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If leah has lost 50k in a year I don't hold out much hope for mark |
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#26 |
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: By the window
Posts: 14,154
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Can you prove otherwise ?
One of the losers is also in a partnership with Sugar and she's making money too. |
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#27 |
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Join Date: Jan 2011
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Mark will need a large client base to make this a success. Yet his USP was a personal account manager for every client and 2 personal visits a month.
Is he limiting his travel radius and therefore his customer base or is this a very localised internet marketing business ? Doesn't sound sustainable. Quote:
I was surprised that the business names appeared to be chosen in the final programme. Surely if you are passionate about a business idea, and have written a detailed business plan, you would have chosen a name? I also thought - but may be mistaken- that I saw the name Climb Online on Mark's folder in the interview prog anyway.
Interesting about the interview prog - would try to find it but can't be bothered to watch the whole thing back. Quote:
I don't remember seeing that but you may be right. In the edit last night we never actually saw who suggested Climb Online, so it may be that Mark simply put forward his own name in the end and ran with it. To be honest, the company name doesn't really matter that much in the episode itself - remember that there was all the fuss over Leah's brand name last year, and ultimately between the episode and You're Hired they ended up rebranding as Dr Leah anyway.
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#28 |
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Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 59,689
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Quote:
Can you prove otherwise ?
One of the losers is also in a partnership with Sugar and she's making money too. |
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#29 |
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Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 504
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Well, there's different ways of measuring profitability depending on what accountancy methods and tricks you use and it also depends on the time period you are looking at.
I'm surprised at the naivety of the comments here. A new business costs money to get up and running, that, surprising as it might sound, is why people chase the banks, Dragons and Sugar for seed money. The initial funding won't produce a profit as it mostly goes on capital expenditure, like shops, computers, desks, pots 'n pans, initial stock, etc etc. It can often take a long time to pay back that expenditure. For tax purposes, a lot of that spending is used to create a book loss. |
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#30 |
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 6,586
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Accountancy games are played to reduce the amount of tax payable. No amount of playing with figures will produce a profit where there isn't one.
I'm surprised at the naivety of the comments here. A new bhusiness costs money to get up and running, that, surprising as it might sound, is why people chase the banks, Dragons and Sugar for seed money. The initial funding won't produce a profit as it mostly goes on capital expenditure, like shops, computers, desks, pots 'n pans, initial stock, etc etc. It can often take a long time to pay back that expenditure. For tax purposes, a lot of that spending is used to create a book loss. Fact is, it was worth billions and just sold for billions. Buyers weren't looking just at the bottom line, they're looking at EBITDA, capex, assets, etc. And as someone above said, poor cash flow can kill even a decent business with a strong order book. It's naive to say she made a loss in year 1, as if the disposable net profit of a start-up is the only measure of success, when the VALUE of her business could be impressive. I'm no expert but this much I've learned. |
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#31 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 65,745
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Quote:
Mark will need a large client base to make this a success. Yet his USP was a personal account manager for every client and 2 personal visits a month.
Is he limiting his travel radius and therefore his customer base or is this a very localised internet marketing business ? Doesn't sound sustainable. |
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#32 |
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 65,745
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Climbonline website has already been taken and funnily enough about rock climbing
![]() http://www.climbonline.co.uk/ http://www.climbonline.com/ is currently 6th. But only because the four search results above it are associated with this series of The Apprentice, otherwise it would be 2nd. One thing which brings into question his business plan is that he didn't bother to buy the domain name long before he took part in the show. I would have thought that would be something you would do very early on to ensure that other potential competitors didn't take your name as their domain name. Anyway, it's good news for the two rock climbing websites who already had the name before him. Business must be booming for them. Unfortunately Mark won't earn a penny. |
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#33 |
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 65,745
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Funnily enough I've just found this website which is the same sort of digital marketing business as Mark's and makes use of the tagline 'climb online'.
Is this Mark's business website or somebody else's? http://www.extradigital.co.uk/articl...mb-online.html |
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#34 |
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 6,586
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Would I be too wide off the mark to suggest that his plan may be for him to intend to use the clients on the database he used for his previous employer?
My problem with Mark's model harks back to the discussion in here about the value of a business. In a crowded space and without a USP, his model relies entirely on him, either delivering himself (rather than managing the business) or having great talent spotting/talent management skills, and the process didn't test those. If Sugar ever wants to cash in his chips and Mark isn't part of the deal, it may have no value. That said, the personal account manager per client is a differentiator, but since that only seemed to come up as an idea during Sanjay's market research, we don't know if Mark has really thought it through. Again it relies on him nurturing great talent. And it may not be viable if his profit model relies on volume. I can see Mark making a tidy salary for himself but I can't see (yet) big yields for Sugar. |
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#35 |
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Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 1,369
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One thing which brings into question his business plan is that he didn't bother to buy the domain name long before he took part in the show.
I would have thought that would be something you would do very early on to ensure that other potential competitors didn't take your name as their domain name. The leaflet got into the hands of the competing Indian restaurant two doors down who realised what they had(n't) done, bought the domain name themselves and now, if you visit the site, it redirects you to theirs! |
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#36 |
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 65,745
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If there were no clauses in his last employment contract prohibiting this (usually for a given time period), then yes he could. But his previous employer would have to be very silly to have an account/sales manager on a contract with no anti-competition clauses.
My problem with Mark's model harks back to the discussion in here about the value of a business. In a crowded space and without a USP, his model relies entirely on him, either delivering himself (rather than managing the business) or having great talent spotting/talent management skills, and the process didn't test those. If Sugar ever wants to cash in his chips and Mark isn't part of the deal, it may have no value. That said, the personal account manager per client is a differentiator, but since that only seemed to come up as an idea during Sanjay's market research, we don't know if Mark has really thought it through. Again it relies on him nurturing great talent. And it may not be viable if his profit model relies on volume. I can see Mark making a tidy salary for himself but I can't see (yet) big yields for Sugar. But Mark comes with another business plan and essentially states the same, that other people would do the work. And AS doesn't seem to be bothered at all. One of the problems with this show is inconsistencies such as this and an imbalance of how candidates are treated by AS when compared like for like.. |
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#37 |
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 65,745
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This happened to an Indian restaurant in our town, they had even printed thousands of leaflets with the web address on it without buying it.
The leaflet got into the hands of the competing Indian restaurant two doors down who realised what they had(n't) done, bought the domain name themselves and now, if you visit the site, it redirects you to theirs!
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#38 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 4,486
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Quote:
This happened to an Indian restaurant in our town, they had even printed thousands of leaflets with the web address on it without buying it.
The leaflet got into the hands of the competing Indian restaurant two doors down who realised what they had(n't) done, bought the domain name themselves and now, if you visit the site, it redirects you to theirs! |
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