The Apprentice 2014.......................

[North West Tom]

I do find it bizarre how these candidates who are so passionate about their business and have put their lives into them don't even have a name? And the branding as well? This was just like any other task they have done. Has Lord Sugar really just splurged £250k (not much to him, I know) on someone whose name, branding, advertising, pricing strategy etc was all done in just two or three days?

[veevee]

Confused that noone has pointed out that none of the candidates seem to have anything more than a back-of-a-napkin business plan, and when pressed for any kind of detail just make up any old st?

[Funk]

What's also conspicuous by its absence is any form of follow-up on previous years' 'winners'. I notice they trotted out Tom, Ricky and Leah on You're Hired but no word at all on whether the investment experiments have actually worked. We've seen more reporting on acrimonious splits between Sugar and his 'hires' and very little on following up on the claims that he wants to 'start businesses' in these 'tough times'.

I'm inclined to think that many of these ideas just haven't really worked very well or been successful enough to shout about.

[p1doc]

lord sugar did say last 3 winners were now in profit with ricky employing 23 people at present so all doing well
martin

[FourWheelDrift]

Here's some treeness, Aventom with Tom Pellerau at the top, I think he's doing alright for himself.

https://www.kompany.pt/o/uk/alan+sugar?oid=5654276... & http://companycheck.co.uk/company/07746771

Aventom - http://www.aventom.com/

[FourWheelDrift]

Dr Leah (Leah Totton) - http://companycheck.co.uk/company/08610855

Ricky Martin - Hyperec is still (it seems) part of Amshold Ltd

[Funk]

I didn't watch all of You're Hired (Mark annoys the tits off me) so maybe it was on a bit I didn't see.

Fair play if they're doing well, Tom especially as he's not your 'typical' winner for something like this and I really wanted him to succeed.

[DSLiverpool]

Marks SEO will be interesting with monthly visits, ie month 3 - (client) were selling less Mark (Mark) oh we will do more stuff you cannot see for your £600 a month. Those visits will soon be dreaded by the account managers hence high staff churn and high client churn unless he locks them in in which case the Mail will run "ripped off by Sugars blue eyed boy".

SEO must be hard at the best of time and I think Mark is a butterfly never staying very long in anything hence the crap is behind him.

[Funk]

Just seen on LinkedIn he worked with several people I used to work with when I was at Yell. The SEO company he worked for is ReachLocal, they tried to tempt me a while back but it wasn't a route I wanted to go. I thought quite a lot of the sales schtick sounded familiar when watching the 'pitches'.

[Jasandjules]

North West Tom said:

I do find it bizarre how these candidates who are so passionate about their business and have put their lives into them don't even have a name? And the branding as well? This was just like any other task they have done. Has Lord Sugar really just splurged £250k (not much to him, I know) on someone whose name, branding, advertising, pricing strategy etc was all done in just two or three days?

This is what I was saying last night. Surely they have a name, logo etc all in mind ready to go.

And are there not already lots of tights places like her "unique" company? Google search seems to think so at least.

[KTF]

Its funny how the tight company was seen as such a winner where Roisin food thing was not. She didnt appear as one of the 'helpers' either.

Probably something to do with this.

said:

Roisin lost out because her business idea isn’t entirely unique. Let’s hope that Lord Sugar never switches on his Amstrad email machine and searches for SEO agencies. Otherwise Mark’s in hot water.

From: http://tv.bt.com/tv/tv-news/mark-wins-the-apprenti...

[GetCarter]

SEO's make me laugh.. I get e mails from them every week asking for money, and not one of them yet have reached the google position I have for my website. I should probably help them, not vice versa.

Still, I booked Mark as winner from the start. Probably the best waste of £250. With AMS1 he'll stand a chance.

[FourWheelDrift]

GetCarter said:

SEO's make me laugh.. I get e mails from them every week asking for money, and not one of them yet have reached the google position I have for my website. I should probably help them, not vice versa.

Still, I booked Mark as winner from the start. Probably the best waste of £250. With AMS1 he'll stand a chance.

The only one you should consider using is the one that can get their own business at the top of a google search for SEO.

[MGJohn]

I actually watched the whole final broadcast and found it entertaining. The female finalist despite losing was really impressive, rather moreso than when I saw her efforts in previous shows. Both finalists' concepts and business plans will struggle in their already overloaded chosen markets.

Both finalists were impressive in this final show although less so in those episodes I briefly dipped into previously. Whatever they chose to do, with that much motivation and good communication skills, both very good at thinking on their feet rather than from a script, they should succeed in whatever they chose to do with the rest of their lives.

Even if Mark "blows" that £250k, it's a drop in the ocean to the Sugar operation and the revenue and other positives the series will accrue.

[Countdown]

Is it actually Shuggs's own money? I assumed that it was some or all of the payment he received from the Production Company for appearing on the programme?

[MikeO996]

I didn't understand why no-one used Dragon's Den objection 101 to Bianca's proposal, which is that any of the major hosiery companies could blow her out of the water tomorrow if they chose to by launching their own competing product.
Which also raises the question of why they haven't chosen to do this themselves years ago if it's such a great idea: what do they know that we don't? I suspect it is the objection that was voiced, the range of product that would need to be stocked (which of course may justify the luxury price point, but which then wipes out demand).

[anonymous-user]

Jasandjules said:

North West Tom said:

I do find it bizarre how these candidates who are so passionate about their business and have put their lives into them don't even have a name? And the branding as well? This was just like any other task they have done. Has Lord Sugar really just splurged £250k (not much to him, I know) on someone whose name, branding, advertising, pricing strategy etc was all done in just two or three days?

This is what I was saying last night. Surely they have a name, logo etc all in mind ready to go.

Bianca lost it on not having the brand right, but previously Solomon had his brand pretty much sorted and was torn apart for it. The rest of his business plan was lacking, but Claude went after his "pretty pictures" specifically. Those "pretty pictures" make or break a product or service. The brand is almost the most important thing!

Bianca didn't have a pricing strategy apart from calling it premium and hiking the price, rather than actually explaining how her tights were premium. Not once did she say they cost me X amount to make so I need to sell at X.

[KTF]

MikeO996 said:

I didn't understand why no-one used Dragon's Den objection 101 to Bianca's proposal, which is that any of the major hosiery companies could blow her out of the water tomorrow if they chose to by launching their own competing product.

I wondered this as well. If there was such demand for this sort of thing then why haven't one of the big brands introduced something to cover the gap in the market.

[walm]

KTF said:

I wondered this as well. If there was such demand for this sort of thing then why haven't one of the big brands introduced something to cover the gap in the market.

I strongly suspect it is to do with scale and pricing relative to the range.

M&S for example will have spent literally decades working on the optimum number of shades of tight to have in their range.
For every extra shade they will need a significant pick up in volume to justify the extra inventory cost, design cost and lower volume pricing achieved on sourcing the previous shades.
They will tweak that range until they reach optimum.

So no doubt they will leave some customers dissatisfied who will either shop elsewhere or just not buy tights or some who begrudgingly buy the "wrong" shade since they don't have an option and MUST HAVE SOME TIGHTS.

So 50 shades say is too high since they will be out of stock all the time and they will have far higher COGS owing to the fact they are buying 5x fewer per shade than if they stocked just 10 shades.
Repeat until optimum profits.

For a niche product you can get away with the lower volumes and charge more.
However, again a guess, but having a bunch of tights at 2x the price on only a slightly different shade is going to give you ZERO volume.
Ladies will just buy the cheaper tights. They seriously don't care enough on what is already a massive fashion compromise (you're wearing tights love - this clearly means you are either just cold or couldn't be arsed to shave your legs).

You might get away with it in Agent Provocateur but then who goes to AP to buy tights!?

[jammy_basturd]

walm said:

Ladies will just buy the cheaper tights. They seriously don't care enough on what is already a massive fashion compromise (you're wearing tights love - this clearly means you are either just cold or couldn't be arsed to shave your legs).

This is what I assume too. Fair enough call them "premium" tights if you're going to make them into something fancy - but Bianca's product were just everyday tights, surely the majority of women will expect an 'everyday' price to go with them.

walm said:

You might get away with it in Agent Provocateur but then who goes to AP to buy tights!?

I don't, I go to AP for my brakes.