extended terms to pay off his debt. To his surprise, the supplier agreed.

Some years later when Woodroffe asked the supplier why they had agreed to help him, the supplier responded that they had believed YO! Sushi would be a 'safe bet' because it had the support of very large Japanese backers Honda, Sony, and All Nippon Airways. In a 2008 interview, Woodroffe joked that in fact those three companies had provided only very limited sponsorship for the business: some cheap televisions and a motorcycle.