Didn't he get a product into Walmart or something similar? For me, the Walmart thing put him head and shoulders above most of the rest. A lot of them boast about their achievements only for them to turn out to be barely anything (Gary and managing 600 people for example). That was a genuine achievement, that I'm sure would have been mentioned every program had it been one of the others.

He wasn't the most polished candidate, but then a lot of them fail over stupid things on the show. It was partly bad luck to end up losing so often, and he was a different personalty type to the rest, so even the bottom three can be partially explained by them trying to pick on someone they think is weak.

You can bring people in to sort out admin etc... He did have some genuine business sense though re Walmart, and was creative, in that he had the best chance of producing a credible business plan even if his chair idea wasn't up to much. You can learn to be organised to an extent, but you can't magic up that drive, which I think is why Helen didn't succeed. (I'm not belittling her achievements and capabilities but I think its easier to learn good admin practices, than the other way round).

There is no comparison between Richard and Tom Pellarau, nor their existing businesses.
There can only ever be one winner, Richard did very well indeed.

Agree. In fact I seem to recall the edit actually showed him pointing out the flaws in project manager's plans on several occasions and being ignored. Other candidates wrote him off and never listened to his good ideas and good sense.

I admit that if it was the apprentice job he was going for rather than investment, he possibly wouldn't have got all the way to the end as Sugar may have had misgivings about his ability to influence others, but had his teammates listened to him more, they probably wouldn't have lost so often.

Helen's business idea was also stupid (home ironing or something), then at the last minute just blurted out "Artisan bakeries" as she worked for Greggs.

Problem is the Bakery Industry has been all but obliterated due to supermarkets loss-leading. Unless you are Greggs (where she worked) there is no opportunity to make big money unless you have HUGE backers like Krispy Kreme.

250K would go nowhere, and be burnt up faster than Vana's App development

I would go Richard since I never got the hang of Tom, even his appearance looked weird

There's a lot of contradictions on the Apprentice; it all depends on the outcome; whenever the task fails, everything they did was wrong ie. They didn't listen to market research, they listened to it too much, they kept prices too high, they lowered too quickly ; I guess it's important to remember it is just a reality program and doesn't really portray real business.

I Agree

He succeeded in producing both the idiotic idea of the emergency biscuit, and then converting what was meant to be a luxury biscuit into something cheap and nasty tasting, in just one show. If Lord Sugar hadn't been after the nail file, and the patent on it, he would have gone home that week, if not for being useless earlier. Helen would have been the clearest winner ever on the old criteria - but like Kate and Liz she's probably done better by not winning.

That's funny! Sugar can be both - a hypocrite with a lousy memory. And Tom - the inventor - was the worst Apprentice winner of all time based on stats. He was never project manager (I think) and was in the losing team the most times. But he won cos Sugar wanted him from the start of the show!

As has been said many, many times, he was never called into the boardroom until later on when the number of candidates meant everyone was in. So no losing PM felt Tom was the reason the team lost. That is probably better than a candidate on the winning team who let their team down. Quite a few horrific performers have avoided being fired by the team winning. Several times in the initial boardrooms it was pointed out Tom had raised concerns but was not listened too. That definitely counted in his favour.

It's a team effort so being on the winning team is not necessarily proof of a good individual performance. Just as being on the losing side is not proof everyone on the team failed.