£600k, Dragons Den..

shifty_uk · 13 Aug 2009 at 23:45

Just watching dragons den and I'm staggered...

I've previously interned within interactive design and I'm aware, as I'm sure most of you are as to the amount of money spent on the production of sites and online applications but £600,000? I'm completely baffled. I'm sure she's obviously spent a few quid on offline activities but still, I can't get my head round why any company would spend so much on what I can only see as an overall average looking site and apps?

radderfire · 13 Aug 2009 at 23:47

I was staggered as well ... more reminiscent of the dot com bubble days than today's market.

Rgds

Hxc · 13 Aug 2009 at 23:48

I can't fathome how it is costing here 22k a month either...absolutely mental.

oli collett · 13 Aug 2009 at 23:53

Thought the same. It sounds like they built the whole site bespoke and spent a fortune doing it, whereas I'd assume you could buy some off the shelf solution(s) for a lot, lot less. £22K a month seemed absurd.

thor · 13 Aug 2009 at 23:57

For that sort of money you'd expect an absolutely amazing site but it's far from it. It's actually very buggy. I was able to access a members account just by clicking on the About page - there was a "My Homepage" link off to the right on the About Us page which took me to the member's account where his full name, date of birth and postcode were displayed.

I thought this and other strange aspects of the site were just because it was new but looking at when some of the recipes were added it dates back to at least Feb '08.

shifty_uk · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:01

oli collett said:
Thought the same. It sounds like they built the whole site bespoke and spent a fortune doing it, whereas I'd assume you could buy some off the shelf solution(s) for a lot, lot less. £22K a month seemed absurd.

Even a completely bespoke application wouldn't cost that amount, surely? It's just your average database driven site, I see nothing special.

Some agency is taking her for a ride.

edit: The branding/logo and it's typeface are also horrendous.

D D Danneh · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:14

Link to the site?

Liquidfox · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:17

www.mydish.co.uk

D D Danneh · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:19

The site doesn't LOOK too bad, besides the broken pictures, but:

shifty_uk said:
Some agency is taking her for a ride.

magick · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:21

looks like it's been built with a dreamweaver template to me.

oli collett · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:24

shifty_uk said:
Even a completely bespoke application wouldn't cost that amount, surely? It's just your average database driven site, I see nothing special.

Some agency is taking her for a ride.

edit: The branding/logo and it's typeface are also horrendous.

I'd hope not! I don't work in that field so I wouldn't know, but knowing how much IT projects can over-run cost wise..

Morte · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:24

For that sort of money you'd stick a model on the front page.

shifty_uk · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:24

Liquidfox said:
www.mydish.co.uk

Yeah, sorry I didn't mention - for anyone who didn't see the episode, she basically got multiple funding/investments totalling £600k to make this site and whatever applications come with it.

Then, obviously asked the Dragons for £100k more

As you do...

CliffyBiro · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:29

Isn't that just Wordpress with the Buddypress plugin and a basic theme on top?

I.E. cost buttons?

sniffy · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:31

I didn't see the show but the site's concept seems pretty good if you're into that type of stuff. 600k though? :/

MaX_PoWah · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:33

I must admit I was sat with my dad and he was like, oh they will never invest, I however felt they might do but I was totally staggered at the amount of money that the site had used up, I really have no idea why it cost that much...

The only really clever idea was putting up recipes and then allowing people to order the ingredients from the site via ASDA.

But the web is all about traffic and she wasn’t really demonstrating how she was going to create all this traffic to create all this value.

From an investors point of view however when they started talking about 600k investment it must create some confidence that whoever is behind it is going to make it work, either that or they are stupid.

Tonyator · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:33

You can't click on the pictures to view the recipes, therefore the site fails!

CliffyBiro · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:34

Tonyator said:
You can't click on the pictures to view the recipes, therefore the site fails!

Doesn't even have a favicon.

But you can click on the images to view recipes.

V4NT0M · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:35

Jesus Christ. Which idiots invested all that money? 22k a month for the site? What does it go on? You could host a site that takes 100k hits for pennies!

She didn't even say what she was going to do with the money did she?

Tonyator · 14 Aug 2009 at 00:36

skippi90 said:
Doesn't even have a favicon.

But you can click on the images to view recipes.

I know! But The fact that the pictures aren't links is really bugging me as I keep trying to click on them

I don't know why it's not working for me......

Also, If you can't take a photo at an average resolution, you shouldn't be allowed to cook.