Be Your Own Boss

[10032012]

So what did everyone (who watched it) think of the BBC Three "Be Your Own Boss" show?

My understanding is he gave £50,000 to 500 people (that is £100 each) to either create or develop an existing idea to pitch to him (or a group of friends, he took in to reduce his workload). He will then invest (up to) a further £5000.

IF THAT IDIOT MENTIONS FACEBOOK ONE MORE TIME... (Its a show focusing on UK entrepreneurship... but with big emphasis on facebook's success. Facebook of course being American and not to mention, not exactly booming right now)

He picked some varied people and ideas:-
* Lazy Camper (£60 for a tent and accessories package) - They couldn't sell or get distribution for
* Mango Bikes (your own style bike - any colour... they thought it was good business sense to pay £120 per lead from a website, for a product priced at £299)
* Pioetic Studio - art sculpture creators - who got investment but decided to change idea completely - so-called smoothie entrepreneur didn't really seemed too bothered about them deviating from the idea he paid them for.

He decided to forget the £5000 investment concept and go for saving a few quid by reducing it to around £3000. Seems so far he had a £60k cap.

Neither ideas were commercially that great. The art created by PS were quite good for the novelty factor but it will never sell to a big market or even be produced on a big enough scale. Lazy Camper (from what we saw) were selling just the package of a tent and accessories... not having a kit where tents etc were branded. This is easily copied. Mango Bikes was probably the best idea out of the 3... although only one model of bike at current people can have the colour customised to how they like. I couldn't access their website to comment further. Its a rather easy business to replicate.

All in all, for me, the show highlights that this entrepreneur was a one-hit wonder with something he was very passionate about and did well - with two uni graduate friends. Innocent hasn't been too profitable in the past and required Coca Cola to buy a majority stake to improve. He now appears to be involved in a start-up called Jam Jar Investments... perhaps someone should tell him that you need more than a jam jar of pennies to launch a business - something he should well know over the millions invested in Innocent over the years to even keep it a float.

I hope the next episodes are better - I think it would have been better if he short-listed the 500 down to 20 before progressing with the entrepreneurs.

 

[Jet Virtual]

Haven't seen it yet so you kinda gave away the program before I had a chance to watch it


Will come back and comment after I have seen it.

Best of luck,

Daniel - AKA Mr Virtual

 

[Fred_the_frog]

Also, that mango bikes thing- we heard that the website was not working but we didn't find out how it ended up. It'd have been nice to see how they dealt with not being able to take payments on the first day.

 

[LianneF]

mango bikes site went down last night and is still down now, too much traffic to the site apparently, surely they should have been prepared for that!

 

[10032012]

They seem a bunch of clowns without any initiative (ok they might know nothing about hosting but there are forums, Q&A sites etc. and ways of finding out). They probably had some shared hosting account... you need to ensure you can handle your customers.

They do now seem to be doing well. I dont know when filming took place but they are a limited company that is VAT registered. This could be voluntary registration or could suggest they were close to hitting the threshold. Probably the former if their website was down all along so couldn't take orders.

 

[Jet Virtual]

Ok so just finished watching it. Much prefer Dragons Den or The Apprentice but this is slightly different and is still entertaining. Have to agree and say that whilst Mr Reed is a likeable guy, he definitely seems to have had a one hit wonder and doesn't really seem cut ut for this. There were so many times where I said to myself "what the @£$$% is he thinking?!

Anyways nice bit of entertainment. Now back to business

 

[Jet Virtual]

Oh and forgot to mention that i just went on Mango bikes website and although it is up and running, it is unimpressive to say the least!

 

[Big Pete]

So what did everyone (who watched it) think of the BBC Three "Be Your Own Boss" show?

My understanding is he gave £50,000 to 500 people (that is £100 each) to either create or develop an existing idea to pitch to him (or a group of friends, he took in to reduce his workload). He will then invest (up to) a further £5000.

IF THAT IDIOT MENTIONS FACEBOOK ONE MORE TIME... (Its a show focusing on UK entrepreneurship... but with big emphasis on facebook's success. Facebook of course being American and not to mention, not exactly booming right now)

He picked some varied people and ideas:-
* Lazy Camper (£60 for a tent and accessories package) - They couldn't sell or get distribution for
* Mango Bikes (your own style bike - any colour... they thought it was good business sense to pay £120 per lead from a website, for a product priced at £299)
* Pioetic Studio - art sculpture creators - who got investment but decided to change idea completely - so-called smoothie entrepreneur didn't really seemed too bothered about them deviating from the idea he paid them for.

He decided to forget the £5000 investment concept and go for saving a few quid by reducing it to around £3000. Seems so far he had a £60k cap.

Neither ideas were commercially that great. The art created by PS were quite good for the novelty factor but it will never sell to a big market or even be produced on a big enough scale. Lazy Camper (from what we saw) were selling just the package of a tent and accessories... not having a kit where tents etc were branded. This is easily copied. Mango Bikes was probably the best idea out of the 3... although only one model of bike at current people can have the colour customised to how they like. I couldn't access their website to comment further. Its a rather easy business to replicate.

All in all, for me, the show highlights that this entrepreneur was a one-hit wonder with something he was very passionate about and did well - with two uni graduate friends. Innocent hasn't been too profitable in the past and required Coca Cola to buy a majority stake to improve. He now appears to be involved in a start-up called Jam Jar Investments... perhaps someone should tell him that you need more than a jam jar of pennies to launch a business - something he should well know over the millions invested in Innocent over the years to even keep it a float.

I hope the next episodes are better - I think it would have been better if he short-listed the 500 down to 20 before progressing with the entrepreneurs.

wow you said exactly as i read it... saved me a lot of typing ..

after looking at the site , which i agree with jetvirtual is naff , God knows how that wasn`t ready in time for the launch !! its a 3 day job on a slow day ..

I have not ridden a bike in years but if i did , to me they look pretty nasty basic tatty ones.. Any body could compete with them and wipe the floor against them bikes. just bright colours and coloured tyres wowee ..
So i bet you will see a lot of new off springs copying the look a idiot while cycling brigade , business

 

[Fred_the_frog]

And he criticised that womans sick in a cup model. Sure, the idea isn't great, but he said the model she had made was terrible. Does he expect her to have a fully designed product ready for manufacture for just £100 (that he gave them)?

 

[10032012]

And he criticised that womans sick in a cup model. Sure, the idea isn't great, but he said the model she had made was terrible. Does he expect her to have a fully designed product ready for manufacture for just £100 (that he gave them)?

Well, I think that was set-up... (along with the flavoured chicken idea lol) Mr Money Investor was very confident and assertive to shoot that idea down... he also said it was pointless to pitch a product without one to show (the flavoured chicken idea).

Then the consistency issues began. He seemed more bothered about wasting 5 minutes of his time being pitched a poor product at an investment cost of £100, than investing in art creation as a business enterprise (wtf?) whilst not bothered that the "entrepreneurs" decided to spend his money doing something completely different.

Just went on Mangos website. I have to say I am either stupid or mislead. It was my understanding that with Mango Bikes it wasn't the option of a maximum of 6 colours for the entire frame, handlebars, chain, rims and peddles... I thought it was so you could choose to have say red rims on the front wheel and blue rims on the back and have two or three different colours throughout the frame.

If I had a spare £20,000 to burn I would blow these muppets out of the marketplace. Greater choice of colours (not any colour to keep costs down) and the additions of patterns for starters. It seems the service they have right now is not much different than me saying "bring your bike to my garage and for £50 I will respray it for you into the colour of your choice".

 

[SpuddedDragon]

Interesting. I have the programme on my Sky Plus, but I won't bother to waste an hour of my time watching it now I have ready all of your comments

 

[raineshoe]

Have to say I gave up and turned the programme off it was so boring and I wasn't inspired by any of the products shown, although at least these people were trying to do something, but it just didn't do it for me.

 

[Jacob F]

I was pretty astonished the two artists didn't have their pants taken down for what I thought was pretty insulting to an investor. You get the impression they want a career out of people sponsoring them to mess about in a workshop all day without having to think about the abstract concept of making money.

The tent was something I could see doing alright, it just needs one big backer but I didn't see where an investor could make a return on it, or rather a decent enough return to make it interesting. Its one of those things you could see the two lads making a few quid out of if they persevere but its not going to make them rich.

The two lads with Mango bikes seem to have struck upon a good idea. And just being on the show is just about the best bit of advertising I can think of, they really ought to not let it slip now. Pretty poor how one announced "I'll do what is best for me" before admittedly changing his mind with regard to university. He should have been aware you can go to uni at any point in your life, you're sitting opposite a millionaire potentially backing your business with more money and more publicity than most people could dream of, think on lad. It was a real facepalm moment. Business is about luck and "right place, right time" for some.

 

[10032012]

You get the impression they want a career out of people sponsoring them to mess about in a workshop all day without having to think about the abstract concept of making money.

Perfect! I couldn't describe it better myself. That is exactly whats happening and why investors rarely invest in art-type businesses for this very reason.

I can't help but think Smoothie man is a big fan of Dragons Den; and decided these two guys COULD be like the artist the dragons (cant remember how many) invested in. (Its not an ongoing enterprise to make serious money but can fetch relatively large profits in the short term)

Reality is, unlike the madman who was on DD who was artistic and focused; and had experience of promoting/selling his work through the proper channels, PS appear to fall into the stereotype of drug-smoking uni goers, using the uni course as an excuse to tell their parents they are working on a career and the idea of running a "business" to have an occupation title of "artist", whilst being a student as its better than "unemployed".

 

[jane p]

So what did everyone (who watched it) think of the BBC Three "Be Your Own Boss" show?

My understanding is he gave £50,000 to 500 people (that is £100 each) to either create or develop an existing idea to pitch to him (or a group of friends, he took in to reduce his workload). He will then invest (up to) a further £5000.

IF THAT IDIOT MENTIONS FACEBOOK ONE MORE TIME... (Its a show focusing on UK entrepreneurship... but with big emphasis on facebook's success. Facebook of course being American and not to mention, not exactly booming right now)

He picked some varied people and ideas:-
* Lazy Camper (£60 for a tent and accessories package) - They couldn't sell or get distribution for
* Mango Bikes (your own style bike - any colour... they thought it was good business sense to pay £120 per lead from a website, for a product priced at £299)
* Pioetic Studio - art sculpture creators - who got investment but decided to change idea completely - so-called smoothie entrepreneur didn't really seemed too bothered about them deviating from the idea he paid them for.

He decided to forget the £5000 investment concept and go for saving a few quid by reducing it to around £3000. Seems so far he had a £60k cap.

Neither ideas were commercially that great. The art created by PS were quite good for the novelty factor but it will never sell to a big market or even be produced on a big enough scale. Lazy Camper (from what we saw) were selling just the package of a tent and accessories... not having a kit where tents etc were branded. This is easily copied. Mango Bikes was probably the best idea out of the 3... although only one model of bike at current people can have the colour customised to how they like. I couldn't access their website to comment further. Its a rather easy business to replicate.

All in all, for me, the show highlights that this entrepreneur was a one-hit wonder with something he was very passionate about and did well - with two uni graduate friends. Innocent hasn't been too profitable in the past and required Coca Cola to buy a majority stake to improve. He now appears to be involved in a start-up called Jam Jar Investments... perhaps someone should tell him that you need more than a jam jar of pennies to launch a business - something he should well know over the millions invested in Innocent over the years to even keep it a float.

I hope the next episodes are better - I think it would have been better if he short-listed the 500 down to 20 before progressing with the entrepreneurs.

I saw it last night and cant say i liked any of them.I didnt like the bikes very much and dont know whether they will take off.

Good luck to them though its always good to see people trying hard and coming up with ideas.

 

[jane p]

actually i changed my mind I do think the bikes are a good idea. There isnt anything else out there like that.

 

[AppDevelopers]

We are in the show The App Developers ( episode 3) we build mobile apps and games.

The show for us was fantastic and opened our eyes to what we needed to do.. Without giving away too much of the show half way through we gave our fulltime jobs up and started our mobile apps & games agency.

Its only two geeks with a passion but Richard Reed gave us the confidence boost to just go and do it and take the risk.

Really enjoyed being part of the show and loving running our little geeky app agency now.


Ben

 

[jane p]

what was it about last night?

 

[10032012]

what was it about last night?

erm... pasta, prototypes, clothes, branson, ...

Its poorly edited. I got confused. Last time he gave away £3000-£5000 or so; this time, in addition he also gave £25k to that woman, money to pasta peeps I think, but didn't invest in the lifesaving thing. Are those from Episode 1 now officially dead then in terms of start-up funding?

Sorry its a very big brainstorm here... the show is like instantly forgettable.

 

[Jacob F]

erm... pasta, prototypes, clothes, branson, ...

Its poorly edited. I got confused. Last time he gave away £3000-£5000 or so; this time, in addition he also gave £25k to that woman, money to pasta peeps I think, but didn't invest in the lifesaving thing. Are those from Episode 1 now officially dead then in terms of start-up funding?

Sorry its a very big brainstorm here... the show is like instantly forgettable.

What did you think to the Pasta business, couldn't make my mind up on it? Seems such a competitive market these days with Greggs seemingly opening a shop every 3 doors down and ofcourse all the massive American food outlets all over the highstreet. We haven't got much to go on with the editing the way it is but it seemed they were confused as to what they actually were, sandwich shop or pasta place? Was slightly put off at the fact that the two lads met on a nightout after one tried to headbutt the others twin brother, must admit was quite taken aback by the statement. Good personal reference.

The designer did have something about her as a person and she seemed very talented, obviously larger risk attributed to this as its fashion (one step up from art as we discussed last time). At least her designs could have mass market appeal unlike the blokes from before.

As a Loughborough graduate myself I wanted the lifesaving raft to do well but from the off its a case of how many of those things can you possibly shift? Pretty much a non-starter. The demonstration in that oversized pond was abysmal, couldn't rescue the man in still water, hardly a ringing endorsement as a fit-for-purpose product. Seemed like the lad was switched on and I'm sure he'll go onto bigger things with a better product.

 

[10032012]

The pasta business seemed strange. It appears they wanted to set up a restaurant (maybe fast food) to sell pasta... like there isn't enough Italian restaurants already?! Converting a shop as a fast food for pasta is only competing with Italian restaurants... and its a one-hit wonder which is unlikely to take off. A waste of money.

They need to begin with 3-5 stalls in high footfall areas. Not a shop. And Mr Smoothie invested?! He seems to have no business acumen at all and his decisions is based on whether he has the confidence to be assertive to people based on their body language and tone of voice. If someone can be walked over, he will extinguish their hopes... if they are confident.. its likely he will waste money on a tea machine come fireplace.

The clothes one... She doesn't appear the brightest but I think she is a good person and could go far. She is a creative person and can sell ideas quite well, but need someone to handle most the business side. I recall her not being able to give a deadline... its better to say something like "3 months" rather than not knowing... maybe its 1 month or 2 months.. just say something!! haha, choose higher rather than lower - you can always beat it. I am not sure why she was at Cornwall and others went to London... do they not have trains there? lol

The lifesaving raft... crap. I wanted him to do well, really. The product wasn't up to scratch and he didn't have the perseverance... he was solely an inventor (product not exactly new in technological terms either) without the entrepreneurial element. He seemed to stick with that design he was over-proud of. The obvious aspect was although its not intended as a speedboat... he needed it to be faster and practical. I think its sad for him, as he didn't have a product to market, only an early prototype idea... but maybe the exposure has helped him forward.

The only real market for the lifesaving raft would be governments and non-profit organisations. In the UK however, this area is getting largely cut back, and in many other countries too. You need a pretty special product that will get Governments requesting... not you having to jet around the world trying to get rid of them! Or to get an order to get finance to put it into production.

I thought the clothing one was the best from that episode, the life raft device second and the pasta last. Its common sense really, if you don't have the finance personally... and you want to set-up a fast food outlet (hoping it to expand) you don't go for the shop option. This was an "epic fail" ambition in my eyes... this was because smoothie man said about competitors like greggs etc. so the way to combat it is NOT going to the high street to compete.. they are a big chain of hundreds of shops... you need a stall in a busy shopping centre, train station, at an big outside event, town centre or public square, major parks etc. where the people are!!

Of course you wont get a spot for free. I just cant see who is going to walk into a big shop for fast food pasta to an unknown brand... people will go McDs, subway, greggs OR to an Italian restaurant. Oh... and pasta is NOT a healthy food!

 

[Fred_the_frog]

The pasta business seemed strange. It appears they wanted to set up a restaurant (maybe fast food) to sell pasta... like there isn't enough Italian restaurants already?! Converting a shop as a fast food for pasta is only competing with Italian restaurants... and its a one-hit wonder which is unlikely to take off. A waste of money.

They need to begin with 3-5 stalls in high footfall areas. Not a shop. And Mr Smoothie invested?! He seems to have no business acumen at all and his decisions is based on whether he has the confidence to be assertive to people based on their body language and tone of voice. If someone can be walked over, he will extinguish their hopes... if they are confident.. its likely he will waste money on a tea machine come fireplace.

The clothes one... She doesn't appear the brightest but I think she is a good person and could go far. She is a creative person and can sell ideas quite well, but need someone to handle most the business side. I recall her not being able to give a deadline... its better to say something like "3 months" rather than not knowing... maybe its 1 month or 2 months.. just say something!! haha, choose higher rather than lower - you can always beat it. I am not sure why she was at Cornwall and others went to London... do they not have trains there? lol

The lifesaving raft... crap. I wanted him to do well, really. The product wasn't up to scratch and he didn't have the perseverance... he was solely an inventor (product not exactly new in technological terms either) without the entrepreneurial element. He seemed to stick with that design he was over-proud of. The obvious aspect was although its not intended as a speedboat... he needed it to be faster and practical. I think its sad for him, as he didn't have a product to market, only an early prototype idea... but maybe the exposure has helped him forward.

The only real market for the lifesaving raft would be governments and non-profit organisations. In the UK however, this area is getting largely cut back, and in many other countries too. You need a pretty special product that will get Governments requesting... not you having to jet around the world trying to get rid of them! Or to get an order to get finance to put it into production.

I thought the clothing one was the best from that episode, the life raft device second and the pasta last. Its common sense really, if you don't have the finance personally... and you want to set-up a fast food outlet (hoping it to expand) you don't go for the shop option. This was an "epic fail" ambition in my eyes... this was because smoothie man said about competitors like greggs etc. so the way to combat it is NOT going to the high street to compete.. they are a big chain of hundreds of shops... you need a stall in a busy shopping centre, train station, at an big outside event, town centre or public square, major parks etc. where the people are!!

Of course you wont get a spot for free. I just cant see who is going to walk into a big shop for fast food pasta to an unknown brand... people will go McDs, subway, greggs OR to an Italian restaurant. Oh... and pasta is NOT a healthy food!

I haven't watched that episod yet, but I get the general idea from what you said.

I think the pasta idea would be great in my area. There are loads of meat based ones (The harvester, Toby's, Nandos) and pizza places (Pizza Hut, Ask, Pizza Express) and also fast food places (Mc D's, Burger King) but not many pasta places (that you can go to for a quick lunch)

If you wanted to get pasta in my area, then you have to either go to a restaurant (which isn't ideal if you just want a quick lunch) or go to a supermarket for a cold pasta snack.

There is no where to go for a hot pasta snack. A pasta fast food outlet would be perfect for my town, and i'd be in there most days (Mmm, Pasta!)

(And I don't live in a small town, it's quite big)

 

[10032012]

I haven't watched that episod yet, but I get the general idea from what you said.

I think the pasta idea would be great in my area. There are loads of meat based ones (The harvester, Toby's, Nandos) and pizza places (Pizza Hut, Ask, Pizza Express) and also fast food places (Mc D's, Burger King) but not many pasta places (that you can go to for a quick lunch)

If you wanted to get pasta in my area, then you have to either go to a restaurant (which isn't ideal if you just want a quick lunch) or go to a supermarket for a cold pasta snack.

There is no where to go for a hot pasta snack. A pasta fast food outlet would be perfect for my town, and i'd be in there most days (Mmm, Pasta!)

(And I don't live in a small town, it's quite big)

Have you tried Tescos? (or another supermarket) They sell pasta pots you stick in the microwave...

The problem saying you will be there most days... is you wont. You like the concept. Its likely the shop will be out of the way, so not convenient. Probably overpriced. Poor service. More than likely pretty terrible/average pasta...

 

[superdooper500]

As much as I enjoy watching them, the only thing I don't like about these business shows such as Be your own boss, dragons den etc is that they tend to focus heavily on product invention in my opinion. Very rarely do we see someone go on one of these shows and want investment for expansion of their removals firm, or widget distribution business, its all about who comes up with great inventions.

Admittedly there are sometimes people who want to develop their business in an established industry, but the majority of the time its all about inventions. Probably makes for more exciting television I guess.

 

[Jacob F]

As much as I enjoy watching them, the only thing I don't like about these business shows such as Be your own boss, dragons den etc is that they tend to focus heavily on product invention in my opinion. Very rarely do we see someone go on one of these shows and want investment for expansion of their removals firm, or widget distribution business, its all about who comes up with great inventions.

Admittedly there are sometimes people who want to develop their business in an established industry, but the majority of the time its all about inventions. Probably makes for more exciting television I guess.

Yeah, think you're right, its obviously TV entertainment over business. I can't imagine an accountant pitching to set up another practice in Coventry pulling the audiences in.

Naturally it therefore attracts dreamers and garden shed enthusiasts over seasoned business people who could turn a sizeable profit from cleaning windows. It does seem a long way away from the world at the sharp end of your average SME when watching these shows but as you allude to the reality of that success is probably boring television.

 

[Fred_the_frog]

Have you tried Tescos? (or another supermarket) They sell pasta pots you stick in the microwave...

The problem saying you will be there most days... is you wont. You like the concept. Its likely the shop will be out of the way, so not convenient. Probably overpriced. Poor service. More than likely pretty terrible/average pasta...

I meant for having something on the go, such as a Mc Donalds. So you can just walk in there, order it then get it there and then. Then you have a choice as to eat it walking along or eat it sitting down.

I'm at a college 4 days a week, and the only food places around are Mc Donalds, a little Tesco and Pub. We go to Mc Donalds each day because it's cheap, hot and not far to go. If there was a pasta bar that offered fast hot food then it would be busy most days (probably more busy on weekdays) if it was placed near a college. There are a lot of people I see walking round with a cold pasta snack from Tesco, so if there was hot pasta at the same price it would sell.

But, as you said, if it was out of the way with overpriced average snacks then it wouldn't do that well. I guess it's down to where you open it.

 

[superdooper500]

I meant for having something on the go, such as a Mc Donalds. So you can just walk in there, order it then get it there and then. Then you have a choice as to eat it walking along or eat it sitting down.

I'm at a college 4 days a week, and the only food places around are Mc Donalds, a little Tesco and Pub. We go to Mc Donalds each day because it's cheap, hot and not far to go. If there was a pasta bar that offered fast hot food then it would be busy most days (probably more busy on weekdays) if it was placed near a college. There are a lot of people I see walking round with a cold pasta snack from Tesco, so if there was hot pasta at the same price it would sell.

But, as you said, if it was out of the way with overpriced average snacks then it wouldn't do that well. I guess it's down to where you open it.

I don't think those lads could compete on price with a cold pasta snack from Tesco. Those pasta pots start off about the £1.20 mark or so if I remember rightly, the overheads alone on the lads shop would mean they'd probably have to charge double that to even make a modest profit.

My biggest bugbear with canteen style pasta like Twists are offering is that it tends to have sat around for a bit and gone all 'claggy'. I like pasta to be fresh cooked and straight out of the water, into the sauce, and then served.

 

[Fred_the_frog]

I don't think those lads could compete on price with a cold pasta snack from Tesco. Those pasta pots start off about the £1.20 mark or so if I remember rightly, the overheads alone on the lads shop would mean they'd probably have to charge double that to even make a modest profit.

My biggest bugbear with canteen style pasta like Twists are offering is that it tends to have sat around for a bit and gone all 'claggy'. I like pasta to be fresh cooked and straight out of the water, into the sauce, and then served.

I haven't seen the episode yet so I don't know much about what they plan to do.

I'm not keen on that rubbery pasta- the type where the sauce slides straight off when you pick it up

 

[superdooper500]

I'm not keen on that rubbery pasta- the type where the sauce slides straight off when you pick it up

I'm not sure anyone is!!

 

[10032012]

Well the whole hot-on-the-go pasta business isn't a new concept. Pasta is relatively cheap and assumingly easy to produce on a big scale. (I remember some Italian guy doing this about 20 years back and failed miserably!) However, for some reason it has never taken off...

The reason for this is even with cheap nothing-special ingredients... your overheads don't reduce in cost too. To do it properly you either need a queue of people wanting it at the same time or you do it individually on a small scale to perfection. The problem is with the first you need to wait for enough people to be waiting or with the second there will be a huge queue. Its NOT fast food. Getting people to sit down to wait... then they get their food... they might as well eat it there... then obviously its a very limited Italian restaurant.

The way round that (superdooper has already pre-emptively said this) is to go canteen style... the problem with it? Its no longer fresh pasta and it tastes awful. Or... you dish it up cold from earlier... then stick it in the microwave... same result... awful food.

Although it seems the most easiest thing to do in the world... I am really sure those guys would gave poor QC where each batch varied from the last. You need consistency, even if its always average (warm food, that will do Vs hmm lovely, followed by yuk the next time you go).

Fast food is very profitable... but most restaurants do not make much money at all. You need someone who is more in it about the food rather than business (i.e. great food, great price point - leave it as that). Sadly the Pasta guys from this show just saw pasta as an easy potential fast food (compared to any meat based product etc.), were too naive to wonder why with a million or so Italian restaurants worldwide why no one has done it before (they have..tried), saw it as easy money and tried to gain a USP of claiming the food is healthy.

 

[Adam@twists]

Hi Guys,

First of all let me just introduce myself. I am Adam off the second episode with the pasta business.

It has been really interesting reading the posts highlighted below and I would like to not only bounce some ideas off you but also answer a few points that have been mentioned.

The pasta business seemed strange. It appears they wanted to set up a restaurant (maybe fast food) to sell pasta... like there isn't enough Italian restaurants already?! Converting a shop as a fast food for pasta is only competing with Italian restaurants... and its a one-hit wonder which is unlikely to take off. A waste of money.

They need to begin with 3-5 stalls in high footfall areas. Not a shop. And Mr Smoothie invested?! He seems to have no business acumen at all and his decisions is based on whether he has the confidence to be assertive to people based on their body language and tone of voice. If someone can be walked over, he will extinguish their hopes... if they are confident.. its likely he will waste money on a tea machine come fireplace.

Our aim is not to compete with the traditional Italian restaurants where you are seated for an hour or so as staff bring you meals. We aim to have a conveyor belt style service system in place (similar to the store we had in a stall as you mention) that allows a customer to be in and out with their desired food item within 3 minutes. Once served customers will have the choice to have a seat inside, however we run out of a very small unit and the majority of our customers will choose to take the food outside/back to their college/office.

The idea of stalls in high footfall areas is a good one, although we are finding it hard to execute. We have acquired a nice portable unit similar to that of Millies Cookies that is free standing and can be stored relatively easily. Our aim for this is to have it in the centre of a University (not Huddersfield) and sell directly to our current target consumers.

Have you tried Tescos? (or another supermarket) They sell pasta pots you stick in the microwave...

The problem saying you will be there most days... is you wont. You like the concept. Its likely the shop will be out of the way, so not convenient. Probably overpriced. Poor service. More than likely pretty terrible/average pasta...

Again, we are not looking to directly compete with these prices/items. Subway for instance sells subs that you can pick up in Tescos and the like for half the cost, yet they now have more stores than McDonalds and most other fast food stores. This does not mean I don't see where you are coming from, it is something we are looking at and a way in which we have considered to sell the products at a competitive price to the large supermarkets is by offering a slightly smaller amount of pasta. Similar to Innocent Juices being offered in 900ml containers instead of a litre.

Our first store is literally on the busiest street in Huddersfield (from footfall figures) and due to our heavy reliance on footfall we will continue to expand with shops in prominent, well placed locations.

Unfortunately on the program they did now show a part in the testing event where a couple of customers actually estimated the cost of the product at more than what we will be selling it for.

With regards to the quality, we would love for you to try it and give us feedback! This was the idea behind the bin scenario in Huddersfield, purely to ensure the general public liked the taste.

I meant for having something on the go, such as a Mc Donalds. So you can just walk in there, order it then get it there and then. Then you have a choice as to eat it walking along or eat it sitting down.

I'm at a college 4 days a week, and the only food places around are Mc Donalds, a little Tesco and Pub. We go to Mc Donalds each day because it's cheap, hot and not far to go. If there was a pasta bar that offered fast hot food then it would be busy most days (probably more busy on weekdays) if it was placed near a college. There are a lot of people I see walking round with a cold pasta snack from Tesco, so if there was hot pasta at the same price it would sell.

But, as you said, if it was out of the way with overpriced average snacks then it wouldn't do that well. I guess it's down to where you open it.

The bolded section above is the plan for our fast food restaurant. The average time in our previous store for a customer to order and be out of the shop was 3 minutes. We aim to replicate this but with a larger menu choice.

Also, thanks for the comments. We like to hear people want our products!

I don't think those lads could compete on price with a cold pasta snack from Tesco. Those pasta pots start off about the £1.20 mark or so if I remember rightly, the overheads alone on the lads shop would mean they'd probably have to charge double that to even make a modest profit.

My biggest bugbear with canteen style pasta like Twists are offering is that it tends to have sat around for a bit and gone all 'claggy'. I like pasta to be fresh cooked and straight out of the water, into the sauce, and then served.

This sentence describes exactly how our pasta is cooked for each individual person. We have utilised a new to the market style pasta that requires 15-20 seconds worth of boiling water, that provides a consistant product - al dente and tasty. This means we never have any pasta laying around anywhere that it can get to the texture you are talking about. Although, when we first opened our previous store we did have a problem with our previous style that produced this pasta, we have worked hard to ensure this doesn't happen again!

Well the whole hot-on-the-go pasta business isn't a new concept. Pasta is relatively cheap and assumingly easy to produce on a big scale. (I remember some Italian guy doing this about 20 years back and failed miserably!) However, for some reason it has never taken off...

The reason for this is even with cheap nothing-special ingredients... your overheads don't reduce in cost too. To do it properly you either need a queue of people wanting it at the same time or you do it individually on a small scale to perfection. The problem is with the first you need to wait for enough people to be waiting or with the second there will be a huge queue. Its NOT fast food. Getting people to sit down to wait... then they get their food... they might as well eat it there... then obviously its a very limited Italian restaurant.

The way round that (superdooper has already pre-emptively said this) is to go canteen style... the problem with it? Its no longer fresh pasta and it tastes awful. Or... you dish it up cold from earlier... then stick it in the microwave... same result... awful food.

Although it seems the most easiest thing to do in the world... I am really sure those guys would gave poor QC where each batch varied from the last. You need consistency, even if its always average (warm food, that will do Vs hmm lovely, followed by yuk the next time you go).

Fast food is very profitable... but most restaurants do not make much money at all. You need someone who is more in it about the food rather than business (i.e. great food, great price point - leave it as that). Sadly the Pasta guys from this show just saw pasta as an easy potential fast food (compared to any meat based product etc.), were too naive to wonder why with a million or so Italian restaurants worldwide why no one has done it before (they have..tried), saw it as easy money and tried to gain a USP of claiming the food is healthy.

As mentioned above I think it explains how our product varies from anything you have had before. There will be no sitting down waiting for the product to be served, it is done to order and you can actually watch the process taking place.

With regards to myself and Jeff, we may be naive to a certain extent but we also feel we have an idea that we want to take forward and give it a go! It wasn't an easy choice to sign to a massive debt but fingers crossed we make it worthwhile!

Again, thanks for all the comments we really do appreciate any constructive feedback. Everything I have said above is not arguing with the points at all, just trying to explain our business a bit better so you guys can understand the concept a lot better than what the show portrayed.

Adam

 

[Fred_the_frog]

Hi Guys,

...

Adam

I like your idea. You should get some polystyrene cups (larger ones) with your logo printed on so if someone wants to take it out then the pasta will stay hot for longer when they are eating it in the cold outside.

 

[10032012]

Thanks Adam, but you didn't mention any figures!

How much investment did you get? What is your turnover to date?

I think most of peoples comments is how the episodes were edited - the show isn't put together all that well.

 

[Fred_the_frog]

What I don't get is why everyone was given £100 at the start of the show?

 

[10032012]

What I don't get is why everyone was given £100 at the start of the show?

To take part. £100/hour. Its a BBC Three show with a businessperson no one has heard of.

No doubt the successful people have been chosen before it started, everyone else just makes up the numbers... the large queue etc.

 

[Fred_the_frog]

To take part. £100/hour. Its a BBC Three show with a businessperson no one has heard of.

No doubt the successful people have been chosen before it started, everyone else just makes up the numbers... the large queue etc.

Lol, sounds about right aha.

(I've heard of him, Peter Jones did a program a while back with that innocent guy being one of the main people in it).

 

[mitch@volume]

The £100 was given to people who had applied to the show as part of an auditioning processes. £100 and three weeks (i think it was) to make a profit in any legal way, record it an submit the video.
From that process and the business proposal 500 people/businesses were invited to London.

Im glad I declined the invite now. out of the two business ideas I put forward for the show, it was the gimmicky new product that got the invite to London not the profitable new business that needed a little investment to expand.

 

[Adam@twists]

I like your idea. You should get some polystyrene cups (larger ones) with your logo printed on so if someone wants to take it out then the pasta will stay hot for longer when they are eating it in the cold outside.

The ones we currently use are really well insulated and work really well even in teh cold outside. We did look at polystyrene but decided that it didn't work as well and felt a bit "tacky". Also, they struggled in our microwave testing!

Thanks Adam, but you didn't mention any figures!

How much investment did you get? What is your turnover to date?

I think most of peoples comments is how the episodes were edited - the show isn't put together all that well.

Well it is currently going through the negotiation stage to finalise figures and percentage. After sitting down with experts we have decided the best way forward for us is to first of all expand and own/be in control of more shops and THEN put a franchise package together. We are thinking to do this quickly we will be looking at around £120k although at this initial stage he has given the go ahead for 50k to open shops 2 and 3.

Yeh I agree the show hasn't been edited that well and we did so much more that they didn't even show such as working with branding guys from sky, barclays and millies cookies and how we went from having a shop nearly agreed to having to restart due to planning regulations. We went on a rocky journey! Also wasn't a fan of how they edited the tasting session...The guy at the start said all other sauces were really nice, yet they decided to show the one he didn't like!

Was a great experience though and a lot of positive progress has been made. Please keep the comments coming!

 

[10032012]

So an investment of £50k for shops 2 and 3, before shop 1 has been proven to work (i.e. test trading)? How is the first shop financed?

Am I right in thinking then that you already had your first shop before appearing on the show? If so, why was it made out to be a new business idea/concept with the requirement of food testing etc. to see if you had a product to market?

 

[10032012]

Also, they struggled in our microwave testing!

Oh, and this worries me... why on earth would you even need a microwave? Hope you not thinking of cutting corners!