Risking It All (start ups) begins tonight on Channel 4.

[clickprofits]

New 'reality TV' series following people starting up a new business starts tonight - may be of interest?



:arrow: Risking It All
8:00pm - 9:00pm
Channel 4
VIDEO Plus+: 8427

1/6

Series following the stories of people who risk their livelihoods to set up their own businesses. Paul and Lee have given up their secure jobs and are gambling everything they own on a cafe bar in Burgess Hill. But they have no experience and choose the worst location, which sees them descending fast into financial meltdown. Millionaire entrepreneur Martin Webb hopes he can help them, but they seem hell-bent on getting everything wrong.

[APRogers]

New 'reality TV' series following people starting up a new business starts tonight - may be of interest?
I'll have a look but the cynic in me says that it won't be good.

I hope I'm really wrong but the blurb has already set me up for a program where the general populus can laugh at some poor sod who's tried to do what they don't have either the balls or imagination to do and therefore feel good about themselves because they're doing better - because they've never tried, so they've never failed. :shock:

Other similar programs I've watched have been this way - anyone see the one about the two bald accountant brothers who tried to help people out of debt? The cases shown were the ones least likely to heed any advice and therefore doomed to failure from the start, save one so the program could show that it was 'useful' television. :x

Alan

[Jayne]

New 'reality TV' series following people starting up a new business starts tonight - may be of interest?
I'll have a look but the cynic in me says that it won't be good.

I hope I'm really wrong but the blurb has already set me up for a program where the general populus can laugh at some poor sod who's tried to do what they don't have either the balls or imagination to do and therefore feel good about themselves because they're doing better - because they've never tried, so they've never failed. :shock:

Other similar programs I've watched have been this way - anyone see the one about the two bald accountant brothers who tried to help people out of debt? The cases shown were the ones least likely to heed any advice and therefore doomed to failure from the start, save one so the program could show that it was 'useful' television. :x

Alan

I totally agree..they want you to look stupid to make good TV.

Jayne

[clickprofits]

Yes, the cynic in me agrees with both of you. However the optimist says maybe this time it will be different. :) The cynic is winning the battle at the moment though. :(

[DuaneJackson]

Well, I hope it was utter rubbish - because I've only just seen this post so I missed it!

[SillyJokes]

It was an 'I told you so' programme.

Quite interesting, certainly put me off the idea of ever starting a bar.

I think their main problem was the tall skinny guy. He didn't seem capable of separating the 'dream' from the facts of business and making money.

They didn't make enough money to meet their subsistance even when shown by a proven expert exactly how to do it. extraordinary - or was that how it was edited?

[Fusionhost Group]

The guy was being stupid to put it blunt, that friday night made them a lot of money if they did that every friday they would be going places. But no...

Now did he even want to do the idea about running 3 places, for the same price.

CRAZY!

[SillyJokes]

I wonder if they had not got a licence for music and dancing. Don't you need special permission - they were not a night club.

[Top Hat]

Still enjoyed it.

Showed that it's not easy, its hard work (particularly at first).

They really were 'Risking it All'

Personally I don't think you need to 'Risk it All', it should be thought out, assessed risk, managed growth, walk before you run common sense type stuff.

So for those who watched the show yesterday, how would you of done it differently?
My thoughts
1) Pick a bar, close to other busy bars.
2) Don't spend it all, save save save
3) Only 1 give up work at first
4) Work in a bar for a bit

[Tiggy]

I think you have to take any TV programme like this with a huge shovel of salt.

It's like one I saw a few weeks ago - not sure what it was called; about people making quick profit from buying and selling antiques. It made it all look like childs play with a triumphant announcement at the end about how many hundreds of pounds in 'profit' they have managed to make in only a few days.

However their calculations did not take into account the cost of the travelling/petrol involved getting from one auction room to another, one antique shop to another etc, nor the auction house's buyer's premium nor any tax that would need to be paid.

On top of that every single sale they made was to an antiques dealer that was a friend they had 'known for years' or a relative. Hardly a realistic scenario if you wanted to do this full-time.

I would think any antiques dealer would be happy to have you in his shop and give you a good price if you had a TV crew with you and they knew it was going to be seen by millions of viewers!

Tiggy :)

[clickprofits]

So for those who watched the show yesterday, how would you of done it differently?

1) Lease a commercial property initially, don't buy it - too much capital outlay
2) Location is crucial - they should have researched this better, no restaurants or other bars on that street should have been a clue that it would not be very busy at night (no passing trade).
3) Lease an existing bar and refurbish that, cheaper than converting an empty shell into a bar and should have a history of being a successful bar in that location.

Not sure about the concept of being everything to everyone - serving english breakfasts to pensioners in the morning and then also being the trendy place to be at night - maybe focus on your lunchtime and evening trade and then you wouldn't have to work on the shop floor from first thing in the morning to late at night. They didn't put much effort into PR and marketing either (apart from that one 'Ibiza' promo night).

Of course it's very easy to view an edited history of their business and pick holes in it with all the benefits of hindsight. :)

[Tiggy]

You know in some ways the 'positive thinking' culture has done an awful lot of damage.

So many people who really believe that if you are passionate enough, determined enough and tough enough to follow your dream that it will have to work out. Poppycock.

None of that matters a hoot if you don't do your groundwork throughoughly re research, planning, finances etc.

Healthy doses of pessimism and realism will serve much better than starry eyed optimism any day.

Tiggy :)

[Whistle Ink]

What I didn't understand was that they had this guy who had loads of experience and lots of good advice and suggestions but they chose to ignore his advice! If I was them and it had gone wrong you'd welcome all this free advice from an expert.

When one of the guys said he wasn't doing it for the money, did he forget that his mates had invested £70,000 of hard earned cash and they had borrowed a vast amount.

One thing you can't do is force your product onto someone, but even more so if your market presents itself you grab it with both hands. Customers will take what they love and want - not what you want them to love and want! :)

[MichaelG]

I would love to open a bar one day and these types of programs are ideal way to learn and educate the masses.

I bet if you watched the program and your bar was doing badly, you would have learnt a lot from the free expert advice.

So ignore the actors and listen to the massage ;)

[directmarketingadvice]

Whistle Ink

I think you hit 3 nails right on the head.

When the guy said he wasn't in it for the money, he'd clearly lost the plot and was being driven by his ego rather than by common sense.

What's the lesson to take from the program?

For me, it's about getting the plan right before you start.

These guys came in from scratch, knowing nothing about the field other than what thed observed from the other side of the counter.

They ended up trying to reinvent the wheel rather than taking the best things from the industry and improving/adding to them.

If they had taken the time to learn the business beforehand (even by taking evening jobs as barmen for a few months), they would have saved themselves a number of problems.

They could have phoned a succesful "style" bar owner in a different part of the country and offered him £100 for an hour of his time to pick his brain.

This would have given them access to years of hard-knock experience and understanding which would have been worth thousands of pounds to them.

Maybe they would have decided it wasn't worth going ahead, but that's go to be better than spending 18 months on a failed project and losing their homes (plus their friends money).

Steve

[RSL]

I wonder where they are now? I mean the business was doing really poorly towards the end and they were losing sight of the bar being a business...it became a hobby or object of affection.

[clickprofits]

I wonder where they are now?

Well the web site still exists, not sure if the bar still does...

:arrow: http://www.mooch76.co.uk/home/index.asp

[clickprofits]

:arrow: On again tonight if anyone's interested (it's a different business each week, I think?)

[directmarketingadvice]

According to my TV guide, it's a restaurant tonight.

I'm looking forward to it, that's another industry where the marketing is typically abysmal.

Steve