Welcome to the final boardroom of Digital Spy Apprentice Series 4.

Roxie and Shadi, what are your current feelings about the final task?

I loved this task, I really, really did. When I finalized the pitch, and just looked over everything I did, I thought "wow, this is my baby!". I'm very happy with what I provided and extremely proud of our shop. I wish a shop like that existed to be honest. The whole task gave me a comforting sense of nostalgia so I want to thank for this opportunity to just express myself.

I found this task amazing. I was able to demonstrate all my strengths and abilities from my understanding of logistics, my sensible creativity, my ability to go above and beyond, stepping out of my comfort zone, my analytic approach to tasks. I also feel Naruto, Iain and I worked incredibly well together and I led them really well. We were all on board with the idea, market research loved it and online research also supports the idea of such a store. I love the store I have created quite frankly and I think it has so much potential really. I feel a store like this which promotes the idea of natural beauty and beauty through being healthiness is such an incredible message and an appropriate one. I really loved this task and my store.

Okay, well whilst this task about seeing what both of you could do, you also had some past candidates helping you out.

How did you implement your fellow candidates into the work for this task? Do you feel you effectively managed your 'team' this week?

I feel my team were invaluable in helping me find ideas. I do feel it was different to most tasks in that I was not delegating individual responsibilities as such because every section had to show me as a candidate and what I can do, so we did ideas for each section together really. I do feel I effectively managed them as I felt I brought out the best in them individually - Iain with his highly logistical skill for example was able to help me on pricing and location, Naruto with his also sensibly creative mind and his way of looking at an idea from every person's angle was invaluable with helping me come up with concept ideas and catering to more universal appeal. But I also feel we worked as a team throughout the task especially when coming up promotional ideas and future plans which we are all strong on. So I do feel I have used them effectively as most of the ideas, in fact every section from logo to the concept to the location to how retain customers were mostly my own ideas but they helped me make our store as realistic and creative as possible.

I was very proud of my team and everyone of them contributed where I asked them do. Given that this is a task to showcase me, I took on the vast majority of the task, but my team was amazing in the bits they helped me with. I'm very thankful for Arran, who provided me with the idea for our concept, as well as helping a lot with the pricing. George, who helped with the location and target market, as well as gave me a couple of ideas for the Marketing, and Steve was a good team member, he did a few logos for our shop but I ultimately chose the one I did, but he was still present throughout. Everything else I did myself. If you want a detailed description of every task:

I have done the whole introduction, the name and the concept. George did half of part 2, he chose the location because he lives in the UK so I thought he would be better at it than me, given that I never visited your beautiful country. I did the demographics bit as well as half of the target market.

I did all number 3 (the product listing), with all the examples and explanations. Moreover, Arran did the pricing (as I had done the pricing numerous times before so it wasn't something that I wanted to prove my worth in, I had already done that numerous times). With that being said, I edited most of the prices that I felt should be edited, and updated them accordingly.

I did the logo (for the first time!). I also did the whole interior design description, and it was the most fun part because I could really imagine the whole shop in my mind and it just made me itch to have my own shop and decorate it. I did about 70 to 80% of the 7th point, the marketing campaign, George chipped in with a point or two but I did the remaining bulk of it. Finally, I also did the whole number 8 which is the future plans and business strategies adopted.

So, as you can see, I did the very vast majority of the requirements of this task, and even the ones I didn't fully do (parts 2 and 4), I had a great hand in them by either editing them or expanding them. I carried this whole task on my shoulder and I am so very proud of my shop that I actually would want to open it when I have enough capital to do so.

It was a great task!

Getting on to your actual ideas now, this was a hard task with lots of elements and I was pleased with how both of you rose to the challenge and produced pitches to a very high standard. I do have a few thing surrounding them that I would like straightening out, which I will get back to a bit later.

For both of of you, what was the reason behind your specific idea for your shop? And you both touched on this a bit above, but was the idea mostly derived from your imagination, or did you have substantial assistance from your teammates in conceptualising it?

When we started the brainstorming session, the whole team (minus George who was away) was pitching ideas, and I had a few in mind, so Arran suggested Vintage, and how it is making a surge, so he suggested we open a vintage shop that relates to previous decades. So, that night, I laid out all the ideas we had, asked a few people around me, and I came to conclusion that I want to go with vintage because not only is it a fun, vibrant idea, but it's also really popular nowadays. So, I developed the concept and decided on the shop being a 90s shop that is inclusive of all the popular culture aspects that made the 90s such a significant decade. So the concept was a result of Arran's spark of idea, which I developed into the shop we have.

Okay, so I asked you to focus on both originality and realism for this task, which you both did, but I did feel that both of you focused on one more than the other.

Shadi, I thought your idea was something very original and innovative, and something different from most other shops out there. However, with that there also comes the fact that your idea is very 'niche' and something that would only appeal to a certain group of people. Do you think the niche aspect of your shop would mean that you shop would not have mass appeal?

Firstly I wanted to focus on online research to find what industry would be the best industry to start in, so I wanted to focus on several areas for deciding that which I told Naruto, Iain to help me research. The idea was that I wanted to start a store in an industry which was highly profitable, what businesses were doing well right now and had a clear demographic with potential for mass appeal. What we found were these sites:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sagework...st-profitable/
http://www.theguardian.com/business/...ers-and-losers
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/profi...ses-10119.html

Forbes and Chron Business both said beauty products and the health store industry seemed to be doing the best with high profit margins, Forbes also said jewelry was doing well and Chron mentioned clothes. The Guardian pointed out that the higher end item stores (like Majestic Wine and Next) were the most successful and profitable this year. All of them pointed out that it would be most efficient to focus on maximising sales per square foot - for example in Apple where they are selling valuable goods in a short space. Thus my focus was finding ideas for an electrical store, healthcare store, beauty products store, clothes stores and jewelry in the brainstorm to support what we had found.

We then came up with five ideas - three were clothes shops, one was an electrical appliance store and then finally our combined cosmetic and health store shop. I came up with a clothes store idea and this health store/beauty store fusion with food-based cosmetics and healthy eating. Iain came up with the electrical appliance store. Naruto came up with two other clothes stores. We then pushed this to market research, with 6 replies at the time we had a 100% agreement that the beauty product/health store with a food based theme and healthy eating sections was the best idea and the most realistic idea (I made sure to ask market research two questions about which idea they liked the most and which idea they found was the most realistic). I also supported this idea because collectively all the online research was suggesting it. Beauty products and the health store industry are by far the most profitable especially this year and all the market research and online research would support.

Roxie, on the other hand, I felt your idea was based on a concept that in very much 'in' at the moment and something that could realistically take off. However, I did think it had some similarities with some already existing stores, for example succesful stores such as Lush which focus on ethically sourced beauty products, and there is an abundance of health food stores in most city centers. What is it that would make your shop stand out amongst these and make customers choose to go there instead of other potentially similar stores?

I believe that one of the advantages of our idea is that it is not too left field so that there is not an existing market for our store and is focused on being incredibly realistic. Yes originality should be important but it should be measured to realistic success something I have learned in this process. We have a clear existing demographic focusing on the cosmetic industry and health store industry this way, thus our idea is realistic.

I believe our idea is innovative and unique, yes Lush do organic and natural products as well but their cosmetics are not solely focused around food-based themes like ours do. As well as that we have differentiated ourselves from Lush in that we are more about promoting good health through not only looking healthy but also keeping healthy. And we have done that with a smoothie bar and a healthy eating section (with the emphasis being on being healthy as well as looking healthy) which Lush does not focus on. We also have a small spa area where people can test out our products and therefore increase the likelihood of buying them, something which Lush do not have and do not focus on. The smoothie bar, healthy eating section and small spa also promote the store with more universal appeal as well. Lush do not focus on being healthy and looking healthy but having fresh and natural products. We have differentiated themselves and I feel that is important to do - I have not gone too left field from our idea so that there is no market for it, but at the same time I have been original in many areas. We also undercut Lush and Body Shop prices, and there is no Lush in Bullring, so less competition in this way as well.

Thank you Lord Sugar!

I don't believe that it is very niche because it really targets a whole wide demographic. To put it simply, we're basically selling nostalgia. We're selling memories. And those are not exclusive to only some people. The reason why I went with this idea is that when I asked my peers, and explained to them our concept, they were smiling at the end of my pitch and almost all of them ended up saying the same thing "I'd like to go to that shop!", especially when I started listing our products, between every other product they would say "oh I remember that!" or "I love that!". We are also selling a variety of products in order to appeal for the biggest number of people. We have music, we have tv shows, we have movies, we have clothes, we have memorabilia, we have books, we have magazines, we have posters. Everyone will find something there that they like. Our shop is also set up to attract "random customers" and turn them into loyal ones. For example, let's say you wanted to watch "Dances with Wolves", you want to go buy it. Do you go to a regular DVD shop, with the risk of it not being there because it's old, or do you go to our shop, knowing that you will find it there? Once you're in our shop, you'll probably run into more movies you like, and you'll check out the music, and the tv shows, and before you know it, you'll fall in love with our little store. Our shop is one where you can relive some memories and maybe even, with the help of our products, make some new ones. The power of nostalgia supersedes any age group, it's innate, and we wanted to use that to attract our target demographic. And with the 90s making a surge, seeing how vintage is coming back in style, we chose a perfect timing to jump in the market.

Okay, I do see your points and agree that whilst originality is desirable, the ideas that may be perceived as less original often have more of an interest in them.

Another thing I wanted to ask you was about your target market, your decision to target mostly females for the beauty products was understandable and logical but at the same time I can't help feel you missed a trick by not also trying to focus it towards males a bit more, considering how men are increasingly getting more wary about how they look and more likely to purchase beauty products. Any thoughts on that?

I see your points and agree with them, but what I meant by niche was the fact that it would only target people who had nostalgia for the nineties, which would be a select amount of people. Having said that, I did think the use of Manchester as a location was inspired considering it's large student community and the fact that it would therefore be targeting the right people.

Another thing I wanted to ask you was about the longevity of your shop. I was pleased to see you did address this by saying how the shop could change to a toughies shop, but do you think doing this might actually cause a few problems in terms of making the shop lose it's original identity and alienating previous customers?

The thing about business is that it's circumstantial, so I can't make business decision right now concerning the future because trends change, and so consumer expectations, and so does the economic climate. With that being said, and just purely by following the rule of retro, in 10 years or so, the craving for the 90s might halt a little bit, and the 2000s will become the new vintage. We will conduct a market study, if the demand is still high for the 90s, and higher than that of the 2000s, we will keep it as it is. If we feel that the 2000s are making a surge as the new classic, we will adjust our product accordingly. I would like to mention, though, that if we have enough capital, and hopefully we will, then we won't need to change our store. We will simply open a new 2000s one. This is what's great about our brand, it will never die! There will always be a "vintage" period that people are gravitating to, and we will pounce on those opportunities accordingly.

WE would also like to open cafe/restos that are 90s themed as part of our expansion plan, preferably next door to our shop in order to cross sell and up-sell between both stores.

The possibilities are endless!

I personally said that we need to find an idea which has mass appeal so I have taken that into account and placed a lot of emphasis on that throughout my pitch. I feel my idea does that and I made sure that we had many measures in place to have more universal appeal which we have outlined in our pitch in our target demographic, concept and layout sections. For example with men we do have an entire section dedicated to men's natural cosmetics such as chocolate deodorants, maca root aftershave, sandalwood and lavender cologne. We also have protein meals, bars, shakes as well as other healthy food which are more universally appealing especially towards men with their gym regimes. We have a mixture of lower end and higher end products as well to appeal to different customers - such as teenagers with the lower end products. The smoothie bar would also be more universally appealing especially towards younger demographics. And everyone loves to be pampered and our small massages in the small spa cater again universally, especially older demographics who would enjoy relaxing and getting pampered. I have made sure our store is as universally appealing as possible. Even the logo which is fairly neutral in colour (rather than being pink, red) encompasses that idea quite well.

So yes while we are focusing on women because a store of this nature would naturally be inclined to them more, and they are the demographic who shop at stores of this nature and thus need to be catered to the most, we have lots of measures in place to ensure men (with the healthy eating sections especially protein meals, and the men's cosmetics section), younger demographics like teenagers (with the lower end products and smoothie bar) and older demographics (with the spa) have incentive to come to the store. And these section are all visible from the outside with our clear view windows so that we maximise taking advantage of Birmingham's high footfall of 750,000 people a week by letting people there are all sorts of facilities in mind and something will cater to them. The idea of mass appeal was another reason why we went with the small spa, smoothie and healthy eating section because of the aforementioned reasons. Most importantly. most people care about their health - that is irrespective of gender and demographic - so the message our store promotes is again a more universally accepting one.

Okay, well despite the few criticisms I've brought up, I thought that on the whole you both did very well with this task and had clearly put a lot of thought into this task.

I've said what I think, so I'd like to see what you think now. I'd like you both please tell me what you think is the biggest strength and the weakness of your competitor's pitch.

I feel that Shadi's idea is original and different. I like that fact that it's similar to that 70s show in that I enjoy vintage themes and seeing things from a different time period. It is definitely interesting and I like the products offered such as some of the music and films which are some of my parent's favorites like Pulpfiction and Shania Twain. I feel his product selection, and overall concept are great.

But I feel that the biggest weakness is that the idea does not seem realistic. I do not see a substantial market for this kind of idea, while 16-24 is alright, most of those people would actually have been children/babies during the 90s and would not be as familiar with pop-culture and music from the 90s as slightly older 25-35 demographics would who would remember the time better, so I feel he should have focused on older demographics more. To be honest I think the store is slightly niche even for this demographic. Also with the kinds of products he will have - such as music and films which do involve the store itself purchasing distribution rights which are huge costs and the rental costs which I do not think he has considered (the whole reason we avoided London was not because it was too safe or obvious but the exact opposite because of huge rental costs especially in Westfield mall), he needs a large demographic to come to his store to cover his costs. He has also got costs from all the interior design things he has such as pastel paintings and posters of artists (which again would not be infringing on promotional/advertising rights for these artists?). I also feel Shadi also has no methods in place to ensure repeat business and few promotional activities such as taking advantage of the radio, online/social media promo, magazines and Youtube artists (who would actually be pitching to his demographic), while my pitch was very much focused on the aforementioned promotional ideas as well as ideas of getting clients back in with various deals, loyalty cards, cosmetics/smoothies of the week, staff scenarios, quality assurance assessments, shorter queuing times, building an extensive database etc. Also are the clothes not a bit arbitrarily put in - I do not see the link with the theme?

Also this is more of a minor point but would selling films and music not be obsolete in this day and age when it's all online - on Netflix, iTunes, Spotify. Have HMV, Blockbuster not gone bust in many cities because people have gone online?

The strengths is that it was very well-written and she clearly knows what she's talking about. The products are nice, I personally don't see myself purchasing them, but I see why some people might. I think she explained everything thoroughly and this is something that we've come to expect form Roxie because she is very detail-oriented and that's nice. It's also great that she is focusing on healthy products.

On the other hand, I found the shop quite dry and uninspired. I was reading through and I just didn't have this feeling of "oh, that's a catch." It was repetitive and I believe she played it safe. I think her market research about what ideas are making profits now kind of showed it, which is that she didn't want to create an opportunity, or be a market leader, and it's her choice after all. I didn't understand how you'd have a smoothies machine next to a spa, next to a body shop. There are mixtures that make sense, and some that don't. This one didn't, at least to me. I also felt that the prices were sometimes too high. All in all, it was a good effort, but I just didn't see this x factor in the idea. When I envisioned my idea, and that's the thing I do first, before going on the internet. I try to visualize my idea, I thought, would the store, if executed perfectly, be a star. And in my head, it was. In the best possible scenario, Roxie's shop is a replica of so many other shops found around. It was decent, but uninspired. I also felt that her target demographic was niche because not only is it strictly female-oriented, but I doubt that middle-class families and below would afford or be willing to spend that much money on these products because some of them are really expensive and most of them are not essentials. Also, I don't believe that women of all ages will flock to this shop. Women who buy from here will have to be scientifically aware of the benefits of food-sourced cosmetic products, so you're basically looking at a minimum of 18 or even 20+ female, and I believe the interest in these products will end at a certain age. Especially since she's alienating men, I believe that she's stuch with a narrow target demographic. She mentioned that older people will come for the spa, and younger people will come for the smoothies. But, why would they do so if there's a Starbucks around, and why would the older people come if there's a spa that strictly provides spa services around. For the teens to try your smoothie, they'd have to be doing something else in your shop, and on their way out, they'd grab a smoothie, but they sure won't come in for the juice when in a mall there are tens of shops that are specialized in smoothies. Same thing goes for the spa. I don't think people who are solely coming for spa services would go to a place where spa is treated as secondary.

Interesting.

Anyway, whilst it is a factor, the decision of who the winner is will not be completely based on the final task, I will also be taking your previous performance into account. Taking the entire process into account, I'd like you both to tell me what you think the biggest strength and biggest weakness of your competitor is, and what it is that makes you the better candidate?

I will address each one of your issues.

1) I was born in the 1993, Arran, George, and Steven, also were born around that time, so were my friends, and we all vividly remember the cultural aspects of the 90s because these aspects live on for longer than when they were released. There's a reason why people prefer their childhood years, these are the years of no major worries and burdens, so people tend to view them pleasantly, and all the things associated with them will be viewed in positive light. This is exactly why it was the smartest choice to target the younger generation, and also because they are the ones who are most willing to spend money on the products we're offering.

2) I already tackled the distribution issue when asked about it. Here's how it works, we buy from a distributor who has already bought the distributing rights, and we buy in the quantities we want. We don't make copies as that would, in fact, be illegal. So, once we buy those products, we will be able to sell them because they become our own property. This is how small DVD stores and Music stores open. You don't seriously expect them to call the record label, do you?

AND I HAVE ON THING TO NOTE WHICH I FORGOT TO ADD IN THE CRITICISMS: You talked about low cost, but, whereas we're being already manufactured goods, so we're barely retailers, you are actually creating your own products, but I don't think you talked in detail about who is manufacturing your products, and how? And at what cost? Because it is pretty expensive and I don't think any start up companies jump straight into manufacturing their own products. I mean, Zara did it after decades in the business.

3) We already talked in detail about our marketing strategy if you had read through our pitch. We talked about utilizing the social media, the University of Manchester, the radio, fliers, as well as newspaper articles, and finally, we discussed loyalty cards to loyal customers. Maybe you skipped them though, while reading.

4) Yes the clothes were a sample of what we're selling, just as I posted a sample of our movies and music and books and TV shows. We were showing you a taste of what we're offering.

5) The majority of the younger demographic don't really own credit and debit cards and if they do, they probably use it more cautiously than to spend it on iTunes and such, which is why the DVD and Music brick and mortar businesses are still running strong. Unless you're recommending piracy?

Just a note that I'll be making my final decision after these posts, so if there's anything you want to say before I make my final decision, make sure you implement it in your posts in some way.

I'll post my answer in 3 parts:

To be honest, I feel that Roxie's biggest strength is that she's likeable and hardworking. I can rely on Roxie to get a job done because she works hard and I admire that about her. Her biggest weakness is her inability to come up with ideas independently, she a lot better at latching off other people's, and not necessarily choosing the best ones. Also, she is very forceful in the way she goes about convincing people to go one way or the other. I tend to find her very bookish. I don't think she's someone who creativity comes natural to her. She has to research and look up and do studies in order to develop an idea. I don't think she's someone who is flexible enough to come up with an idea on the spot. I feel she's very dependent on external factors and I do believe that she relies too much on external data. I don't feel that she has enough confident to go with an idea that she just came up with because she liked it, and intuition is very important to have, and I think she lacks that .I also find her to be someone who suggets something without completely justifying why she chose them. Whenever I have an idea, I pitch it in length and with full details, but I feel like she suggested ideas, most of the time, for the sake of participating and suggesting when she really had no direction or vision on how to carry out the idea, and I feel that is troublesome. I know these were more than one weakness but they revolve around the same theme of how her creative focus needs a lot of work.

To be continued as I'm typing the next ones.