What Advice Would You Give To The Candidates.

errrr.

You first, your thread after all.

HELEN You started as a lawyer and gave up because you didnt want to defend criminals I like that.
You then started at the bottom in a restaurant and went to the top.
Now you want to start in business but at the top. My advice start again from the bottom. Ask Susan to help you

SUSAN You have nothing left to learn from anybody. Go ahead. If you need finance get a dragon. Dont get too big too quickly. Add more lines to your range and choose more ranges. You have the customers and the know how how to turn over money. You are the nearest to what LS wants and by right you should win.

TOM. LS wont finance your submarine nor will anyone else. You have to start working for a submarine company. Show that you can design one and make one. Then and only then try to go off on your own with a partner or dragon. Making little gadgets wont interest LS.

JIM I dont think you are cut out to be a businessman. Go into partnership with a real businessman and be his salesman.

NATASHA Sorry I am stuck. Anyone else!

You seem pretty big on the 'dragon' thing (though I fully approve of your comments re: Susan).

Natasha clearly has a great future in hairdressing.

One has to wonder why that didn't occur to her before she started the course? Spending that much time on something and the realising it isn't really for you shows very poor decision making for business. Though one wonders if that is just the cover up story, since she could have gone into corporate law for example, or conveyancing/probate/divorce at the other end of the scale, both pay substantially more than waitressing. Something doesn't add up...


Strange advice, why would you want to start at the bottom all over again?

One has to start at the bottom of anything to do it properly.
Especially in business. One has to learn from ones own mistakes not others. She at the moment wants to start a huge business with 250k having never in her life had to risk a penny. From what I have seen of her she is a huge gambler and risk taker. With her own money would she have gone for four hours on a wild goose chase not knowing if the shop would be open. Or wasted her time running round little retail stores when she could have gone to tourists. Its no use blaming it on Melody who is even less street wise. I am sure LS is thinking twice about her. He sounded genuinely angry and not just to put her down. This was the major task in the series the restaurant next week is a minor one. She can sail through that its not real business. She failed miserably. She has talent no doubt and with Susan's training would be better than her. But LS wont risk 250k on training her. Susan has been on a market stall with her mother since 13. It really showed in the program. That is the best business training one can get. To compete with other stall holders and barrow boys. It may be penny business and quite out of her league but still its the only way. I am sure LS will like this post if he reads it,

Well what would be your suggestion. How should she get money to expand With all this publicity she can really do it. I am sure many, many people have now been to her site. All she needs is the products.

Really? At 18 she was supposed to realise that she might not like the job at the end of it. She may have loved the subject and that was why she wanted to study it. Law is not a vocational degree where you get involved in the job as you study. It is purely academic at degree level.
A lot of our top business people/politicians started out as lawyers and changed career to be successful in another field. Does that make then bad at decisions too?

No, you don't have to be a lawyer with a law degree, but as an earlier post pointed there are many more legal careers than being a criminal defence solicitor. And if many lawyers can't really choose their clients and may have to deal with unpleasant people, well that applies to business and being a waitress as well.

There is a big difference between stopping putting in prison people who should be there than taking their money

I get the impression that either LS does not yet know the business plans. It sounded like that they way he spoke to Modesty and is only keeping Tom in since being a kind of inventor himself he wants to know what he has in mind. Non of the others are likely to be inventing something.
Or he already knows and wants a good bash at rubbishing it.

Actually, my point was that most people, even those who watch The Dragons' Den, don't call financial backers 'dragons'. It sounds really odd.

Submarine? Have I missed something?

HELEN ... you need to realise that it is not your divine right to get to the final and win without anyone saying something naughty about you. That's how the show works you strange uptight woman.

Helen: Don't assume that everyone has the intelligence to realise that a tongue in cheek comment is not an indication that you have delusions of perfection.

Are you saying I'm fick ?

I'll have you know I'm so intelligent that I know the difference between wholesale and retail

Are you Helen? You seem to have had a bee in your bonnet about people's interpretation of her comment.

Susan: go get a job and some life experiences

You know, as a comeback, that has to be one of the lamest on the net.


She's got a job.

She's got her own company.

And having spent her life in three very different countries I think she's probably got more life experiences than you have.

T'wasnt a comeback ducks, as you hadnt made a comment towards me to 'come back' to Im just wondering why you've been getting so het up about it and also, quite frankly, quite rude to people who disagree with your own interpretation of that comment.