The result, he says, is great for the economy, which thrives on constant innovation and change, but not so good for dinner-party conversation. "You wouldn't want to get stuck in a lift with an entrepreneur because most of them are not tremendously enjoyable companions," he says. "They have this amazing focus and single-mindedness and they don't need relationships with other people. They just talk about business all the time."

Atkinson says entrepreneurs can be divided into three distinct types:

Rene Carayol, a business adviser and another member of the programme's team of experts, says one of the most fascinating characteristics of entrepreneurs is their absolute refusal to acknowledge failure. He says: "They don't do failure, they redefine it. Failure for them is a learning experience that will enable them to be even better. If they fall over, they just come straight back up again. I have never met such a bunch of optimistic people. Everything is an opportunity, the glass isn't half full, it's spilling over."

Carayol says there are several things traditional business people can learn from the way entrepreneurs work. He says: "Number one, making mistakes is okay. It's a necessary part of learning. Number two, speed is the key competitive advantage when you're in business now - it's not who does it better, it's who gets there first. Time used to be the enemy. It's now an assassin. And number three, play to your strengths." Sadly, for the rest of us, however, Carayol thinks that ultimately entrepreneurs are born, not made. He says: "If you don't have that drive, that energy, that focus, then you can't make a chicken salad out of chicken s**t, no matter how you try."

Case study: Alexander Amosu, 28, made his first million composing ring tones for his friends’ mobile phones. He began selling them for £1 a time from his bedroom, but within four months he had moved into offices and was employing 21 staff. In the first year his company, Rnb Wild, had sales of £1.3m. He sold it for several million pounds this year to start up a new business selling video downloads for mobile phones.

Amosu, who was brought up in Kilburn, northwest London, by his grandmother, got his first taste of being an entrepreneur at the age of 12 when he got a paper round so he could afford a pair of new trainers.

He says: ‘The best way to make money is when you make money out of nothing. There have been many times when people have said to me, what the hell are you doing, you are just wasting your time. But I don’t get put off when people are negative, it spurs me on. If you don’t try something, then you have failed yourself.’