Business Opportunities with Danny & Zac - Showing You How To Make Money

We don’t know about you, but on Tuesday at 9pm we were glued to the box avidly waiting to see what The Tycoon was like. Peter Jones, Dragon Den’s regular and successful entrepreneur, seemed to be picking up where Sir Alan had left off. 

Then again that could have been the TV scheduling people, but the point is it seemed Peter figured he could go it alone and front an Apprentice style show. The difference being the winner doesn’t end up working for Peter, but becomes the first ever tycoon made on British television.

All very exciting on paper. 

But we have to be honest and say we were a bit let down. 

The show seemed to lack the same drama and competitive edge as The Apprentice. There was a lot of filming of people sitting at desks in Tycoon tower – a reasonably small building compared to Sugar’s towering block. 

And it didn’t really help that Peter kept on saying how the money fronted to the contestants was his money… so if things went wrong, then he’d lose out. 

Now don’t get us wrong, we like Peter. And we admire his success as a money making machine. Especially because, like a lot of successful entrepreneurs, he’s experienced the lows as well as the highs. 

But, and we don’t want to be too cynical here, we’re sure that whatever Peter’s getting for the show be it a set fee, a cut of advertising revenue or even just the media exposure, he’s not going to come off worse.

And then of course there were the competitors… and their big ideas, which they were sure were the next best thing after sliced bread.

17 year old Tom’s plan is to launch a free paper aimed at school kids… probably in the sixth form from what we could tell… with revenue from advertising. In principle not a bad idea. After all, if the schools support it, you’ve got a great target audience for a load of companies. But what Tom produced after some delay looked like something knocked up on a PC. A folded over piece of A3 printed on both sides, which looked like it could be done by the guys who did the London Olympics logo.

Plus, considering the whole environmental issue, the fact a lot of schools provide papers, and a lot of read the same papers as ‘adults’ (which aren’t exactly cost prohibitive) you have to wonder. We figured an online site where kids could subscribe to receive accessible news would be a better bet.

Then there was Elizabeth… can’t fault her enthusiasm and dedication to her dream… but launching a vodka and fruit drink into one of the most competitive markets in the world… she’s certainly made her life hard from the off. And to be honest she didn’t seem that organized. Her market research was out, she didn’t have a decent brand name, and even her bottles supplier went awry.

Next was Iain. His idea was to secure UK distribution rights for a small radio controlled helicopter manufactured in China. In itself not a bad idea. The profit margin was good. He seemed focused and had a good idea of what he needed to do. But the risk factor’s there. The distribution rights aren’t his… yet. And that doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t find another manufacturer in China and copy his business model. 

We liked Justin’s idea. Definitely innovative. And of course the supermarkets are all rewarding customers who reuse their carrier bags. So his device makes it easy for people to do just that. What we couldn’t get our heads round though was why, oh why, wasn’t he pitching the idea at Sainsbury’s or Tesco’s? And how often did he have to call his wife! So we were surprised a guy who’s been Whitney Houston’s bodyguard seemed to lack the mettle needed (what would Kevin Costner say?)

Lauren had a good idea as well. From what we’ve heard hair extensions – synthetic ones – can be a bit of a nightmare (we’re not talking from personal experience by the way). So ones made using real hair – perfect. And Lauren’s showed some smarts when it came to packaging. As a successful model, she already has a media profile so putting herself on the product was an inspired move. Personally we reckon Lauren could do really well. It was a shame we didn’t see more of her business strategy… how she planned to get the product to market… that sort of thing. But then again, this was the first episode.

And finally there’s the gardening duo and no doubt show favourites – Cathy and Helen. Good product. Uncomplicated. And great brand name. You can really see the ‘Sod’ label taking off. And not just with gardeners. And of course they were making thousands within next to no time.

But having said all that, they did annoy us a bit. Fair enough, they were really proud of their business – as all entrepreneurs should be – but they seemed to totally misinterpret what Peter told them. His point was that their brand could be much bigger than just female gardeners who like pink stuff. But they could go after men and kids. Like Gap has Gap Men, Gap Women and Gap Kids.

Rather than take the time to understand what Peter was saying i.e. your market can be two or three times the size of your current target one, they rushed out to South Bank to get some reassurance from passers-by that their products were pretty. Bit of a waste of time as Peter hadn’t criticized the products in the least.

Talk about grabbing the wrong end of the stick!

You’ve got to wonder what Peter would make of some of these people if they showed up on Dragon’s Den.

Anyway if we’re honest, we think the Tycoon competition will come down to Lauren, Justin and Cathy and Helen. 

So will we keep watching?

Of course we will… like we said before we like Peter and his advice is sound and to the point. And you can learn a lot from the competitors on how not to run your own business.

So if you haven’t caught it already, then check out Tycoon 9pm ITV1 Tuesdays.

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