So what do millionaires John Hargreaves (Matalan), John Dunkerton (Supergroup), Lord Alan Sugar (The Apprentice), Sir Ken Morrison (Morrisons), Dave Whelan (JJB Sports), Chris Dawson (The Range) and Peter Simon (Monsoon) have in common (apart from loadsa dosh!)?

They're all former market traders!

John Hargreaves, a docker’s son who left school at 14 to set up among the stalls that once lined Liverpool’s Great Homer Street, became a billionaire with the sale of his Matalan clothing chain.  He started out by buying seconds from M&S and selling them at huge discounts.

Julian Dunkerton, owner of the Supergroup fashion company, which includes the Superdry label favoured by David Beckham, launched his clothing firm on a market stall in Cheltenham in 1984 with a £40-a-week government grant, selling retro items such as granddad shirts and winkle-pickers. He gained a £200m fortune with the flotation in 2010 of his Supergroup fashion company.

Lord Alan (you're fired!) started out boiling beetroot and selling it on his stall in the East End.  Peter Simon (Monsoon) started out on Portobello Market selling hand-knitted coats.  Bill Adderley, founder of the Dunelm Mill homeware stores, served his "apprenticeship" on Wigan market selling curtains. He remembers that he had to make himself heard above a teenage Gary Lineker, the future football star and Match of the Day presenter, shouting “cauliflowers, two for £1” at his family’s fruit and vegetable stall.

Dave Whelan, the founder of JJB Sports and owner of Wigan Athletic, the Premier League football club, was urged by his mother to find a “real job” after he broke his leg playing for Blackburn Rovers in the 1960 FA Cup final. He began selling toiletries from a market stall.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Retail magnate Chris Dawson, founder and managing director of The Range chain is in the top 300 most well-off people in the UK with a fortune estimated to be £250 million. A self-made man, he started out as a boy of seven selling ice cream outside a pub, before becoming a market trader where he was known as Plymouth's "deluxe Del Boy". He is now more wealthy than Sir Elton John.

Marks & Spencer and Morrisons, the supermarket chain, both started out as market stalls.  Sir Ken Morrison spent his school holidays working on the family’s stall in Bradford and now has a fortune of £1.4 billion.

The editors the Sunday Times Rich List say 10 of Britain’s wealthiest people started out on market stalls and are now worth a combined £4.8 billion - £1 billion more than the £3.8 billion spent each year across stalls at the UK’s 1,150 markets.

The word on the street is... forget the MBA, student loans, working in the City... if you want to get rich, get a pitch!