From what we've seen of the various business plans, not one of them was likely to work. I can't believe that Mark has got to the final with yet another search engine ratings business. There are already hundreds of companies flogging that idea, yet the easiest way is just to pay Google, and they will put you at the top.

Daniel's party planning was never going anywhere with his personality. It's also a crowded field.

Two other ideas were binned as soon as the candidates got the boot. Solomon is talking about getting another reality programme.

Mark can do what he says he offers. He's proposing to do it for himself and pay Lord sugar for the priviledge. . His costs are limited. He now has more publicity than many other people in the field. There's not much downside . From that perspective its investment return for nothing much.

Bianca has found a niche to fill. But its new to her. It also needs more money to set up.
Does he want risk, or look at possible returns? Or worry about looking as if he doesn't appreciate the entrepreneurs and just wants big bucks for nothing much .

What other sorts of projects would you like to see? He's excluded most - as too smallscale , too difficult to scale up, too risky, too big, too cheap, too costly, too ambitious, too new an idea, not a new idea, too big a new step, unproven, politically toxic, or not producing a big enough investment return. There's not much else left.

SEO's are ten, no, a hundred a penny. I wouldnt be surprised if Sugar already has invested in an SEO.

Not one of them? You conveniently forgot Bianca's plan, which is credible if the interviewers are to be believed. Also Mark's plan is workable but competition is fierce.

So that's two more than none.

Both Marks and Bianca's are going to need serious money, £250k isn't going to cut it.

Bianca I'm not so sure about, but Mark's plan doesn't really need much more than a couple of people, phones, computers and some office space to get started. In that respect, quite similar to Ricky's recruitment business. He could scale up gradually as the business grows.

Duplicate post, sorry!

Bianca's business plan boils down to a colour of a pair of tights. That's it. Tights themselves have already been invented and all she's suggesting is different colours. I know there's anecdotal evidence on here with people saying "I'd buy them" and "they don't exist currently" etc but come on, if there was any money to be made in introducing a few new colours of tights then all the big brands (or at least one) would have put it to market. I'm not saying there's no demand, I'm saying there's insufficient demand to turn a good profit.

A colour! That's her whole business plan. Sugar must have taken leave of his senses.

It's still a viable plan based on what we know, though. Many great businesses have been built by finding a small variation on an existing theme. I do have a number of concerns about Bianca's plan (and Mark's too) - see my post above for my biggest worry - but with the right plan I can see the potential, and at least she has the support of a fashion editor who told Mike Soutar there's a definite gap in the market.

The question is: is there a good reason why no one else has done this before? There may be a gap in the market but maybe there isn't a big enough market in the gap?

But she would have to get Hundreds of thousands of pairs made, if not millions, just to get her foot in the door. And she will encounter the same problems as Roisin, supply, credit, POS, marketing etc. That 250k will disappear within a month.

Not necessarily. In the early days she could just manufacture to order. I agree the money could disappear very fast, though, although it would at least retain some value in the form of stock that could be sold off at a reduced fire sale price to recoup some of the cash.

The problems around credit, POS etc are similar, I agree. But one big difference is that Roisin's problems are perishable whereas Bianca's wouldn't have a sell by date - so much lower wastage to factor in.

For sure, I would say Bianca's plan entails a much higher up-front investment than Mark's. That's definitely a consideration for Sugar.

You have no information to base that view on. The interviewers didn't voice any issues and she's already visited potential suppliers. You gave to assume the figures stack up.

Nah, I can't see it working, is she goes down that route, the big players will see it and beat her to market. She's got to go in hard and fast, and secure big orders, and deliver promptly, not in a months time or could even be 6 months time if coming from China.

Fashion what I know of it is very "fashionable"..lol, and shops tend to order maybe 1 year in advance to set trends etc, and employ people just to develop new trends etc. She's going to find it tough, coming from a non fashion based background. Now I assume tights aren't as fashion based, but she can't turn up and sell tights with a promise that in 1 or 2 months time, they may get them, providing she encouters no problems.

True, but coming from 20 years+ in business I sort of have a faint idea about what things cost. And coming from a manufacturing background I certainly do.

Compare to Dragons Den, where similar products get launched with much less investment. No new tooling is needed and she could order stock based on retailer demand. All she needs initially is a batch of samples plus funding for the marketing costs.

Don't forget other people here might also have some experience. For the manufacturers it's just a different colour.

Credit is an issue, but that's true for any start up. Orders from retailers are her credit. money owed to the business which she will get. From what you are saying no one could start a business on the £250K investment.

Bianca only said that she had identified potential manufacturing facilities, not that she had visited them.

With all these plans, the devil's in the detail. None of the interviewers would have done the detailed due diligence around costs, volumes etc that is necessary to work out if a business is truly viable - the numbers in the business plans only give a high level idea of what's forecast.

And I'm not sure any of the interviewers would have the expertise in manufacturing to draw anything other than the most basic of conclusions either. Certainly not Ricky or Claudine, who both work in service industries. Mike maybe to an extent, although magazines is a completely different business model to consumer product manufacturing. Only Claude, with his experience troubleshooting Sugar's businesses, would have a good understanding about the process - and even then not this specific business.

This is part of the reason why there's such a big gap between the interviews and the final broadcast. Sugar will have people going over the detail of the plans with a fine-tooth comb - far more so than we will see in the superficial final task on Sunday - to work out whether the volume, cost and revenue projections are genuinely viable or just numbers on paper.

Of course, none of us will be privy to that information so we're all guessing, but I have to say I do trust Philip's assessment because he does have real-life experience of manufacturing and working with retailers. As do I, and although we will argue about the details (which we don't know!) my assessment is usually in line with his.

The issue is one of scale. If you start small, it's no problem. But if you attempt to take on the world from day 1, you come unstuck very quickly.

That's why it's always a precarious balance - you need to show ambition, but show too much and you look naive. It's one of the reasons I really rated Leah's business plan last year - from an investment perspective, she showed good ambition but also a sense of reality as to how quickly she could expand. The reason so many candidates' numbers look too good to be true is because they are too good to be true!

What is the problem with manufacturing hosiery? It's well established. No innovation or new tooling is necessary. It's not a new "food" like Roisin was offering.

Claude was very harsh on Roisin about credit. Her problem was whether her products would sell. I don't think there's any doubt Bianca's products will sell.

No one accused Bianca's plan of being too ambitious, apart from going for two lines to start with rather than one. They did of Roisin.

No, I never said that, I certainly started with a lot less.

What I am trying to get through to you, it appears, is this.

The market she is entering already has massive big players, who at the drop of a hat, could have darker tights in shops within weeks, they ring up tell the manufacturer to alter colour xyz to xyc, job done.

She doesn't have any of that, I very much doubt she knows how colours are described within the tight industry, in printing we have Pantone colours, an industry standard used world wide, my customer in America can ring me and say change 021 to 022, and straight away its done. Does the tight market have similar? So probably not, she will need to visit with manufacturers and discuss colour change. Or employ someone who does know these things, but again if there's no industry standard it may be difficult to convey colours over the phone. All this will take time. And while she's doing that Established tight sellers are already, making, boxing and getting them to market.

I will say again she will need to hit hard and fast, swamp the market and be the first, and establish her tights as the industry leader in that sector.

Now back to your comment about 250K start up. If there's already a manufacturer of these tights (there appears to be, from comments on here), but say in Africa, Aisa etc, but has not got a foot hold in Europe or the West, then yes it can be done. She orders a couple of thousand pairs and hits the retailers, taking orders and selling her stock, job done. She doesn't have to worry about manufacturing, or product lines or having to stock 100s of pairs to cover all sizes/colours.

No, I never said that, I certainly started with a lot less.

What I am trying to get through to you, it appears, is this.

The market she is entering already has massive big players, who at the drop of a hat, could have darker tights in shops within weeks, they ring up tell the manufacturer to alter colour xyz to xyc, job done.

She doesn't have any of that, I very much doubt she knows how colours are described within the tight industry, in printing we have Pantone colours, an industry standard used world wide, my customer in America can ring me and say change 021 to 022, and straight away its done. Does the tight market have similar? So probably not, she will need to visit with manufacturers and discuss colour change. Or employ someone who does know these things, but again if there's no industry standard it may be difficult to convey colours over the phone, especially if you don't know at what colour they're already at. All this will take time. And while she's doing that Established tight sellers are already, making, boxing and getting them to market.

I will say again she will need to hit hard and fast, swamp the market and be the first, and establish her tights as the industry leader in that sector.

Now back to your comment about 250K start up. If there's already a manufacturer of these tights (there appears to be, from comments on here), but say in Africa, Aisa etc, but has not got a foot hold in Europe or the West, then yes it can be done. She orders a couple of thousand pairs and hits the retailers, taking orders and selling her stock, job done. She doesn't have to worry about manufacturing, or product lines or having to stock 100s of pairs to cover all sizes/colours.

I still don't understand how Mark's business will work. His current employers rely on their own optimisation software as far as I can see and they benefit from being part of an international organisation. If Mark is going alone he will lose all this?

It has been done before. Sock Shop were doing it 15 years ago.

I didn't say that Bianca's plan was too ambitious - I was only talking generically. Although I do think that the number of different product variants she might need is a big potential stumbling block.