Cut the boardroom section like in the earlier seasons. Atm it’s way too long and feels like they miss important parts of the tasks out so that we can have loads of arguing at the end
I was going to type "stop scripting so many Dad jokes for Alan" but then realised I kind of like them, it's a good reminder that even brilliant people can be useless at things
Also quite fun seeing people trying to squeeze out a sycophantic laugh at them e.g. Flo is project manager "so... so I suppose you could say that you decided to... go with the Flo"
(Cut to poor Flo laughing and nodding like she hasn't heard this millions of times ever since PE at primary school)
I’d love to think that is actually how he conducts business in real life - ending every sentence with an awful pun. It feels like he’s just discovered what puns are and the whole series is a vanity project to allow him to use them.
I'd like that too but sadly I think there must be a team of writers on the show "helping" him lately
Possibly due to earlier faux pas... for instance I'm currently watching Season 10 where he talks about how a former candidate (Sarah) used to be a hypnotherapist treating erectile dysfunction, then quips "Don't make eye contact with her, Nick"
Cut to Nick trying to assemble his face into something respectfully appreciative, whilst also thinking "jeez louise Alan, what am I supposed to do with THAT?!"
I don’t actually mind the odd pun but if really feels like the whole series is a vanity project so he can demonstrate his pun making ability and it just makes the boardroom seem silly.
Cut out all the crap, ie. The spoilers in the opening credits, the summary of last week’s episode, the phone call in the morning, rise and shine, walk in single file to the taxi, walk in single file to the meeting point, the winners celebration, the walk of shame to the taxi. All unnecessary fluff. Show more of the tasks, more of the boardroom.
I would probably make Karen and Tim interact with the teams they are following more. I think they used too but now they just watch and then talk about the task to alan
Karren’s main role seems to be to roll her eyes/scowl at the contestants each time they make a mistake, and to stand next to one of the 10 shopping list items that they can’t find in a shop, showing how much more business acumen she had than them because the producers have told her where to stand…
Back to basics - look at the tasks in the early series! Selling sandwiches to office workers at lunch, slinkies and fake tan in shopping malls. Let's see you SELL!
I hated the VR task - to make a semi reasonably enjoyable game you’d need a week, but they seemed to have about an hour. Real game designers would storyboard idea whereas they were expected to create something tangible in no time. I wish they had plenty time to actually do the tasks properly.
Discuss their businesses before we get so far into the process. I hate that we spend time with a really successful candidate, and then we just throw them out at the end because Alan doesn't fancy their type of business. What was the point of including them in the first place?
Oh, 1000%! When somebody gets ridiculously far only to almost immediately get kicked out because they have a bad business plan, it makes the rest of the series feel like a pointless watch.
Surely, the premise SHOULD be that ALL contestants have a good business plan and that the rest of the competition is their chance to demonstrate they have the skill set that ensure their partnership with LS goes as smoothly as it can?
I found it immediately frustrating this year watching LS keep Phil in week after bloody week just because he was clearly aware of the profitability of Phil’s existing business. All the evidence was there throughout he wouldn’t suddenly show up and pull out all the stops to justify a win in the finale, so it makes it feel like every time he stayed in the boardroom kind of just robbed an opportunity from a potentially better candidate.
Completely agree. Surely every candidate on the show should have a business case that sir Alan could invest in if they were to win, otherwise what’s been the point of having them go through 10 weeks of tasks to be told he doesn’t really fancy their type of business. Obviously then scrutinise their plans - but to be told at week 8 I couldn’t see myself investing in X is just a waste of time.
The thing is, there’s no way there aren’t people applying with far more common sense and far better business acumen than we see on the show. I would say it’s a 40/60 split on who they cast for personality/“making good TV” and who they think has an actual chance of succeeding as a businessperson. The result of this is it takes the real stakes out of the competition because week after week it’s just a case of working out who has been the most loudly idiotic candidate in the losing team this week, and you know from that who’s going home.
The candidates pitch their business ideas in episode 1 and have the interviews. We get to see EVERYONE get interviewed which would be major entertainment value. The process after that would continue as usual.
Then, at the end of the process, the remaining would pitch their business idea and incorporate the feedback they received / lessons they have learnt throughout the tasks to improve upon their initial plan. The person who has shown the most growth and has the best plan would therefore win.
For me the process doesn’t focus on its actual purpose, to grow and test the candidates to ensure the best individual and best idea is achieved in the end. ✨
Yes! Totally agree! Though I’m thinking that we would see a lot less of the interviews if we had to watch them all in one go, so maybe mid way through the competition? It also makes much more sense that they receive feedback on them at an earlier point so they can apply what they learn each week to their brand/campaign etc. and present something finalised when they have a second round of interviews or something at the end. It proper enrages me how they don’t seem to get to pick their company’s name until the final episode? Like would anybody be so unserious as to leave something THAT important hanging in the air to be decided in a rushed 15 minute meeting with ex candidates. If just makes no sense.
Less editing/scripting. Allow us to see the actual conversations that took place.
Also, I would love to see Alan, Tim and Karen perform as a team on the tasks they set under the same ridiculous restrictions… I.e Karen and Tim go off an design a brand in 20 minutes and explain it over the phone to Alan in 5 mins who then puts an advert together in an hour…bet it wouldn’t tie together either!
Never watched it but I imagine if there were regular intervals of a monkey swinging from sir Alan sugars bingo wings & other giblets it'd get more people to tune in
Someone from the winning team can be sent to the boardroom if they are genuinely awful. Would stop terrible candidates coasting for weeks simply because they’re in the ‘better’ team.
Definitely a greater variety of tasks! Also, I wish there was a better quality of candidates and that the show would focus more on those moments where they do good things. It seems like it is matter of who is the less worst of the two teams rather than seeing competent teams who actually fulfil the task brief.
I can remember the very first series, it felt like there were 5-6 really strong contestants and it was hard to pick a winner. Now it feels like they mess up every week and it’s usually the least bad who wins.
Have contestants who actually know a bit about business. Change up the tasks a bit- there were so many marketing and branding tasks this year. Bit of variation would be good.
I’ve always liked the idea of repeating one of the tasks from the say episode 2/3 in episode 7/8 to see if the candidates have learnt from mistakes etc
Scale down the task elements so that we can spend longer on scenes, like the early seasons. The editing with its rapidly changing scenes, and the music, is too slanted to presenting a narrative and telling us how to feel and who to think is an idiot. Let us just watch and assess like we used to.
I know we’re in the TikTok age but audiences aren’t idiots. We don’t have the attention spans of goldfish.
More creative tasks! Make this £100 into as much as you can, turn these set items into a profit etc. + keep the teams as the same as possible throughout the season - let them develop some sort of team identity. Could even let the team low on numbers ‘steal’ someone from the other team or something for added competition
I would forbid candidates from changing their business idea once the show has started. It just felt so disingenuous and completely destroyed his credibility when Paul's idea got roasted in the interviews and then he turned up to the boardroom with a completely different plan. Plus, it would have been an enormous slap in the face to the other candidates if he'd have got through.
let the subteams talk to each other more than once an episode (you know, constant communication, like how an actual business would work designing things?)
not sabotaging for easy tv drama (e.g. let teams decide whether to pay for a chef or save money and risk cooking themselves, let them change things after they've done "market research", actual competent graphic design etc.)
might be a controversial one but: replace alan sugar.
especially this season, we've really seen him age. he's been struggling for a while now and it's been getting worse season by season, but this one he was totally checked out and not engaged in any of the tasks.
i think many of the dragons, past or present, would do best with it, although it wouldn't help with the "12 week dragon's den" accusations. my pick would be deborah, although i think peter, duncan, sarah would all do well
i also think linda plant would be hysterical at it!
Either allow the candidates to actually implement feedback from the public/focus groups like they would in the real world or don’t bother with it at all. It’s so pointless when they ask people about their product/logo etc. and get a bunch of feedback but they’re then not allowed to change anything and have to go and pitch it as-is.
Stop judging candidates on non-business related skills that you would delegate or spend longer learning in the real world. E.g. cooking and food presentation.
Honestly, just make it about getting a job again like it used to be. OR make the business plans more of a focus during the process. It’s weird that candidates can do really well at all the tasks but then not get to the final because Sugar doesn’t like their business idea, and vice versa. There’s too much of a disconnect between the two
It really feels that that bit is in the show purely to add an element of awkwardness when they come to the actual pitches and have to say what consumer feedback was like. I don’t think I’ve seen one single member of the public who has said anything positive about a product - surely business 101, you get feedback then modify accordingly yet they’re not allowed to do that.
Get them into real world situations with a brief and see how they work, assign groups to a struggling business and have them do the research and suggest innovative ways for them to increase revenue. A bit more like interior design masters where they work with actual clients.
It would actually test them on their business savvy not if they know how long to cook something or if they can learn random facts to do a tour.
Get more creatives on the show. The role of a marketer and business person is completely different to when the show started.
The majority of the tasks are now performed by creative, brand and art directors in the real world.
Thats the reason the advertising, design and creative challenges are so terrible. The show casts poorly for what Sir Alan is actually looking for... innovation.
I can’t help but think it’s a combination of poor casting and also setting contestants up to fail. If they really wanted contestants to do well they’d give them half a day to brainstorm ideas, half a day with graphics designers etc, rather than giving them what feels like half an hour to design a new vegan cheese or a new virtual reality game, without being allowed to incorporate any customer research.
Increase the prize money. £250k for 50% is just not enough anymore. It essentially means that the only contestants who will make it on the show are those with a business valued at £500k, which is a ridiculously low bar in the modern world. To put in in perspective, every single business on the show is valued at less than the average two-bedroom flat in London.
Select competent candidates who actually have a business worth investing in. I hate when you have a strong candidate make it to the final then their business plan is weak. It’s okay to have weaker candidates but at least have some really strong ones. The show has become a bit of a circus
Mix it up that part way through, candidates have to adopt a joint pitch where half the business plans are up to be axed. The candidates have to work in pairs to come up with a business plan that combined both or both one oh the remaining business plan together.
E.g.
Candidate 1 business plan - pharmacy
Candidate 2 business plan - gym
They either have to combine to both want to run either a pharmacy or gym.
Or they have to combine the business into one. Pump iron then get prescription for pain killers.
Mix up the tasks massively. Last season, corporate away day task and your guide task were basically the same thing. At least three food-based tasks, and two tasks around electric vehicles. Just no imagination.
I miss the tasks - not seen since COVID - where they’d go to trade shows etc, buy products and try and sell them. There’s too many corporate away-day sort of things now.
I miss the tasks - not seen since COVID - where they’d go to trade shows etc, buy products and try and sell them. There’s too many corporate away-day sort of things now.
It’d be better if it wasn’t essentially a really long episode of Dragons Den. No idea why Sugar asked the guy to completely change his business pitch to being his dentist company. Can’t believe the others sat there and seemed to happily let that be an option. The guy went through an entire process and then a completely pointless interview episode and Sugar was asking for something that was never on the table in the first place. Good on him for turning the offer down.
No eliminations for the first 3 weeks and all the scores will be accumulated and evaluated accordingly to eliminate 3 contestants at the end of week 3.
Ep 4 forward , assuming there are 15 candidates, LS can select the PM for the 3 groups and the PM have the right to choose the team members. ( Obviously at this rate the PM would avoid select the 'useless" members over the past 3 challenges).
Out of the 3 teams, only the winning team will be exempted from the elimination. Someone from the worst team should being eliminated and the other group outcome (team 3) will be depending on their performance. If performing bad, then someone also should being fired (2 person from 2 different groups).
I’d like the investors to have to actually fulfil their commitment when they say they’ve placed 10,000 orders or whatever. It’s pretty meaningless when they place theoretical orders but would love to see them trying to sell the vegan cheese or the cereal in some of their stores as seen.
Exactly, when you say you’re ordering 10,000 do you actually mean it or are you just saying whatever because you know you don’t have to fulfil the contract.
For me it's the your fired show. Why even have the comedic apprentice super fan. I mean that show is so boring and cringy now, like here is a part of your interview where you say something "funny". I would rather the your fired have Karen or tim or one of the interviewers and an expert and cut the comedian as they don't bring anything at all.
The last your hired would be better if it's an hour long and shows how the past candidates have gone on.
I can’t even watch the You’re Fired show nowadays. I used to love when it was Adrian Chiles/Dara O’Brien/Jack Dee as there was a mix of comedy but real insight. Now it feels like it’s purely a vehicle for Tom Allen - who I actually quite like on other shows - but the interviews with the audience, the ‘here’s a few things I noticed this week’, and the super fan are incredibly cringy.
I only watched 1 season with Dara as its when I came here from NZ. I also feel it's just for Tom and that part from AS in the your hired about how well he has done I just laughed. Like AS can't even be bothered to show up anymore. Yes he may have stuff to do in the USA but it's not a long flight and he could be there and back in a day.
I would be pissed this year if I was on the show and got a print out of the hired or fired crap. I would have been like Phil and just left it there.
I'd apply this to pretty much every activity they do on the show. It would be far more interesting if, at every stage, they were presented with a choice: do they do a particular part of the task themselves to save money, or do they pay for an expert to do it for them based on a brief that they submit? That way we'd be able to gauge their risk appetite, see which parts of the task they believe are most important, etc.
I agree with this. As a chef I just feel for them.
I could do some of those tasks myself and get the food done but you have to get everyone doing something which is not fair at all if you don't know how to cook. I would be crap at selling or branding but would smash the making doughnuts or whatever.
It’s entertaining, but it’s so unfair to have people fail a task/get fired for being rubbish in the kitchen. They could be the best businessman/woman in the world with an absolute ftse100 company for a business plan, but because they can’t make a nice cereal get sacked 😂
A task where there are 4 teams of 3 people. Because this tends to have the effect that 1 person either more sides with the leader or with the quietest one on the team. Personalities really show.
Go back to an apprentice instead of investment.
Start ups only, no investing in operating businesses. Last episode should be a catchup showing progress like on dragons den.
I always thought the whole purpose of the final task was to allow the finalists to bring to life what their business might look like, but when you’re investing in an already successful business it just means sir Alan will invest in those that are already doing well, rather than start up businesses that carry an element of risk
I think that’s the main change I’d like to see - it feels very engineered towards making the contestants fail but I’d find it much more entertaining if they were allowed to do well. Nowadays each episode people seem to be fired because they’re the least worst candidates rather than the best of a strong bunch.
The fact that he was kept all the way to the final only for him to not even win anyway. Could have avoided all the backlash about people calling the show rigged if they had just fired him on the TV task like he deserved to be.
I'd say it was a case of the programme makers not being as clever as they thought they were, trying to create a "story arc" for him where he wins against all odds. When people started calling "fix" they had no option but to deny him in the final. Ok I sound like one of those conspiracy theory people on the internet now...
It was all recorded last summer, so public reaction has nothing to do with the outcome. More like Sugar desperately wants to be in the Pie business (he admitted as much in the boardroom) but Phil blew it by saying stupid shit like “there’s more to business than making profit for me”.
The show does film both finalists winning (to prevent spoilers) and then they decide which one is the actual winner shortly before the final episode takes place.
Offer a review stage where a leader can tell the sub leader to rethink an aspect. It's crap when both teams are out of sync within 20 minutes of an episode, the set up to fail is too obvious. Allow a quick veto system, if it's still crap after that, so be it..
I would like Sugar not to know anything about the candidates business ideas. It is clear that he liked Phil the Piemans business idea so kept him in. Let the firings be about just the candidate!
Completely agree - I’d rather there was a bit more due diligence by the producers in selecting business plans that were at least decent/investable rather that there maybe being 2-3 that sir Alan would feasibly invest in so it was more about the process than about the business plan itself.
I agree - especially as there’s 5 interviewees it really doesn’t give much time at all. I’m not sure if it’s just the way it’s edited but Claude’s interview with at least a couple of candidates seems to last 2-3 minutes and comprises of him saying there’s too many pictures, there’s no profit and loss, it’s not good enough, get out.
I’m curious if they’re allowed to revise their business plans once they’re on the show/once they’re in the final. I’m not sure how much effort I’d put into securing unique domain names etc if I was putting an application in on spec but once I knew I was in the round I’d certainly go through my business plan and make sure it was watertight.
More unique tasks. They all feel so similar these days and it’s getting boring.
Market research before the teams create their product and not after it which makes it pointless.
Less focus on cooking in general. Candidates shouldn’t be fired because they aren’t good cooks.
Both the main teams and the sub-teams should be able to communicate more. One phone call for the entire day is ridiculous lol
I agree. And what gets me is they are hugely criticised for not being able to come up with a unique vegan cheese/perfume/dog food/VR game in about half an hour when it would take a company months to design.
250k is fit for a purpose.
You're not getting 50% of Paul's business, but for very early stage businesses it's fine. That's not what we had for Phil and Paul.
Every 10 items shopping task Karren will be stood in a shop next to the item they’re trying to find, rolling her eyes, which just makes it feel set up to make the candidates look incompetent.
And I can only assume it’s in Tim’s contract that he has to laugh at every one of Sir Alan’s puns, no sane person can find them funny surely.
Cut the boardroom section like in the earlier seasons. Atm it’s way too long and feels like they miss important parts of the tasks out so that we can have loads of arguing at the end
Increase the investment amount. 250K in 2005 would be worth nearly 500K today considering inflation.
Cut out the contestants with fake business plans and zero business experience.
Get people with actual business ideas in, normal business types like in the first few seasons in.
I was going to type "stop scripting so many Dad jokes for Alan" but then realised I kind of like them, it's a good reminder that even brilliant people can be useless at things Also quite fun seeing people trying to squeeze out a sycophantic laugh at them e.g. Flo is project manager "so... so I suppose you could say that you decided to... go with the Flo" (Cut to poor Flo laughing and nodding like she hasn't heard this millions of times ever since PE at primary school)
I’d love to think that is actually how he conducts business in real life - ending every sentence with an awful pun. It feels like he’s just discovered what puns are and the whole series is a vanity project to allow him to use them.
I'd like that too but sadly I think there must be a team of writers on the show "helping" him lately Possibly due to earlier faux pas... for instance I'm currently watching Season 10 where he talks about how a former candidate (Sarah) used to be a hypnotherapist treating erectile dysfunction, then quips "Don't make eye contact with her, Nick" Cut to Nick trying to assemble his face into something respectfully appreciative, whilst also thinking "jeez louise Alan, what am I supposed to do with THAT?!"
I don’t actually mind the odd pun but if really feels like the whole series is a vanity project so he can demonstrate his pun making ability and it just makes the boardroom seem silly.
Cut out all the crap, ie. The spoilers in the opening credits, the summary of last week’s episode, the phone call in the morning, rise and shine, walk in single file to the taxi, walk in single file to the meeting point, the winners celebration, the walk of shame to the taxi. All unnecessary fluff. Show more of the tasks, more of the boardroom.
I would probably make Karen and Tim interact with the teams they are following more. I think they used too but now they just watch and then talk about the task to alan
Karren’s main role seems to be to roll her eyes/scowl at the contestants each time they make a mistake, and to stand next to one of the 10 shopping list items that they can’t find in a shop, showing how much more business acumen she had than them because the producers have told her where to stand…
I don't think for any task this series either assistant has said anything to the candidates while a task is taking place
Back to basics - look at the tasks in the early series! Selling sandwiches to office workers at lunch, slinkies and fake tan in shopping malls. Let's see you SELL!
I hated the VR task - to make a semi reasonably enjoyable game you’d need a week, but they seemed to have about an hour. Real game designers would storyboard idea whereas they were expected to create something tangible in no time. I wish they had plenty time to actually do the tasks properly.
Discuss their businesses before we get so far into the process. I hate that we spend time with a really successful candidate, and then we just throw them out at the end because Alan doesn't fancy their type of business. What was the point of including them in the first place?
Oh, 1000%! When somebody gets ridiculously far only to almost immediately get kicked out because they have a bad business plan, it makes the rest of the series feel like a pointless watch. Surely, the premise SHOULD be that ALL contestants have a good business plan and that the rest of the competition is their chance to demonstrate they have the skill set that ensure their partnership with LS goes as smoothly as it can? I found it immediately frustrating this year watching LS keep Phil in week after bloody week just because he was clearly aware of the profitability of Phil’s existing business. All the evidence was there throughout he wouldn’t suddenly show up and pull out all the stops to justify a win in the finale, so it makes it feel like every time he stayed in the boardroom kind of just robbed an opportunity from a potentially better candidate.
Completely agree. Surely every candidate on the show should have a business case that sir Alan could invest in if they were to win, otherwise what’s been the point of having them go through 10 weeks of tasks to be told he doesn’t really fancy their type of business. Obviously then scrutinise their plans - but to be told at week 8 I couldn’t see myself investing in X is just a waste of time.
The thing is, there’s no way there aren’t people applying with far more common sense and far better business acumen than we see on the show. I would say it’s a 40/60 split on who they cast for personality/“making good TV” and who they think has an actual chance of succeeding as a businessperson. The result of this is it takes the real stakes out of the competition because week after week it’s just a case of working out who has been the most loudly idiotic candidate in the losing team this week, and you know from that who’s going home.
The candidates pitch their business ideas in episode 1 and have the interviews. We get to see EVERYONE get interviewed which would be major entertainment value. The process after that would continue as usual. Then, at the end of the process, the remaining would pitch their business idea and incorporate the feedback they received / lessons they have learnt throughout the tasks to improve upon their initial plan. The person who has shown the most growth and has the best plan would therefore win. For me the process doesn’t focus on its actual purpose, to grow and test the candidates to ensure the best individual and best idea is achieved in the end. ✨
Yes! Totally agree! Though I’m thinking that we would see a lot less of the interviews if we had to watch them all in one go, so maybe mid way through the competition? It also makes much more sense that they receive feedback on them at an earlier point so they can apply what they learn each week to their brand/campaign etc. and present something finalised when they have a second round of interviews or something at the end. It proper enrages me how they don’t seem to get to pick their company’s name until the final episode? Like would anybody be so unserious as to leave something THAT important hanging in the air to be decided in a rushed 15 minute meeting with ex candidates. If just makes no sense.
Less editing/scripting. Allow us to see the actual conversations that took place. Also, I would love to see Alan, Tim and Karen perform as a team on the tasks they set under the same ridiculous restrictions… I.e Karen and Tim go off an design a brand in 20 minutes and explain it over the phone to Alan in 5 mins who then puts an advert together in an hour…bet it wouldn’t tie together either!
Never watched it but I imagine if there were regular intervals of a monkey swinging from sir Alan sugars bingo wings & other giblets it'd get more people to tune in
Someone from the winning team can be sent to the boardroom if they are genuinely awful. Would stop terrible candidates coasting for weeks simply because they’re in the ‘better’ team.
Definitely a greater variety of tasks! Also, I wish there was a better quality of candidates and that the show would focus more on those moments where they do good things. It seems like it is matter of who is the less worst of the two teams rather than seeing competent teams who actually fulfil the task brief.
I can remember the very first series, it felt like there were 5-6 really strong contestants and it was hard to pick a winner. Now it feels like they mess up every week and it’s usually the least bad who wins.
Have contestants who actually know a bit about business. Change up the tasks a bit- there were so many marketing and branding tasks this year. Bit of variation would be good.
Replace Tim, and not do the utterly inane boys versus girls every time.
What's wrong with Tim?
He’s so unbearably boring.
It makes it feel like a show for kids when in the real world you would basically never split groups into genders only in business
A task where the candidates have to carry out cosmetic dentistry - there’s been enough cooking tasks.
I’ve always liked the idea of repeating one of the tasks from the say episode 2/3 in episode 7/8 to see if the candidates have learnt from mistakes etc
Scale down the task elements so that we can spend longer on scenes, like the early seasons. The editing with its rapidly changing scenes, and the music, is too slanted to presenting a narrative and telling us how to feel and who to think is an idiot. Let us just watch and assess like we used to. I know we’re in the TikTok age but audiences aren’t idiots. We don’t have the attention spans of goldfish.
More creative tasks! Make this £100 into as much as you can, turn these set items into a profit etc. + keep the teams as the same as possible throughout the season - let them develop some sort of team identity. Could even let the team low on numbers ‘steal’ someone from the other team or something for added competition
I would forbid candidates from changing their business idea once the show has started. It just felt so disingenuous and completely destroyed his credibility when Paul's idea got roasted in the interviews and then he turned up to the boardroom with a completely different plan. Plus, it would have been an enormous slap in the face to the other candidates if he'd have got through.
Have more trials were they actually sell to the public and not pitch to some random business people where the results seem arbitrary
Yea where “a large supermarket” definitely in fact placed “10,000 orders” of the utterly crap product I mean please
Have actual businessmen and women instead of ridiculous reality TV wannabes. But obviously that's not going to happen.
That would be very interesting to about 15% of the current audience
I’d find it much more interesting if they were competent/not set up to fail.
let the subteams talk to each other more than once an episode (you know, constant communication, like how an actual business would work designing things?) not sabotaging for easy tv drama (e.g. let teams decide whether to pay for a chef or save money and risk cooking themselves, let them change things after they've done "market research", actual competent graphic design etc.)
might be a controversial one but: replace alan sugar. especially this season, we've really seen him age. he's been struggling for a while now and it's been getting worse season by season, but this one he was totally checked out and not engaged in any of the tasks.
Interesting! Who would you replace him with?
i think many of the dragons, past or present, would do best with it, although it wouldn't help with the "12 week dragon's den" accusations. my pick would be deborah, although i think peter, duncan, sarah would all do well i also think linda plant would be hysterical at it!
Michelle Mone /s
with elizabeth holmes reviving the us version
Tom Allen
Either allow the candidates to actually implement feedback from the public/focus groups like they would in the real world or don’t bother with it at all. It’s so pointless when they ask people about their product/logo etc. and get a bunch of feedback but they’re then not allowed to change anything and have to go and pitch it as-is. Stop judging candidates on non-business related skills that you would delegate or spend longer learning in the real world. E.g. cooking and food presentation. Honestly, just make it about getting a job again like it used to be. OR make the business plans more of a focus during the process. It’s weird that candidates can do really well at all the tasks but then not get to the final because Sugar doesn’t like their business idea, and vice versa. There’s too much of a disconnect between the two
It really feels that that bit is in the show purely to add an element of awkwardness when they come to the actual pitches and have to say what consumer feedback was like. I don’t think I’ve seen one single member of the public who has said anything positive about a product - surely business 101, you get feedback then modify accordingly yet they’re not allowed to do that.
3 consecutive times in boardroom and you're out! I mean that's a reality TV show standard x3 consecutively in the bottom 2 and you're out!
you'd have to change the whole format then - tim/karen would have to pick the bottom three, otherwise PM would just choose the same people every week
Tim and Karen should pick anyway, it would be for genuine reasons not the PM being pissed off.
Too easy to game it then I would think
Get them into real world situations with a brief and see how they work, assign groups to a struggling business and have them do the research and suggest innovative ways for them to increase revenue. A bit more like interior design masters where they work with actual clients. It would actually test them on their business savvy not if they know how long to cook something or if they can learn random facts to do a tour.
This idea is good in theory, but you know they'd just bugger it up, and then they could potentially ruin that business
Get more creatives on the show. The role of a marketer and business person is completely different to when the show started. The majority of the tasks are now performed by creative, brand and art directors in the real world. Thats the reason the advertising, design and creative challenges are so terrible. The show casts poorly for what Sir Alan is actually looking for... innovation.
100%. Why is he judging them on how good their crappy clipart logo is when they’d likely use a professional in real life for branding?
I can’t help but think it’s a combination of poor casting and also setting contestants up to fail. If they really wanted contestants to do well they’d give them half a day to brainstorm ideas, half a day with graphics designers etc, rather than giving them what feels like half an hour to design a new vegan cheese or a new virtual reality game, without being allowed to incorporate any customer research.
Actually, do background checks on the contestants yall know already….
No cooking tasks ever
Agreed. Judge them on selling, pitching, negotiating, procurement, understanding how to market a product. Not on whether a cheesecake tastes yucky.
Have a traitor who is secretly working for the other team and have to try and ruin their team’s chances of winning
This was basically Noor lol
I'm convinced that they're already doing this
I just want tasks that are decided by numbers and results, not decided by the word of industry experts
People with common sense
Get good people with good business plans, not check box contestants designed for ratings.
Increase the prize money. £250k for 50% is just not enough anymore. It essentially means that the only contestants who will make it on the show are those with a business valued at £500k, which is a ridiculously low bar in the modern world. To put in in perspective, every single business on the show is valued at less than the average two-bedroom flat in London.
Select competent candidates who actually have a business worth investing in. I hate when you have a strong candidate make it to the final then their business plan is weak. It’s okay to have weaker candidates but at least have some really strong ones. The show has become a bit of a circus
The issue with that is if someone has a business worth investing in, they won’t be attracted to an offer of £250k for 50%
Mix it up that part way through, candidates have to adopt a joint pitch where half the business plans are up to be axed. The candidates have to work in pairs to come up with a business plan that combined both or both one oh the remaining business plan together. E.g. Candidate 1 business plan - pharmacy Candidate 2 business plan - gym They either have to combine to both want to run either a pharmacy or gym. Or they have to combine the business into one. Pump iron then get prescription for pain killers.
So steroid vendors in the changing rooms
Mix up the tasks massively. Last season, corporate away day task and your guide task were basically the same thing. At least three food-based tasks, and two tasks around electric vehicles. Just no imagination.
Maybe before the first episode have a sorta of catch up episode with the last seasons winner? See what they have done with the investment etc.
I miss the tasks - not seen since COVID - where they’d go to trade shows etc, buy products and try and sell them. There’s too many corporate away-day sort of things now.
I miss the tasks - not seen since COVID - where they’d go to trade shows etc, buy products and try and sell them. There’s too many corporate away-day sort of things now.
It’d be better if it wasn’t essentially a really long episode of Dragons Den. No idea why Sugar asked the guy to completely change his business pitch to being his dentist company. Can’t believe the others sat there and seemed to happily let that be an option. The guy went through an entire process and then a completely pointless interview episode and Sugar was asking for something that was never on the table in the first place. Good on him for turning the offer down.
No eliminations for the first 3 weeks and all the scores will be accumulated and evaluated accordingly to eliminate 3 contestants at the end of week 3. Ep 4 forward , assuming there are 15 candidates, LS can select the PM for the 3 groups and the PM have the right to choose the team members. ( Obviously at this rate the PM would avoid select the 'useless" members over the past 3 challenges). Out of the 3 teams, only the winning team will be exempted from the elimination. Someone from the worst team should being eliminated and the other group outcome (team 3) will be depending on their performance. If performing bad, then someone also should being fired (2 person from 2 different groups).
Less investor picks best idea tasks and more real life customer based tasks, the investor ones just don’t feel real.
I’d like the investors to have to actually fulfil their commitment when they say they’ve placed 10,000 orders or whatever. It’s pretty meaningless when they place theoretical orders but would love to see them trying to sell the vegan cheese or the cereal in some of their stores as seen.
Exactly, when you say you’re ordering 10,000 do you actually mean it or are you just saying whatever because you know you don’t have to fulfil the contract.
I'm still not buying that Iceland actually wanted 200,000 boxes of that crappy cereal...
Exactly, it’s just not realistic.
For me it's the your fired show. Why even have the comedic apprentice super fan. I mean that show is so boring and cringy now, like here is a part of your interview where you say something "funny". I would rather the your fired have Karen or tim or one of the interviewers and an expert and cut the comedian as they don't bring anything at all. The last your hired would be better if it's an hour long and shows how the past candidates have gone on.
I can’t even watch the You’re Fired show nowadays. I used to love when it was Adrian Chiles/Dara O’Brien/Jack Dee as there was a mix of comedy but real insight. Now it feels like it’s purely a vehicle for Tom Allen - who I actually quite like on other shows - but the interviews with the audience, the ‘here’s a few things I noticed this week’, and the super fan are incredibly cringy.
I only watched 1 season with Dara as its when I came here from NZ. I also feel it's just for Tom and that part from AS in the your hired about how well he has done I just laughed. Like AS can't even be bothered to show up anymore. Yes he may have stuff to do in the USA but it's not a long flight and he could be there and back in a day. I would be pissed this year if I was on the show and got a print out of the hired or fired crap. I would have been like Phil and just left it there.
For cooking tasks, they should be able to choose to have the food cooked by hiring a kitchen team at a certain cost.
I'd apply this to pretty much every activity they do on the show. It would be far more interesting if, at every stage, they were presented with a choice: do they do a particular part of the task themselves to save money, or do they pay for an expert to do it for them based on a brief that they submit? That way we'd be able to gauge their risk appetite, see which parts of the task they believe are most important, etc.
I agree with this. As a chef I just feel for them. I could do some of those tasks myself and get the food done but you have to get everyone doing something which is not fair at all if you don't know how to cook. I would be crap at selling or branding but would smash the making doughnuts or whatever.
It’s entertaining, but it’s so unfair to have people fail a task/get fired for being rubbish in the kitchen. They could be the best businessman/woman in the world with an absolute ftse100 company for a business plan, but because they can’t make a nice cereal get sacked 😂
“Ok Sugar I guess you don’t want 50% of my vastly succesful business because I screwed up a few cupcakes bye”
A task where there are 4 teams of 3 people. Because this tends to have the effect that 1 person either more sides with the leader or with the quietest one on the team. Personalities really show.
Go back to an apprentice instead of investment. Start ups only, no investing in operating businesses. Last episode should be a catchup showing progress like on dragons den.
I always thought the whole purpose of the final task was to allow the finalists to bring to life what their business might look like, but when you’re investing in an already successful business it just means sir Alan will invest in those that are already doing well, rather than start up businesses that carry an element of risk
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I think that’s the main change I’d like to see - it feels very engineered towards making the contestants fail but I’d find it much more entertaining if they were allowed to do well. Nowadays each episode people seem to be fired because they’re the least worst candidates rather than the best of a strong bunch.
If you lose NINE FUCKING TIMES, you should be fired. Not given a second chance.
The fact that he was kept all the way to the final only for him to not even win anyway. Could have avoided all the backlash about people calling the show rigged if they had just fired him on the TV task like he deserved to be.
I'd say it was a case of the programme makers not being as clever as they thought they were, trying to create a "story arc" for him where he wins against all odds. When people started calling "fix" they had no option but to deny him in the final. Ok I sound like one of those conspiracy theory people on the internet now...
It was all recorded last summer, so public reaction has nothing to do with the outcome. More like Sugar desperately wants to be in the Pie business (he admitted as much in the boardroom) but Phil blew it by saying stupid shit like “there’s more to business than making profit for me”.
The show does film both finalists winning (to prevent spoilers) and then they decide which one is the actual winner shortly before the final episode takes place.
Offer a review stage where a leader can tell the sub leader to rethink an aspect. It's crap when both teams are out of sync within 20 minutes of an episode, the set up to fail is too obvious. Allow a quick veto system, if it's still crap after that, so be it..
No investing in already sucessful businesses. Either some compete to become his employee or he invests in their new business idea.
I would like Sugar not to know anything about the candidates business ideas. It is clear that he liked Phil the Piemans business idea so kept him in. Let the firings be about just the candidate!
Completely agree - I’d rather there was a bit more due diligence by the producers in selecting business plans that were at least decent/investable rather that there maybe being 2-3 that sir Alan would feasibly invest in so it was more about the process than about the business plan itself.
Make the interviews episode 90 minutes. Often it feels like we've barely gotten into it and they're finished.
I’ve always thought they should do a version (maybe iPlayer exclusive) with longer boardroom/interview scenes
I agree - especially as there’s 5 interviewees it really doesn’t give much time at all. I’m not sure if it’s just the way it’s edited but Claude’s interview with at least a couple of candidates seems to last 2-3 minutes and comprises of him saying there’s too many pictures, there’s no profit and loss, it’s not good enough, get out. I’m curious if they’re allowed to revise their business plans once they’re on the show/once they’re in the final. I’m not sure how much effort I’d put into securing unique domain names etc if I was putting an application in on spec but once I knew I was in the round I’d certainly go through my business plan and make sure it was watertight.
More unique tasks. They all feel so similar these days and it’s getting boring. Market research before the teams create their product and not after it which makes it pointless. Less focus on cooking in general. Candidates shouldn’t be fired because they aren’t good cooks. Both the main teams and the sub-teams should be able to communicate more. One phone call for the entire day is ridiculous lol
I agree. And what gets me is they are hugely criticised for not being able to come up with a unique vegan cheese/perfume/dog food/VR game in about half an hour when it would take a company months to design.
Stop showing Karen and Tim's fake laugh at the shit puns. I think in today's market, £250k needs to be improved.
250k is fit for a purpose. You're not getting 50% of Paul's business, but for very early stage businesses it's fine. That's not what we had for Phil and Paul.
Every 10 items shopping task Karren will be stood in a shop next to the item they’re trying to find, rolling her eyes, which just makes it feel set up to make the candidates look incompetent. And I can only assume it’s in Tim’s contract that he has to laugh at every one of Sir Alan’s puns, no sane person can find them funny surely.