Cannot believe LS hired that fraud James. But am glad Sarah won as she was my pick at the beginning and for the first time since watching the show I actually picked the winner (or in this case joint winner).
I think he's invested in Sarah rather than her business plan as it was quite frankly sh*te, (in my opinion).
The two worst business plans in the history of the show, the worst organised teams in a final in the history of the show and a laughable result from a man who has fired people for being indecisive. Doubt I'll be tuning in next year.
No the business is still going. The sweeteze name was ditched and the company is called Sweets In The City.
I don't watch it for the business plans, I doubt you two do either. I watch it so I can shout at the TV in self righteous indignation and get away with it.
Only ever watched one series a few years back...the one with Pants man cereal and horse teeth blondie. Hated the contestants, wannabe players without the talent to actually be players, then the sickening grovelling just to sell Amstrad sh!t. Never watched it again.
I have this theory that Ricky Martin wanted a cyber security scalable type IT business in conjuction with what he was doing and bent LS's arm in hiring him. What has made me say this is that Ricky Martin turned up prior to the pitch and basically told James to mention cyber security at the pitch, which James wouldn't have done. What was funny was that dithering lass from last year turned up with Sarah and said basically sod all lol. In my view watching the final he was going to hire just James when Ricky turned up but Sarah's pitch was so much better, the Nestle woman said no one had nailed this concept of a leader in sweets, and she fought so well against James when James was slagging off her business that LS decided to go with both of them. Loved the bit when James said "its taken you 7 years to make 400k", and Sarah replied "well its 400k more than you".
I stopped watching when I launched a slipper at the screen and nearly knocked the TV off it's stand. Several years have passed now. The TV has got bigger and lighter. Just too much of a risk now.
I've been watching since series 5. I enjoy it not so much for the result, but the fact that the candidates are supposed to be intelligent and have some business acumen yet year on year there are some complete pillocks. I get that in the first couple of weeks that there are too many candidates and it's difficult to shine and the odd person can be a bit unlucky and get fired; but after a few weeks you find yourself shouting at the telly because you think that the candidate must have seen previous series before applying. Likewise I get the fact that the pressure to perform, particularly in tasks that are out of their comfort zones, leads to honest mistakes. I felt sorry for Jade who I thought had performed so well throughout each task and then screwed it up on the final normal week yet someone like Elizabeth got away with 3 or 4 boardroom appearances. Overall the semi final is always the best as we see the final 5 torn apart in the interviews. Linda Plant took no prisoners this year. My favourite was from a few years ago when someone got thrown out of the interview by Claude in 2 minutes because his business plan was about 4 sides of A4 of which half of it was clip art.
Absolute joke now really. Michaela was amazing, with a £3 million business plan but wasn't in the final? Go back to when it was actually an Apprentice not business plans and *****.
It felt very fake at times this year. Like the Jungle fake. Invented drama. Plus the final should have been Michela vs Elizabeth.
She had a good engine m8. Not the prettiest but got her hands dirty. The Ben Watson (in the Championship) of this series if you will.
The big problem with Michaela was that, as pointed out, the concern would be whether she would focus 100% on the new business. Elizabeth would be too difficult to handle and I imagin e very frustrating to work with. Out of all of the semi-finallists, Joanna probably had the most credible idea but unfortunately she had no suppliers lined up and her business plan was a touch naive which is understandable given her age. I agree that the two finallists were the weakest since the current format started from series 7, I disagree wholy with @Squibba about returning to the original format, I think the current one is much better.
I read somewhere this week that Lord Sugar ended up firing an apprentice and got sued by another, hence why it is all business plans now (probably among other reasons too). Wasn't keen on either business plan, thought Michaela was probably the most deserving but no-one really stood out. That said, last year's winner was worse in my opinion.
The task I can never get my head round is when they have to buy 8 items in a whole day between 6 people and somehow end up not getting 1/2 of them Like the **** that paid £30 for a Tottenham scarf - these must be available on every high street through London
Just watched it on iplayer. I agree entirely with this theory. I don’t think it has been as good since it’s been based on business plans. But @nornironhorn has hit the nail on the head on the reason for those.
I think the Business Sugar wants is decided right from the beginning, and the whole show is basically just a sham to go through the motions. And I agree the show was much better when Sugar was just hiring someone and not as is now.
One thing I've learned from watching this show over the years: If a certain task comes up and someone says "I'm perfect for this because I do it as part of my current business", it means they will be utterly inept.
Michaela was easily the best business person on the show, but had her finger in too many pies. Sugar wanted sole use of her finger!
I know someone at work who knows Jade from the apprentice. She confirmed that Jade did the dirty on her boyfriend and had a fling with James during the Apprentice. Dirty tart
I'm quite pleased to say that Sarah is a friend of mine and I worked with her and then helped her with some of her sourcing when she first set up. The concept she has of confectionery gifting is something that a couple of others are trying to break into, including Cadburys. LS isn't daft, he has investments in packaging, printing and marketing companies, all which will help Sarah in the first year or so. Realistically though, £250k isn't a big investment in the market that they are trying to break into
