I am surprised that no-one on the show has pointed out the very, very obvious flaw at the heart of Bianca's idea.

There are many, many companies making and selling tights/stockings.

If there is a real need for a broader range of skin-tone tights, surely they are best placed to exploit that market. They have the manufacturing and distribution already in place.

A new start-up might highlight the need but will be quickly undercut and effectively wiped-out by existing companies who just need to add in a few more colours to their range.

If this was Dragons' Den, she would get 2 minutes of screen time and be told this is not a business worth investing in.

Theres plenty of companies selling bog standard tights, but get into the proper end of stockings where the machines are 40-50 years old and need proper maintenance and theres a market (not just for prozzies), the missus likes stockings more than tights and has trouble getting what she wants in the right shade so she has to dye them so if someone can produce them without the faff of a boiling pan and all the hassle then i'm sure her and loads of others would be well happy and pay good coin for it

I mentioned on numerous posts yesterday, both Bianca's and Roisin's ideas if proved viable would be overtaken with days/weeks of hitting the market.

The main problem even if we forget the massive outlay needed just to get a product in your hands, let alone into the shops, is neither can be protected, so millions will need to be thrown at them to hit first and hit hard.

In essence you are saying that because no one currently makes darker shades no one should bother to try. Clearly she's identified a gap in the market which needs filling.

Existing manufacturers may be best placed to do it but obviously are happy with their current business and can't be bothered. A new business could clean up.

The flaw is not in Bianca's idea but in the complacency of the existing suppliers.

Yes it can, providing she has millions to throw at it.

I've said in another thread all she has is an idea, no infrastructure to put it to market. I also said if this was Dragons Den, Peter Jones would ask "what's to stop your competitors bringing out an identical product tomorrow". Nothing is the answer and she'd be out of the Den sharpish.

For Sugar it was a lesser of 3 evils - tights, ready meals or party planning. Come to think of it, they're all pants, including Marks as well. Solly's might have been a goer if he'd actually tried.

Thats what I said at least his had some spark.

Or maybe they have looked at it and decided it's not an opportunity that's worth pursuing? Just because no one's doing it doesn't necessarily mean no one's ever looked at it and rejected it.

You would think that they would have looked at it. I mean there must be darker coloured females working in the industry, they must of mentioned it in the past?

It's surely something that will have been considered. Having said that, it's often the case that an opportunity that isn't worth a big company's time might be perfect for a smaller start-up for whom it becomes their chief focus.

I have to say, based on what we saw in Wednesday's episode, Bianca does seem to have done a lot of the thinking already, including doing her research into factories. Her plan isn't perfect - what plan ever is? - but she definitely comes across as credible. As ever with the final, of course, the devil's in the detail.

TBF Roisin did her own research, look at how that turned out, she failed to notice that the product was already available, in 2 forms, and her market research consisted of asking 6 people outside a supermarket.

You could find a manufacturer in about 2 mins on the internet, so no real research there. She hasn't visited any.

Sure. I made the point about not having visited the factories elsewhere. But at least she had done some research into the practicalities of setting up her business - more than many candidates ever do!

Yes, the Dragons never, ever get it wrong either do they?

Quite. The range has been there in the States since the 1970s, because the diverse ethnic mix has made such products an obvious commercial option. And you can get plenty online in this country. And as for her nude/invisible option, Debenhams started a range in 2011. It's like some of the other candidates' plans - a quick search of, say, Amazon would blow several of the 'unique' claims out of the water, so it's a puzzle why they ever progressed. I presume Sugar picks his two or three viable options at the start and then just plays a game, because he doesn't learn anything - much - about what he's actually investing in by sending people off to sell sausages or design board games. The whole format these days is flawed, but there's no rational excuse to let many of these people in.

I really fear these twits don't actually know what market research is. During some episodes they'll go to a pub, ask about five people something and then declare they've done 'market research'. That's like reading a page and announcing they've read a book. A glance on Groupon would have been an education to the 'very intelligent' Roisin!

In fairness to Roisin - the product Mike Soutar produced was made for the Dukan diet - and is not widely available, and is I believe only available to order from them, and requires customers to pay a hefty fee up front (in my case £250 for the weight loss i wanted to achieve) to undertake their weight loss programme before I could even buy their ready meals......

I would happily have bought Roisins meals without having to pay the upfront fee - like a lot of folk - I KNOW why I'm fat, and what I need to do to get rid of the blubber - I don't need a "Consultant" to tell me what to do, nor do i want to put my spare tyres on show at meeting with weigh ins..... I'd love to be able to buy a ready prepared one person meal which has all been calorie counted for me....

In a way - Mike's comments were as wrong as Roisin's research among her family. They'd have been valid had you been able to go out and buy that Dukan product off the shelf - but as you can't.........

And in LS' shrewdness. I'm sure he wouldn't be considering Bianca's idea if there was no mileage in it.

Am not impressed at all with this idea for a business.

To be fair, those focus groups are what they are given as part of the tasks. They'r enot allowed to do anything more rigorous than that - and on many tasks they're not allowed access to the internet either.

Quite.

Except he has to have two finalists. When Ricky won, was it ever likely he would have taken Tom's wine hedge fund - as a Labour peer, in the middle of a recession largely caused by people gambling on derivatives , and making money from expensive wines? .

Not sure he is shrewd - except in the sense he seems to want the biggest bucks with lowest cost and risk. There was a piece in the Times this week about the rise of alterrnative foods, like the one Roisin was pushing, which noted they were taking off wth backig from some of the bg US corporations with spare money and an interest in developing into different fields. If you are interested in taking bigger risks, and investing more, your view of whats a shrewd investment may be very different.

Her point was also that she wanted to produce something that was nice to eat., in readfy meal form . That would distinguish her from the opposition. Tthe question is if this was possible, and proveable without doing it, and if the opposition could do the same?

The problem is hardly a new one though. Peter Jones could have raised the same argument about the first wheel maker, blacksmith or car maker. Either the argument isn't a complete one, or the nature of the system has changed so that new start ups are now more unattractive.