I'd have to say that I'm more in agreement with Davey here. Realistically the ingredients weren't there and the time constraints alone would've made it impossible to cook 300 fishcakes in 2 deep fat fryers. Also then take into account that you'd have to lop 3/4's of the fishcake off to get close to that 300 target, and it would have left the product as flat as a pancake.

You might be looking to flog as many as possible and keep the margins high, but punters in London aren't mugs. If they want to pay for overpriced food they could've got it elsewhere and at a better quality than a shrunken fishcake that Sugar was suggesting.

Looking forward I also wonder whether it says more about the candidates business ethics and principles for those who are promoting low quality ingredients and small portions, flogging cheap rubbish for premium prices. In a real life business this will soon get found out and I wouldn't personally trust a businessperson who operates like this.

Yes, and later, he tried to throw her under the bus saying it was her specification!

I think the point was they were so ridiculously big but Brett refused to modify them in order to create more.

I would instead question a PM who wants to sell a couple of leafs with some Tuna on top at £9. Pricing was clearly flawed from the start and came as a result of paying for high priced tuna product, then failing to do anything with it to add true value.

I probably think the right person went as it happens because he looked lost and you have to question why he thought this would be the correct format to gain investment for his business if he can't cope on sales tasks (>50% of the tasks requiring this skill!).

Of the three in the boardroom, if we're going on pure business acumen, I saw enough from Brett in his leadership abilities with his sub-team plus customer-facing approach when actually selling the things to suggest he definitely deserves longer in the process.

Did he? Wooah, I missed that. I thought he was an odious individual. Almost a bully. I just thought in the boardroom that it seems if you repeat your very flawed argument over and over in a forceful enough manner and refuse to answer to your part in the failure, you can dodge a bullet. And he did.

He certainly wasn't perfect, and it was absolutely the right decision to bring his into the boardroom. However, this alone did not lose the task.

Not getting out for the highly lucrative lunchtime market rush and picking unexciting products to sell without consultation from the whole team lost the task. And that for me, falls at the feet of one person - the PM

I didn't say his mistakes alone lost the task, they were all accountable. I was unimpressed by his failure to acknowledge his part.

I agree, it's a fair comment. However, my slight defence of Brett is more in response to the OP. I can't really understand how anyone could think on business-based judgement that Brett should have gone at this stage, even if he does come across as a stubborn, passive-aggressive influence.

Dans mistake was to say , I can't sell, he can sell , he sells fragances every day.
He meant I can't cold call sell , which is a one off selling situation.
I have run a business , selling for 40 years, but I can't / wont/dont have too, cold call sell, it too soul destroying for me .

Felt Dan would have made for more interesting TV and although he was fairly inept he did actually come across as quite likable. Given there was a decent amount of focus on him this first episode which made me think he was going to stay.
Also he look and sounded like Chris Addison (even had similar mannerisms)!

You are right, of course. I'm not sure if Dan has ever watched The Apprentice before, as he came into the boardroom with no prepared answers or defence against some pretty obvious charges. He needed to present his own account of where the task was lost, but seemed not even to have thought about it, and had nothing to say when Lord Sugar asked which of April and Brett should be fired.

Dan shot himself in the foot by going on about his weaknesses and not playing up his strengths. Brett may be soon to go; he has the army mindset of following instructions rather than using initiative. An entrepreneur requires flexibility.

He shouldn't have kept saying that over and over. He should have said he was capable of learning, if he really had to draw more attention to his selling skills (or lack of).

And he should also have been more brutal in his criticism of April and Brett, because playing nice in the Apprentice gets you nowhere!

As for whether or not Brett should have been fired...I think there was plenty of reason to get rid of both him and April. April for making decisions, not accepting any discussion on them, buying the first fish she saw at a high price, pricing a salad at £9 etc etc...completely inflexible.

Brett could have gone for his complete lack of common sense. Sticking to a specification is essential sometimes but in this case there blatantly wasn't enough fish and the fish cakes were too big - making a quality product is of course important but you can't just blindly follow the instructions like he was when you need to make a profit (and when you're so far from your goal as well! If was even 250 cakes made it wouldn't be so bad). On top of that, he kept ranting about Dan's mistake costing them 30 minutes - but like Dan said, and he should have pushed this point so much more, they were late by a lot longer than 30 minutes so that was not entirely down to him and Brett was obviously using Dan's delay as a scapegoat.

I am disappointed that Dan left so early because I think he would have been fun to watch. Shame, but he needed to be more harsh on the other two I think!

I think LS made the right choice. Dan was just good for nothing, incompetent to the core just useless a little more than everyone else, didn't chip in, put his weapons on the table and casually dismissed it all by saying 'Selling isn't my job' When you can't even engage a single customer or do simple communication which is the single most important element to a person regardless, then you have to go his personality wasn't upto the mark either, far too passive and soft no aggression or interest to speak of.

no WAY, Brett seems extremely competent, I stand by his procedure of the rules

who wants buy to a half centimetre fishcake, just to make 300 of them? they need to be a fishCAKE... man I couldn't deal with that during the episode with karen, its the number aim that was a bit too high

That's exactly why I think April should have been fired over Brett, if that were the scenario. I know it's easy to target the PM, especially in the first week as we don't really know anyone yet, but I thought she had poor people skills. Like you say, she didn't really consult her team on anything. We could say Brett was rigid in how he performed, but so was April with her decision making. It's a team effort, but she didn't really seem to get that and shut everyone else down. Plus she didn't seem up to scratch with her costings.

I would have defended her performance more last night if she was more of a team player and took on board more ideas. If they had still failed, at least she could have said she contributed her own ideas but also listened to and motivated her team.

Maybe we'll see her improve over the weeks.

That was an extra big fishcake, even in a restaurant (where he allegedly worked) I've never seen a fish cake of the dimensions he was making them at.

On what basis do you deem Dan imcompetent? Selling fish? He had no chance to show LS what he was good at, let's face it. It was a mock trial, nothing is fair in EP1.

did you not watch the episode? You can't just go into a task and go "oh I don't sell" "oh, I don't market" "oh designing things aren't my speciality"

you have to dig in and do it, Dan was highly incompetent, first taking too long on the calculations and then couldn't even push ONE item.... you also just proved your point "no chance to prove what he was good at" thats the POINT of the show, you go in and adapt to any situation and thats what takes you far in the competition - not just sticking to "What you're good at"

Haha you're obviously unfamiliar with big business. Everything you listed above is how corporations make money!

Yeah I'm commenting about an episode I didn't watch

Dan admited to the fact he wasn't a great salesperson. Should he have lied instead? The insanely huge fishburgers made by Brett was a no brained. Ha he sliced them in half they would have made 200, sold more and made a profit instead of a zero. Anyways it is pointless to get worked up about ep1, someone has to go and the reason is rarely very deeply founded on fairness.

I agree it seems being honest was Dan's downfall, on The Apprentice being completely delusional seems to get you further which is probably why these people end up in reality TV circles rather than running successful companies post-show. They've no self-awareness.

I could not disagree more. If somebody had written down to flush the fishcakes down the toilet he would have done it.

He is certainly not a leader or capable of making his own decisions

I don't think Brett will go far. It seems like he loves sticking to rules like an army camp. Just too rigid for a business-oriented reality show.

Indeed, there should have been a worked out relation ship between the ingredients bought, the recipe , the specifications of the fish cake, and the price that it could be sold for. Brett couldn't change any of those without blowing the calculation.

There should have been a recalculation and a new specification, and a revision of task - to allow for the time needed to cook the things. You might argue Brett should have raised the point more, but his team leader was ignoring all problems being raised all around her anyway.

You could also argue that it was largely luck which menu was possible to make - as they had to make it to know how long it would take.

April just couldn't think on her feet , or see what was important , to reverse course on anything. Brett just kept on steering the ship the way it was going because he had nowhere else to go., and the captain was still determined to carry on towards the iceberg.