Your comments get ever more desperate.

If you took a trip with a taxi driver who kept hitting other cars a comment to someone that they should not use that taxi driver would be helpful and valid even if you could not, yourself, drive.

Susan highlighted the fact that the name was naff. She didn't come up with a better one. Thus she performed 50% of what was required to ditch the poor name and find something else. The others didn't even get off the starting block.

Well based on that, your company sounds like one-man-band unlikely to ever grow into a fully fledged business to be honest. You get a lot of these in IT etc. Her skincare line could at least expand into an actual brand and a decent sized company that employs people etc.

Keep it up aussie dave, but you're gonna have to be more creative with your Susan-hate to impress me!

I admire that you've started your own business. I admire anyone who has done so. But I do think it takes a certain amount of courage and brains to make it work. An idiot could start a business, but only an intelligent person can make a success out of it. I read this a while ago: http://www.susanma.com/page/tropic-skin-care-ltd

Of how she started her own business and what she had to do to create a brand and product range from scratch. To do all this while studying full time as well is nothing short of exceptional. She also seems to be doing quite well too, so I think you're not giving her enough credit.

I read in another forum that 72,000 people applied for this series of the Apprentice. That in itself is an achievement and I think many people on DS don't give her the credit that she deserves.

I agree that her age and immaturity does show through sometimes but she just graduated and I have no doubt that she will go very far when she's just a bit older.

Also, starting a business based on retail is a lot harder than simply turning your personal skill into a company entity (e.g. an IT contractor)

A retail based business requires actual entrepreneurship, an original product that has market appeal, and a great deal of risk.

A single person/contract work based company is just a administrative entity created for tax purposes.

Absolutely my business is a one man band. I never claimed otherwise, however it is legally a business. When I do IT work for companies, 'I' am just an employee. Its my business who employs me and its my business who invoices the companies involved.

However whats laughable is that you state how Susan Ma's business could branch out ...... well hold on, we are dealing with the hear and now. How many staff does Susan have working for her? None. In other words she is in EXACTLY the same boat as me as a one man band.

I could hire other people, take on more contracts so I have the exact possibility as Susan. However at this point in time, both myself and Susan are in the same boat.

So lets not talk hypotheticals, because if we do, then hypothetically I could take on 100 other IT workers, farm them out to different contracts and take my cut while Susan's business struggles in a highly competitive market. So why is that scenario not allowed, yet we all just assume Susan will make a go of a business that requires millions in marketing?

'Starting' a business for the purposes of contracting in IT is really only starting a business in a very technical sense.

All it means is that you pay a set of accountants to start the company and then pay them what is necessary to do provide the requisite figures as required by legislation (vat, income tax, etc.) It really is utterly trivial.

So I've taken my personal skill and used to it to my advantage, whereas Susan takes some random product with NO scientific testing whatsoever (lets examine her product base and lets see some scientitic proof to back up her claims that her products are the best) and somehow thats more admiral. err, OK.

At least with my work, you can actually see it working and PROVE it works.

If you asked HMRC, they would see no difference between my company and Susans company.

Susan will have to get her ideas across tonight to prove that she has listened to LordSiralan.

Her and Tom seem to get it, but are weak in voicing and getting others to listen. Not a good asset in business.

I'm sure you do very well, and by the sounds of it you offer a great service. I wouldn't say that Susan's business is more admiral or whatever, all I'm saying is that Susan's business is more than what you give her credit for. She does mention that she works with chemists and that she employs sales staff, but it's impossible to PROVE a skin product is the best, it will just be a matter of consumer opinion. And I'm sure her products do work, e.g. a body wash will clean the body and a face wash will clean the face

But let's not debate about her business because we don't have enough information, and it does seem to be a very small business, something that just got her through university. I think LAS admires that she started young and maybe sees a bit of himself in her.

Firstly, I'm not sure where you get the idea that Susan's company is a one woman band. She speaks of working with others,

Irrespective of whether or not they are actually employees it's quite clear that she has had to do an enormous amount to set up her business.

You, on the other hand have had to gain the expertise that is necessary to make you employable as a contractor. That may even have taken more time and experience than Susan took to start her business but the things are not equivalent from the perspective of 'running a business'.

Your business is merely a convenience for the purposes of taxation. Hers is a fully functioning development and sales organisation.


But then you would be doing something quite different from what you are doing now. Susan would be doing the same thing only more of it.


Again, you could but then you would be in a completely different line of business to that you are now. It would be like a GP setting up and running a locum service. Whereas if Susan takes on more staff she is expanding the exact same business.


Susan has started off down a road that could, by simple expansion, become a million pound business.

If you wanted to become a million pound business you would have to completely change tack and stop being an IT consultant and start being an entrepreneur, salesman and manager.

That's true, they both need to be more firm. I think Susan is on her last legs tonight. Apparently they are both PM tonight, should be interesting.

But my annoyance with Susan is the way she threw the fact she had a business back in the others faces as though she was some kind of genius.

Well Susan aka Ms Genius ..... lets have a look at the books of your company. If you were so successful, why would you give away half your business in return for the use of an office and some computer equipment?

Why would you want an old doddery fool like SirAlun meddling in your business and telling you do something one way when you want to do it the other way ... and as he has 50% stake in the company you cant just over rule or ignore him.

That has no bearing on anything.

In fact, I suspect that you are quite wrong. Tax rules tend to vary between different types of business. Yours is a very specialised one and I'm certain that, for example, the rules on allowable expenses are quite different.

Then again HMRC would see no difference between a greengrocer and a butcher although most people would see them as very different businesses.

She could easily do what you have done. (In fact most people could).

Based on what I've read here, you couldn't do what she has done even if you tried.

So yes, sorry to say it but she is better than you. Is that why you have such a problem with her?

Turning 'yourself' into a one person company so you can do contract work is a piece of **** . Anyone from a window cleaner to an IT contractor can do this.

It is far more difficult and risky to start a business based on a retail model, which is what she's done.

You're not impressing us aussie dave!

Susan is essentially just a sales person. She buys a product in, marks up the price and sells it on.

Ive yet to meet a sales person who is intelligent enough to do what I do.

I think she threw the fact that she has a business back in the others faces because it was perhaps the one thing she had that they hadn't. It was a boardroom strategy for her to remain in the process and it worked. If she hadn't said that she would have certainly been fired.

As I said, I doubt her business is REALLY successful, otherwise yes she wouldn't need the investment. She probably has some big ideas that requires a money injection. And surely you wouldn't say no to £250,000 investment from LAS? Yes you'll share the company with him but the publicity and exposure you get for the company is priceless.

I like Susan and admire what she has done. She is in the same boat as my daughters who set up their shop aged 16 and 17 ( 3.5 years ago )

Due to their age they sometimes don't get taken seriously. The facts are that they came up with a business plan, secured finance, sourced products and premises and went for it. They have managed to keep their head above water in the face of recession and continue to work hard to keep it afloat.

When you are young in business you need a thick skin and a loud voice. Susan needs to find both before it's too late.

She was just putting across that she has some relevant experience that they don't. All candidates are expected to fight their corner in the boardroom. If they don't they get fired. The fact that she has already started her own business - without having to get assistance form AS - is salient to this competition.


Where do you get the idea that she wants to hand over 50% of her current business?

Even if she did, are you not aware that that is exactly the way that venture capital works? If you had a small business it would take time to grow it without extra financial resources. A big cash input and Sugar's expertise, together with access to his advises is not something to be sniffed at.


You mean a 'doddery old fool' who is worth some hundreds of millions as a result of his own business expertise?

Who knows why you might want access to that expertise.

She designed the products, formula, branding, logo, packaging, website herself. She manufactures and she employs. And she organises sales pitches. Again with the lack of credit giving.

That's very admirable, you must be so proud. I'm trying to encourage my children to be more entrepreneurial!

Except that you are entirely wrong.

If you are 'just a sales person' you work for someone else and sell what they tell you to.

She:

1) Saw a gap in the market
2) Developed a product
3) Arranged for manufacture
4) Sorted out branding
5) Set up a system of sales
6) Set up a web site
7) Handles suppliers and customers on an on going basis.


Yes, we know that you have an extremely high opinion of yourself. However, the only evidence we have is what you type, sitting behind your keyboard. I hope you are not billing anyone for the time you are spending prosecuting your crusade to persuade people that they should hate Susan.

Thank you

I am so proud of them as it hasn't been easy by any stretch of the imagination. They work in the evenings making their products, they sell on ebay and go to the occasional craft fair to keep the money coming in. City centre rent isn't cheap.

Sometimes they think about the fact that they could earn more money working at McDonalds, but at least they are masters of their own fate.

This is why we all want Susan to truly be a mouse that roared tonight. She is a clever girl, just too quiet and lacking in conviction.

This is what people like 'aussie_dave' just don't understand when they ask why people who are already running a business would want to win this competition.

If your daughters have a good product it could, nevertheless, take them years before they had built up enough operating capital to risk spending on things that would make their production or sales more efficient.

An injection of cash and expertise could allow them to expand to a degree where the extra value of their share of the business would easily compensate for the proportion they exchanged with the investor for his or her input,

Good luck to your daughters. I hope the continue to succeed.

Haha, Ive seen her website, I've viewed the source. Trust me ....... giving her credit for the website part is not needed at all. Its blatantly obvious its done by a program ... using tables to display non tabular data, big no no and the sort of thing that was used ..... oooh, about 10 years ago. I mean she's using non breaking spaces in Meta tags ..... why???

And this is just the part Im an expert in ..... imagine if I knew about beauty products and took a close up look at her business, I bet I would find a lot of things shes claiming credit for that in reality she doesnt deserve.

I mean this beauty product, lets take one of her creams. On what scientific basis did she add some linseed oil or some tee tree oil to something because she knew it would help remove wrinkles.

The beauty industry is just one big fraud, and to give Susan credit for peddling something that she can't scientifically back is ridiculous.

The only thing you can give her credit for is recognising how gullible a lot of women are.