The Apprentice - Series 8

vicisthebest said:
Eught. Was watching on playback so stayed out of here. Can't believe that ****-end won. Total bull****ter from start to finish. Though my other half has worked in recruitment and says there's a heck of a lot of people exactly like him.

I don't understand how they didn't "get" Nick's idea - saying "who on earth plans what they are going to buy for a whole week and decides what they're going to eat each night?" - Erm, ME, and a lot of people I know! I guess if you stop in at your local Tesco Express every night on your way home from work that's fine, but I go once a week so I plan what I'm going to buy for the whole week. I don't just buy a load of random stuff, I buy things to make specific meals... I think Nick's idea was great!
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I really didn't understand the criticism of Nicks idea either, they were going on about it as if it complicates things needlessly. That's not what I got from it, seemed like the whole point of it was to simplify things as much as possible. Still a risky one though so I can see why he didn't go for it. Also, I don't see why it means you'd be meticulously planning your meals for the week, who doesn't buy food that they know at some point during the week they will eat? Doesn't mean you have to go to the level of saying at 5pm on Monday I will eat this, 1pm Friday I eat that etc.

I think I misunderstood the whole point of this series, I took it as read that the business ideas would be based on some sort of innovation, which was shown not to be the case with Ricky winning and Jade getting to the final.

I thought Ricky was a worthy winner, although I'd have liked to see him take a risk with Tom. Unfortunately now is not the time to potentially lose money for people.
 
No one seemed to pick up on Nicks idea already existing, www.mysupermarket.co.uk, just with a recipe bit tagged on. The problem with that being it was never specified where the recipes were coming from, were they on his website? Or were they going to be pulled from other websites?
 
There's clearly money to be made through affiliate link. My supermarket allow you to price compare and fill your basket, on their back end. With a simple click it then gets put through to the supermarket of your choice and you pay.

They make money, so nicks idea is workable but the problem comes in translating a recipe from multiple, varying formats and having it translate that in to a reliable shopping basket. For instance, it's all well and good seeing a Jamie Oliver recipe for meatballs, then clicking "buy" and you get a generic list of ingredients, that won't be anywhere close.
 
weringo said:
No one seemed to pick up on Nicks idea already existing, www.mysupermarket.co.uk, just with a recipe bit tagged on. The problem with that being it was never specified where the recipes were coming from, were they on his website? Or were they going to be pulled from other websites?
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He said the button was on websites already in a testing stage. So i assume youd be on the BBC website looking at somethig from Saturday Kitchen click the button and youd be taken to his website from which it would come up with the ingredients you need at the cheapest price.
 
EVH said:
There's clearly money to be made through affiliate link. My supermarket allow you to price compare and fill your basket, on their back end. With a simple click it then gets put through to the supermarket of your choice and you pay.

They make money, so nicks idea is workable but the problem comes in translating a recipe from multiple, varying formats and having it translate that in to a reliable shopping basket. For instance, it's all well and good seeing a Jamie Oliver recipe for meatballs, then clicking "buy" and you get a generic list of ingredients, that won't be anywhere close.
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Exactly, just take an ingredient like basil. You can get fresh, organic, freeze dried etc. Then on top of that there's whether you want to pay for brand name or get supermarket own brand or even their value range.

Once you've gone through all that choice you haven't really saved any time from just typing in the ingredient from the website/recipe book on mysupermarket.
 
The way it was portrayed was, you know you want lasagne, so you click a button and it would add pasta sheets, sauce, mince etc and you checkout.

It only really works on a generic scale, unless each site that uses the service can modify the ingredient list, which is where the workload would increase exponentially.

Where I think it could work, perhaps by tweaking the concept..

1) Tesco take on the idea, when you do your shopping it looks at your basket and suggests things you could make. Perhaps offering " do you want to add basil, and make a x y z".

2) focusing on the health angle.. Instead of buying a microwave pizza, it would suggest a "fresh" alternative. Sort of like a find and replace. So you replace the 1 item with each component part and end up cooking a fresh meal, possibly for less.

3) as a cooking ideas or cookery supplement for use on specific websites. So, you could be looking for ideas and see a cake, then with a click you'd add all the ingredients and then get a walk though to cook it all.
 
I'm sure my wife has said that the recipe thing already exists to an extent on Tesco's site, though I think that was more in terms of Tesco having some recipes that you can add, rather than it linking in with 3rd parties.
 
I think tesco's trailed a product kit that would provide you with an ingredients to a particular recipe.
it flopped. Thats not to say Nicks idea is flawed, just the potential market is not big enough to warrant the investment.

I work for a requirement company that works within similar niche's and can confidently say the market is expanding at a rate so it comes as no surprises he choose the safe option.
 
It seems like the business idea episode should actually be the first one, since we saw people like Jade get all the way to the end then have a stupid idea like "make a call centre". She took someone else's place who could have had a great idea but who was eliminated due to a small mistake on one task. And what would happen if all of the last 4 ideas were rubbish, could Lord Sugar pass on all of them? That would be a legendary ending.
 
Or maybe all the other ideas were even more rubbish? :p

I don't think Lord Sugar would fire someone if they had the best idea of them all. Which is why it seems like the show has gone downhill as the tasks don't matter that much anymore.
 
Bit surprised Ricky won since as far as I know he was still working round the corner from my office until at least a couple of weeks ago. Could be serving his notice, I suppose.

Agree with some of the comments regarding Nick's idea, I think the reasons the interviewers gave about it being too complicated for the users, nobody being interested etc weren't completely valid. We don't religiously plan meals for the week but we do do it sometimes, and I know other people that do to.

I don't have an issue with it being shot down for other reasons (too big a software task as Sugar suggested etc) but it felt they were too dismissive of the concept.

That said I think there must be very similar things in the market place already, I'm sure I saw a woman pitching something similar on Dragon's Den a couple of years back?
 
i thought ricky was the only person out of the final 4 who could've won. seems like a top bloke.

i get the impression tom was already minted.
 
Don't they look at the contestants business plans when they apply?

Surely there would have been more exciting and better ideas within some of the others who applied. Jades financial plan was a disaster (showing no expenses in the years they are incurred) and simply saying its used up by the 250k. Theres no way any investor would have taken that seriously.

It just annoys me how someone can be so good throughout then let down by their own idea and/or lack of planning at the end!
 
Yeah they do, Lord Sugar even mentioned one of the contestants business plans earlier in the series, so he at least gets a basic idea of what it is.

I believe Ricky was still in his job because more than anything about the confidentiality of the show and leaking who the winner is, they all have to go back to work. I bet there are tons of stipulations on him as well, especially if he tries to take clients from his current employers.

I've got to agree that it's now really not the same since the business plan thing was introduced. It's even more pointless when the guy he invested in last year took a year to launch the product he was already selling and Lord Sugar went and invested in one of the losers. If you go on Dragons Dem, at least you dont have all the hassle.
 
Nexus said:
...the guy he invested in last year took a year to launch the product he was already selling and Lord Sugar went and invested in one of the losers. If you go on Dragons Dem, at least you dont have all the hassle.
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