Three delighted small businesses are getting ready to open a pop-up shop in St James Quarter, Edinburgh.

Last month Sage launched a competition, in partnership with Small Business, to find brands to join them in prestigious retail space in the heart of Edinburgh.

Selected from over 200 entries, the winners are:

• Craft whisky blenders, Woven Whisky
• Personalised gift brand, GET IT GRL
• Homewares and lifestyle brand, Still Life Story

Kicking off the holiday season, the shop will be running in the lead-up to Christmas and the capital’s famous Hogmanay celebrations. Head over to St James Quarter between November 29 and December 2 to check them out.

Thanks to Sage’s competition, these small businesses will have the money can’t buy opportunity to stand proud next to household names such as John Lewis, Space NK, Hotel Chocolat, L’Occitane and other big brands.

All of the winning businesses have been trading for less than five years and have five or fewer employees.

The competition was judged by Sage global VP of integrated campaigns, Oliver Clark; managing director of LoveReading, Deborah Maclaren; and Sage’s vice president of UKI performance marketing, Kirsty Waller.

Praising Woven Whisky, Kirsty Waller said: “I love the aesthetic of the brand and what they’ve achieved to date.”

GET IT GRL caught Deborah Maclaren’s attention: “It’s a business built on personal passion that fills a gap in the market and adds a bit of magic to everyone’s lives,” she said.

Oliver Clark commented that Still Life Story is an interesting and scaleable proposition with strong branding and marketing.

This event follows on from the first Sage x Small Business pop-up shop competition back in June 2023. See the video below to found out how it went.

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The post Sage pop-up shop Edinburgh winners revealed appeared first on Small Business UK.

Small Business has teamed up with Sage to offer your business the chance to open its own pop-up shop in Edinburgh in its glittering St James Quarter. The deadline has been extended to 15th October, so get your entries in now! 

Three winning small businesses will share the Edinburgh pop-up shop in the St James Quarter retail destination, where you will be selling alongside John Lewis and luxury brands including Space NK, Hotel Chocolat and L’Occitane.  

It couldn’t be a better showcase for your business in the run-up to Christmas – and it’s completely free to enter.  

Three lucky businesses will share our Small Business x Sage pop-up shop from Wednesday, 29^th November to Saturday, 2^nd December.  

It’s an ideal way to test your product, find new customers or get feedback on your service.  

4 reasons to enter 

Grow your brand 

Winners will get high-profile awareness via footfall through the busy St James Quarter during the run-up to Christmas, plus you’ll secure helpful press coverage. 

Showcase your business 

Invite investors, peers or prospects to showcase your business. The shop also has an events space where we’ll run events during the pop-up. 

Roadtest your product or service 

A unique opportunity to sell or demo your product or service to potential customers at scale and garner invaluable face-to-face feedback from consumers. 

Create leads for your business 

Get a pipeline of high-intent leads for your business that you can follow up with beyond the shop. 

What you could win 

Four days takeover of a pop-up shop in St James Quarter, Edinburgh 

• Support with set up 
• Video interview and editorial coverage post-event 
• £500 budget to spend on stock, marketing and promotion 
• Sage Accounting 6 months free trial 
• Promotion across Small Business including email newsletters and social media posts 

What previous winners say 

Last June, Small Business and Sage teamed up to give three winning businesses the chance to run their own pop-up shop in central London’s busy Oxford Street.  

Vegan brownie company Cake Or Death, online bookstore LoveReading and baby equipment rental service Baboodle were chosen out of dozens/hundreds of entries to share the pop-up.  

The reaction from winners was hugely positive, especially about the platform it gave their brands.  

Deborah Maclaren of LoveReading said: “The support we’ve had from Sage and Small Business has been brilliant. It’s just been a seamless, brilliant experience.” 

Katie Hanton-Parr of Baboodle added: “All the support around it has been brilliant as well – all the workshops, it’s a bit of a gamechanger. You won’t even realise for a bit how important it’s been … it’s a trickle-down effect.”

How to enter our Sage pop-up shop competition

Just fill in the online competition entry form here.

Entries close at midnight on 15th October 2023.

The winner will be announced on Monday 23rd October.

The winning businesses will take over the space from Tuesday 28th November to Saturday 2nd December (with the shop open for trading Wednesday to Saturday).  

The competition is open to all UK businesses who have been trading for less than five years (up to and including 28th November 2023) and is completely free to enter. 

Who are our Sage pop-up shop judges?

Oliver Clark

Global VP of integrated campaigns for Sage

Oliver Clarke joined Sage in January 2022 as the global VP of integrated campaigns. He’s responsible for driving the strategy and creative for all Sage’s campaigns globally, with the ambition to make Sage an iconic brand in its category. Olly has a wealth of experience in marketing and advertising, creating transformation and award-winning campaigns for some of the world’s biggest brands, working with companies such as Unilever, ABInBev and Mars. 

Katie Cross

Founder and director of Cake or Death

Katie Cross had a career in fundraising and development for a range of charities before quitting in January 2019 to pursue her dream of being a business owner. Cake or Death started as a wholesale vegan cake company in early 2019. After the incredible response to Cake or Death’s brownies at a vegan market in London, Katie focused her energy on the secret recipe and developed several new flavours. Once the pandemic hit, Katie pivoted the business from wholesale to Cake or Death’s ingenious consumer letterbox brownie boxes. The bakery moved from East London to Exeter in Summer 2021, where it now houses a shop front and continues to send bakes across the country.

Deborah Maclaren

Managing director of LoveReading

Deborah Maclaren is the managing director of LoveReading and LoveReading4Kids and she has been steering the ship since 2018. Her involvement in the LoveReading portfolio brings together her media background, passion for books, her love of literacy, marketing knowledge and her commercial acumen and has led the LoveReading brand into a new world, filled with brilliantly bookish content and the launch of an online bookstore with social purpose. LoveReading was one of the winners of the Sage x Small Business inaugual competition in June, which enabled them to have their very first physical presence as a bookstore.

Kirsty Waller

Vice president of UKI performance marketing for Sage

Kirsty Waller is responsible for gaining insight and understanding of the ever-changing business environment for SMEs and supporting over one million Sage UK customers to scale and grow their businesses.

The post Still time to win a pop-up shop in Edinburgh this festive period appeared first on Small Business UK.

All of us could be running our businesses better. Whether it’s mishandling customer orders or not keeping track of invoices or simply paying too much for taking payments. That’s why we’ve created this easy quiz to help you better understand your business.

Run your business better scorecard

Whether you are just starting your business, or already established and looking to grow, this scorecard has been designed to show entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses their blind spots and provide instant, actionable steps on how to improve.

Answer 14 questions and discover your score.

Small Business Pro will help with the heavy lifting of managing customers, taking payments, insurance, finance and HR, plus you’ll get a host of personal wellbeing benefits.

You can find out more about Small Business Pro here.

What’s in it for you?

It’s easier to improve your business growth strategies when you know where your pain points lie. By identifying your current areas of success and areas for improvement, you can put your efforts into the right places and see the results.

Just by answering a few quick questions, you can gain better insight into your business and which areas you need to tackle to boost your success:

• Get more customers
• Propel your revenue
• Protect your business
• Improve your work life balance

‘This quiz was quick to take but helped highlight some blindspots in my business I hadn’t thought about previously. More importantly, I know what I need to do next’

Alison Evans, co-owner Good Evans

Why have we created this quiz?

We’re launching a brand-new purpose-built membership Small Business Pro [hyperlink] for all small businesses, including sole traders, start-ups and side hustles, designed to help business owners unlock the full potential of their business. 

And we want to make sure our tools really address the biggest pain points business owners like you are facing right now.

This scorecard will help you discover your blind spots – and help us make sure we’ve got the right solution to help you.

Streamline your business and supercharge your success today. 

Further reading

Win a pop-up shop in Edinburgh this festive period – Take your brand to Edinburgh into the run-up to this Hogmanay. Three lucky businesses could share a pop-up shop in the glittering St James Quarter in our new Small Business x Sage competition

The post Take this quiz to better understand your business appeared first on Small Business UK.

Small Business sat down with Katie Cross, director of vegan bakery Cake or Death, one of the three winners of the Small Business x Sage pop-up shop competition.

Cake or Death was one of three winning businesses chosen by our expert panel to occupy a pop-up shop space in London’s busy Oxford Street earlier this month.

The Devon-based bakery creates sumptuous brownies delivered through your letterbox in iconic pink leopard-print boxes. The Independent named the mail-order bakery Best Letterbox Treat in 2020.

Lifelong baking enthusiast Katie Cross started her vegan cake business in 2019 selling directly to bakeries, cafés and restaurants. She pivoted the business to selling direct during the pandemic.

Before her reinvention as a star baker, Katie Cross enjoyed a successful career as a fundraiser and marketer in the charity sector, working for the NSPCC and Greenpeace UK, among others.

Where did the idea of Cake or Death come from?

It evolved over a number of years. It started when I applied for The Great British Bake Off. I got quite far through the audition process although I didn’t actually get onto the programme, which was a great disappointment. But I think it showed me that I had a passion for baking, and that I wanted to pursue it as a career. So, over the next year I experimented with baking and a few events and that got me to the point where I was ready to quit my day job.

How long has Cake or Death been in business?

We’ve been running for four-and-a-half-years now. We started as a wholesale cake business, but we had to pivot unfortunately at the start of the pandemic because most of our wholesale customers had to close their doors. We decided to send our brownies, which were our most popular product, through the post in letterbox-sized boxes and now thousands of people send them as gifts, mostly to family and friends.

What made you decide to enter the Small Business x Sage pop-up shop competition?

Two years ago, Cake or Death moved from its kitchen in London to sunny Devon, which was a personal move for myself and my family. We’ve set up a bakery in Exeter. The idea of having a presence in London for four days was really exciting. A lot of my customers are based in Londoners, and I knew I could get them to come and see us in the pop-up shop. It was really exciting to be in such a busy part of the city.

What’s your experience been of being in the pop-up shop?

I do think that footfall is really high in the street, but it’s been harder than I thought to get people to come in. People are not too sure about what the idea is. We’ve found the most successful thing to do is to give tasters in the street and point people towards the shop. People are quite reticent about walking into a shop when they don’t know what’s going on.

What would your advice be to anybody entering next year’s Sage pop-up shop competition?

You should go for it, but you need an easy retail-able product, and you need to feel that the shoppers on Oxford Street are your type of customer. You need to have put some thought into marketing and PR. We laid some groundwork by doing some PR work and a radio interview ahead of time, and we reached out to Instagram influencers to come and see us on the first day. We’ve also been priming our customers for a week to come and see us. Doing that groundwork is really important.

More on the Sage pop-up shop competition

Sage pop-up shop winner #1 – Deborah Maclaren, LoveReading – Deborah Maclaren, managing director of LoveReading, sits down with SmallBusiness to talk about what winning one of the three coveted spots in the Sage pop-up shop competition means to her

Sage pop-up shop winner #3 – Katie Hanton-Parr, Baboodle – Katie Hanton-Parr, founder of Baboodle, tells Small Business what winning the Sage pop-up shop competition has meant for her online baby equipment subscription business

The post Sage pop-up shop winner #2 – Katie Cross, Cake or Death appeared first on Small Business UK.

Small Business sat down with Deborah Maclaren, co-owner and managing director of LoveReading, the online bookstore with a social conscience, and one of the three winners of the Small Business x Sage pop-up shop competition.

LoveReading was one of three winning businesses chosen by our expert panel to occupy a pop-up shop space in London’s busy Oxford Street earlier this month.

LoveReading is an online bookshop that donates 25 per cent of the cover price you pay for physical books to a school of your choice to buy library books. And every book listed has 10 per cent knocked off its retail price in the first place.

The brand enables book buyers to actively support their local school, with a certain percentage given to schools in deprived areas. Sixty per cent of teachers say they don’t have money to buy books for their students.

Deborah Maclaren became managing director of the Love Reading portfolio of brands in mid-2018 but she has been involved in media for 25 years. After starting at Conde Nast in the mid-1990s, Deborah Maclaren became London head of sales at Future Publishing band then became commercial director of Highbury House, looking after its portfolio of more than 45 magazines.

What is LoveReading?

It’s an online bookstore with a difference. We’ve been around since 2005 and our brand has been all about book recommendations. We were one of the biggest book recommendation websites in the UK, but we decided we wanted to start selling books. We knew that we had to do something different in order to be unique, so we decided to launch a bookstore with a social purpose.

When you go to LoveReading, you have the option to donate 25 per cent of your purchase price to a school of your choice for them to buy books. In the last few months since we launched as an online bookstore, we have donated £25,000 worth of books.

Where did the idea for LoveReading come from?

I’ve been a school governor a tiny church school in south-east London to the last eight years, so I have seen the nightmare of balancing a budget. It’s one of the biggest school governing issues of our time. The per-pupil funding that we have now as a school is pretty much the same as it was in 2010. Schools are having to make really tough decisions – can we afford heating or library books? Or do we get rid of our teaching assistants? We wanted to do something to help redress that balance and because our children’s site LoveReading 4 Kids is so big and so trusted – and we know tens of thousands of people use us to either find their child’s first favourite book or their next favourite book – we knew that we had an engaged audience.

Reading for pleasure is so important and there’s so much research that tells us reading has more of an impact on the outcomes of our children than anything else – whether it’s their social demographic profile or what their parents do.

This is a way for adults to buy books in a way that gives back to schools their kids attend?

Absolutely. If your child goes to a school, at the checkout you’ll be asked, do you want to donate? You pop the school name in and the school gets a notification and when they check into their dashboard, they can see the money totting up. We’re then giving the schools lots of resources for them to share all about us with parents and carers. The school can say, ‘If you’re buying books, then please go through LoveReading because it’s a new revenue stream for us, a new funding stream which will help us purchase books challenging to buy.’

What made you decide to enter the Small Business and Sage Popup Shop competition?

One of the challenges of a small business is that you don’t have any money, especially when you’re giving away 25 per cent of your profits.

We’ve got a really small and incredibly passionate team who believe wholeheartedly in what we’re doing but we don’t have PR or marketing resource. This for us was really an opportunity to showcase what we do to a different, wider audience. This has been an incredible opportunity for us to have a physical presence for the first time.

What would your advice be to anybody thinking of entering the next Sage pop-up shop competition?

It has been a joy. It’s made us think, yes, we can do this, we can do physical events. I would just say, just grab this opportunity. Take the time to apply. As a fully remote company, it’s just been so great for us. The support we’ve had from Sage and Small Business has been brilliant. It’s just been a seamless, brilliant experience.

More on the Sage pop-up shop competition

Sage pop-up shop winner #2 – Katie Cross, Cake or Death – Katie Cross, director of vegan bakery Cake or Death, sits down with Small Business to tell us about her experience of winning the Sage pop-up competition

Sage pop-up shop winner #3 – Katie Hanton-Parr, Baboodle – Katie Hanton-Parr, founder of Baboodle, tells Small Business what winning the Sage pop-up shop competition has meant for her online baby equipment subscription business

The post Sage pop-up shop winner #1 – Deborah Maclaren, LoveReading appeared first on Small Business UK.

Small Business sat down with Katie Hanton-Parr, co-founder of Baboodle, the UK’s first baby equipment subscription platform, and one of the three winners of the Small Business x Sage pop-up shop competition.

Baboodle was one of three winning businesses chosen by our expert panel to occupy a pop-up shop space in London’s busy Oxford Street earlier this month.

Baboodle rents short-lived and expensive baby equipment to parents. Items are delivered straight to the customer with a minimum one-month rental period. Baboodle’s catalogue primarily caters for children aged 0-2 – an age when babies outgrow items at a particularly alarming rate. Every baby needs a pram, a highchair, a carrier, a crib and a cot – and the list goes on. These necessities are outgrown and replaced multiple times during those early years. Indeed, each week, the UK spends £7 million on quickly outgrown brand-new baby and nursery equipment.

Katie Hanton-Parr sees the benefits of Baboodle as being primarily sustainable and also saving parents money. It taps into the circular economy as well as the increasing trend for parents to buy second-hand when it comes to nursery and baby equipment.

Katie Hanton-Parr set up Baboodle in October 2022 after having hr first baby the year before. She got the idea for Baboodle when trying to kit out her baby in an environmentally conscious way and on a shoestring. That meant hours spent trawling marketplaces, collecting baby gear, cleaning them and, on several occasions, having to mend it when its second-hand condition was worse than described. In the end, they ended up having to resell half of what they bought. “I thought, okay, there must be a better way to do this,” she says.

What is Baboodle?

Baboodle is a baby equipment rental platform for all the short-term or longer-terms items that you don’t know if you’re going to use for very long. It’s just a way of saving parents money, hassle and time while being a bit more sustainable option compared to buying as well.

Where did the idea for Baboodle come from?

The idea came from having a baby and living through that first year of that constant churn of products and waste and all the hassle that comes with that. It’s very much a lived experience led me to the idea.

How long has the company been going?

We launched in October 2022, so we’ve been going for about eight months now. It’s all very fresh. The customer is so ready for this. It feels very timely and has been getting lots of positive feedback, which makes you feel good about what you do.

Why did you want to enter the SmallBusiness x Sage pop-up shop competition?

I just thought, that’s the perfect opportunity for us to have a physical presence. We’d been thinking about pop-ups anyway. Plus Oxford Street is the hub of mass consumerism!

What’s your experience been of the pop-up shop and have you enjoyed yourself?

It’s been really good. You get out there and you chat to customers and get an idea of what the customer wants. That’s been nice. It’s also been good being here with other businesses. I’ve met loads of interesting people.

What advice would you have for anybody thinking of entering next year’s Sage pop-up competition? Should they go for it?

A hundred per cent. All the support around it has been brilliant as well – all the workshops, it’s a bit of a gamechanger. You won’t even realise for a bit how important it’s been … it’s a trickle-down effect, so, absolutely. Go for it.

More on the Sage pop-up shop competition

Sage pop-up shop winner #1 – Deborah Maclaren, LoveReading – Deborah Maclaren, managing director of LoveReading, sits down with SmallBusiness to talk about what winning one of the three coveted spots in the Sage pop-up shop competition means to her

Sage pop-up shop winner #2 – Katie Cross, Cake or Death – Katie Cross, director of vegan bakery Cake or Death, sits down with Small Business to tell us about her experience of winning the Sage pop-up competition

The post Sage pop-up shop winner #3 – Katie Hanton-Parr, Baboodle appeared first on Small Business UK.

UPDATED: Three winning businesses have been picked to share the Sage pop-up shop space in London’s Oxford Street, which opens tomorrow (June 14).

The three well-deserved winners are Baboodle, the UK’s first baby equipment rental platform, socially conscious online bookstore LoveReading, and vegan brownie baker Cake or Death.

Come and visit our three winning small businesses at the Sage pop-up shop space at 58 Oxford Street, London W1D 1BH between June 14-17. Opening hours are between 10am to 7pm.

The essential guide to setting up a pop-up shop in the UK – In this guide we explain the key things small businesses need to consider when setting up a pop-up shop in the UK

We have a great week planned with workshops, influencers and networking events all lined up.

Over 250 companies entered our Sage pop-up shop competition, which was judged by Baby Cot Shop founder Toks Aruture, Small Business Commissioner and broadcaster Liz Barclay, Borough 22 owner Ryan Panchoo, and Sage VP performance marketing UKI Kirsty Waller.

Katie Cross, director of Cake of Death, said: “Everyone at Cake or Death Bakery is delighted to have been chosen for the Small Business pop-up shop. This is an incredible opportunity for us to show Londoners just how good brownies can be. We’d never normally get the chance to reach so many people and it will make a huge difference to our business.”

As to what made our three winners stand out, the judges variously praised their unique branding, social conscience, and sense of building a community.

Sage executive Kirsty Waller praised the unique identity of Cake or Death, with its singular focus on one product done well.

Meanwhile, Toks Aruture said the Baboodle business model of re-using outgrown baby equipment was “innovative and needed”. Aruture said: “The baby goods market is growing, which also means the potential for more waste. Good quality baby items shouldn’t be discarded and added to landfill.”

LoveReading is an online bookshop that donates 25 per cent of the cover price you pay for physical books to a school of your choice to buy books. And every book listed has 10 per cent knocked off the RRP in the first place. LoveReading enables book buyers to actively support their local school, with a certain percentage given to schools in deprived areas. Sixty per cent of teachers say they don’t have money to buy books for their students. 

Small business commissioner Liz Barclay enthused: “The purpose behind this business and the passion for books and for children’s learning shines through. Books really do change lives but not all get the chance to benefit from them early enough.”

More on pop-up shops

8 payment systems for festivals, pop-ups and street food markets

The post Sage pop-up shop winners announced appeared first on Small Business UK.

Microbusinesses are the engine of the British economy, especially when it comes to levelling up. Businesses with 10 employees or less make up 95 per cent of companies in the UK, so when they thrive, we all do.

However, they are rarely analysed as a standalone group and are under-researched, sometimes misunderstood and often under-served.

At GoDaddy we are trying to change that. Our Venture Forward study developed in partnership with the University of Kent analysed 2.3 million microbusinesses, looking at how the make-up of British entrepreneurs has changed since the start of the pandemic, and measuring the importance of their businesses to local economies.

‘Microbusinesses have the power to contribute to levelling-up disadvantaged areas’

The data shows that among the disruption of the pandemic, a new breed of everyday entrepreneur has emerged. The percentage of start-up owners aged under 35 has more than doubled since March 2020, rising from 16.4 per cent to 34 per cent. Among this group, the proportion aged 18-24 has soared from just 1.7 per cent pre-pandemic, to 8.6 per cent in the two years after the Covid-19 outbreak.

The demographics of entrepreneurs have also started to become more diverse, with the proportion of female entrepreneurs increasing from 32 per cent pre-March 2020 to 39.8 per cent in the months since, while the proportion from disadvantaged communities has risen from 13.2 per cent to 15.1 per cent.

The representation of business owners from minority ethnic groups is also gradually increasing. Black founders account for 5.4 per cent of pre-pandemic businesses and 6.6 per cent among those created after March 2020. The corresponding figures for Asian entrepreneurs are 10.1 per cent pre-pandemic and 11.9 per cent after it began.

>See also: Microbusinesses spent 10 weeks handling financial admin in 2019

At GoDaddy we are focused on empowering entrepreneurs and making opportunity more inclusive for all, so it’s encouraging to see that our enterprise community is becoming more diverse.

However, the data also shows that the UK’s microbusiness landscape remains dominated by a North-South divide. The top three regions where company founders live are the same before and after March 2020: London (21.7 per cent/22.6 per cent), the South East (18.5 per cent/17.0 per cent) and the South West (10.2 per cent/9.8 per cent).

By mapping the concentration of microbusiness owners against local population sizes, GoDaddy has produced a “venture density” ranking for every one of the 650 constituencies in Great Britain. London is the capital of our microbusiness community, with the top 14 entries all located there. Of the 50 constituencies with the highest venture densities, only six are not in London, South East or South West. This is something we must look to address.

>See also: 8 ways to save money running your microbusiness

I’m fortunate to work first-hand with an incredible selection of microbusiness owners. One such owner is Birmingham-based Cleo Morris, 28, who set up Mission Diverse in October 2020 to connect minority and under-represented communities with companies through entrepreneurship and employability training, education and mentoring. Around 70 per cent of Mission Diverse sign-ups are women, with the majority coming from black backgrounds, and Cleo wants to have trained 1,000 entrepreneurs over the next five years.

Cleo’s work is evidence that the UK’s enterprising spirit is not confined to London and the South. Throughout the country there are budding entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas and energy, key to levelling up, who just need the right support and advice to get started.

Venture Forward clearly shows that with the right policy infrastructures in place, microbusinesses have the power to contribute to levelling up disadvantaged areas. Over half of all microbusinesses turn over more than £25,000 a year and three quarters employ at least one other person. Put simply, the more microbusinesses there are in a community, the better the job prospects and finances of the people that live there. That ties right in to the government’s levelling up agenda.

Further research was conducted by GoDaddy as part of the Venture Forward study which reveals that the number of “side hustles” has grown by almost half in the past two years as Brits contend with the rising cost-of-living. Business owners who are also in separate, full time employment has risen from 20.8 per cent prior to March 2020 to 31 per cent today (a 49 per cent increase).

Our research also highlights that many of these microbusinesses may have been born out of economic necessity during a turbulent time for people’s jobs and earnings. Prior to the pandemic the number of microbusiness owners who were unemployed before starting their business was 5.7 per cent, while those in part-time work was 7.9 per cent. These figures have risen to 7.3 per cent and 11.7 per cent respectively since March 2020.

One such owner is part-time postman Cameron Langston, 22, from East London, who set up Bark + Shout, a pet accessory company, during lockdown in April 2021 to supplement his income. His day job helps pay the bills while he reinvests the extra income from Bark + Shout back into the business to help it grow. The success he’s had so far means he’s hoping to be running Bark + Shout full time by the end of the year.

Cameron’s “side hustle” shows how many people are setting up their own companies to generate extra income, especially now that the financial challenges of the pandemic are being exacerbated by a cost-of-living crisis. However, the shift to ecommerce and opportunities presented by the second digital revolution have made it possible for people to create businesses quickly and easily. The important thing now is that these entrepreneurs are given assistance to build a business with a long-term trajectory.

Cameron, like many other microbusiness owners born out of the pandemic, has benefitted from being able to take his business entirely online. With GoDaddy’s support, entrepreneurs and business owners have been able to get online quickly and build an online presence so they can sell their goods anytime and anywhere, and ultimately grow their business.

At GoDaddy we are committed to sharing our findings with national and regional policymakers. We want to use data from our studies to improve knowledge about the country’s microbusinesses, and create opportunities for anyone to succeed in business, wherever they are in the country.

We all stand to benefit from a strong microbusiness community, so let’s ensure they are given a key role in the levelling up agenda.

Ben Law is head of UK and Ireland, GoDaddy

Further reading

6 best small business ideas for 2022

The post Why microbusinesses are crucial to levelling up appeared first on Small Business UK.

As series 19 of Dragons’ Den comes to an end, we’ve been left scratching our heads with what to do with our time.

We saw it all: blasts from the past, erotic handbags, petty spats and a pitch which left Steven Bartlett in tears.

But two questions were left unanswered. First, how many times did Touker Suleyman wear that shirt? And second, who was the most careful dragon of them all?

It turns out Sara Davies was, spending a paltry £347,500 (yes, we’ve done the maths), with half of that off the back of one pitch.

That hefty £150,000 investment was into Toto in episode 2, a kind of Apple watch for infants to help them get to sleep. It seemed Sara was the one snoozing after that pitch though, as the other dragons’ thirst for deals overtook the ‘Crafting Queen’ in subsequent episodes.

The biggest spender, however, was Dragons’ Den veteran Peter Jones. He invested a whopping £527,500 over the course of the series, with his biggest investment being £150,000 in Extend Robotics in the very first episode. Our dragons really were eager beavers this series, weren’t they?

Deborah Meaden gets second spot, parting ways with £476,667, followed by new boy Steven with £434,167 and Touker with £395,167. 

Toto and Extend Robotics were the biggest winners when it came to capital invested, with only three other businesses coming away from the den with six-figure investments.

Here’s the table of all investment totals this series.

More on Dragons’ Den

Dragons’ Den – sharing is caring, S19, Ep 13

The post Who was the thriftiest dragon in this series of Dragons’ Den? appeared first on Small Business UK.

There was an eclectic mix of propositions for all seasons in this season finale, but would the dragons part with their cash?

First up the lift was a pumped-up David Hellard. “We’re all about energising Britain” he beamed, jumping with excitement before entering the den.

The pitch got off to a rather cringey start as David sang his brand’s jingle (what’s that German word for feeling embarrassment on someone else’s behalf?) before ripping open his shirt to reveal a Superman t-shirt.

He was after £60,000 for 5 per cent of his caffeine chew business, Caffeine Bullet. Not sure there are any energy chews left after that pitch, David.

He was very quickly brought back down to earth by Deborah Meaden, who picked up on the non-recyclable packaging. She was more upset, though, that David narrowed her value to only tackling the environmental impact (pro tip: NEVER specify what a dragon can bring to the table or pick one out, they will take it very personally).

Luckily, Peter Jones really liked the product, urging Steven to join him in an offer. “I would do that,” Steven said, “at 25 per cent but you have to give me your answer within the next 10 seconds.”

“No, no, that’s not fair. That’s not on,” protested Deborah.

“It’s my money!” Steven bit back.

Sure enough, within 10 seconds, David bit the bullet and agreed to a 25 per cent share, reduced to 20 if the money is returned within 24 months. Amazing what caffeine can do, isn’t it?

Matt Jones was next, looking for £66,000 in return for 5 per cent of his hair and skincare business for men, Mesoa. His business looks to educate men, not just on their skin and hair, but their wellbeing too after struggling with mental health himself.

Matt revealed he had made a net loss of £248,000 in his first year, injecting £423,000 of his own cash into the business. News he sold his previous business for “a few million pounds” bought him some leeway after that hairy bit of info, but the £1.3m valuation was hair-raising.

“This is a dreamland valuation,” Touker said, getting under the skin of Matt’s numbers. “I like what you do but you need a magic wand.”

Touker clearly thought he possessed the magic touch to turn this business’s fortunes around, though, making an offer of all the money for 35 per cent, which was accepted.

All eyes were on former newsreader Dan Baker and Jonathan Pyckett, who were next into the den. They were searching for an investment of £150,000 in return for a 15 per cent stake in their moveable webcam business.

Their product aims to combat the lack of eye contact in videoconferencing due to the position of the camera.

Unfortunately, the dragons didn’t see eye to eye with this one.

The screen-friendly solution impressed Sara Davies, but the protectability didn’t. It was also too early for Touker and Deborah, who thought the duo would be too slow to get the product into production and get overtaken by competition. Steven, meanwhile, just found the contraption too clunky for his liking.

Last through the doors were best friends Natalie Duvall and Alison Burton with their diverse Christmas decoration business, March Muses. They were after £50,000 in return for a 15 per cent slice.

“When putting up Christmas tree decorations, my seven-year-old daughter turned to me and asked, ‘Can fairies be black?’” Natalie recollected. That question prompted the duo to set up their company, which turned around £75,000 while the two were working full-time jobs as single mums.

Unfortunately, the dragons didn’t think the business was investable. But after Natalie and Alison mentioned the media coverage they have already received and the orders that came off the back of it, minds started to change.

In the end, they wrapped up a deal with Peter and Deborah, who offered all the money for 30 per cent.

Christmas really did come early for these two.

More on Dragons’ Den

Dragons’ Den – sharing is caring, S19, Ep 13

Dragons’ Den: our dragons lock horns – S19, Ep 12

The post Dragons’ Den: Steven’s ultimatum, S19, Ep 14 appeared first on Small Business UK.

This week’s episode featured the worst pitch Sara Davies has ever seen in the den, Peter Jones to feel like he was in Las Vegas and Steven Bartlett to shut down an “immature” brand name.

But first up were affable sisters Alex and Jenny McFadden and their stylish easy-access maternity wear, Pretty Mama.

They were after £30,000 for a 20 per cent share in their clothing range which features subtle diagonal zips for breastfeeding – a design ready patented. Tick! Much of the range is also made from recycled clothing. Another tick.

Would this be an opportunity the dragons would be quick to latch on to?

Touker – surprise, surprise – questioned how much they were buying their product for. £20 per item bought in batches of 50 went down as well as you would think.

To his credit though, despite the revelation both sisters work full time jobs and he didn’t think it was investable, he was happy to share with all the other dragons for 30 per cent of the business.

Incredibly, all but Deborah were up for it, desperate to help out the likeable siblings. I mean can you imagine dealing with four dragons… you have to feel for them.

“With four dragons, you’ll basically have the Avengers” Peter Jones said with a tremor in his voice.

“I love the Avengers” came a teary reply from our timid Alex. It was all so heart-warming, and with that we had a deal.

“I feel like I’m going to be sick” she then revealed in the lift. Well, that killed the mood.

The family theme continued with Richard Davies, his wife Samantha and her son Tommy, who were looking for £50,000 in return for a 15 per cent share of their half champagne, half gin drink, Gasm.

Would the pitch go down a treat or would they bottle it?

Well Stephen wasn’t in the party spirit, finding the “immature” name not funny at all. Honestly, that should have been the least of his worries – the business was running losses in the hundreds of thousands and they were now looking to invest… wait for it… half a million in a bottling plant of their own. Jeez, no wonder they let the dragons have a drink before the questions.

“If I could get on my knees, I would beg you ‘do not build the bottling plant’” pleaded Deborah.

They’ve already committed to it, haven’t they…

“This is a fabulous product,” Sara said. “But you two are terrible business people.” Ouch. “Because this is the worst business proposition I’ve heard since I’ve been in the den.”

No popping open the champagne for this family, then.

At least Richard looked on the bright side. “Not disastrous, they all enjoyed it” he said in the lift afterwards, taking ‘fool’s paradise’ to a whole new level.

Next in was Andrew Perkins, wife Rene and South African born Luis Canto E Castro aiming to make the world more accessible to people with disabilities.

They were after £100,000 for 5 per cent of their business, City Maas.

Their website plugin, Assist Me, allows people to interact with any website, based on their needs and preferences. That includes changing word spacing for dyslexia, colour contrasts for colour blindness and a map of accessible places in a city.

Would they get access to the dragons’ cash?

Well, no, unfortunately. Though the panel liked the idea, they didn’t see an investment opportunity with their current strategy and the three left the den disappointed.

Chris Burdett and Alex Lever were last up with PipeSnug, looking for £100,000 in return for 7.5 per cent. This cheap house pipe sealant doesn’t have any competition they’re aware of, and with new regulations requiring all house pipes to be sealed with a pipe collar, it seemed they were on to a winner.

But was this really a gap in the market or just another pipe dream?

Sales certainly haven’t taken off, leading the dragons to ponder what was stopping this business from cashing in. Everything, it turns out, balances on what happens once the building regulations come into play in June.

“This ranges from selling very little indeed to absolutely cleaning up” piped up Deborah.

“I almost feel like I’m in Las Vegas, that is the level of risk here” Peter added before making an offer of half the money for 15 per cent. “And this is the first time I have made on offer on something I find really boring.”

Deborah joined him and the duo clinched a deal, giving us the rare event of two joint deals in one sitting. Time will tell if they manage to hit the jackpot.

More Dragons’ Den

Dragons’ Den: our dragons lock horns – S19, Ep12

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Both finalists, Harpreet and Kathryn, are on their way to the British Museum in London’s Bloomsbury.

Tension hangs in place of the normal buzz and chatter in the back of the cab. The finalists aren’t even looking at each other, tight body language directed towards the windows, leaving enough room between them for a freight train to push through.  

For their final task, the rivals have three days to launch their businesses, complete with a billboard and TV advert. Then they must pitch their ventures to Lord Sugar himself, plus an expert panel with know-how in their respective industries.

“I’ve arranged some help,” Lord Sugar starts as a select gaggle of this series’ fired candidates walk in. It’s a return to school P.E. class as the teams are excruciatingly chosen one at a time by the finalists. The pain is palpable as a shot of Harry on his own lingers on the screen for just a second too long.

Here’s the final team breakdown:

Team Harpreet + Karren: Brittany, Akshay, Nick and Navid

Team Kathryn + Tim: Stephanie, Amy, Akeem and Harry  

The branding

The table of treats in front of them must make Harpreet’s team grateful to be chosen. Nick is already in a squirrel-like state: the man loves his snacks.

Harpreet skips through the brand name suggestions from her teammates like dud matches on Tinder: Ultimate Yums, Dessert Stop, Scrumptious Melt, Hyper Joy (though I’m sure she wants to avoid another child-unfriendly branding disaster like in baby food week).

The brand name comes pretty easily to Kathryn’s team, combining ‘pyjama’ and ‘family’ to create Pyjamily. Portmanteau-yeah.   

Over at the design agency, Harpreet’s being uncharacteristically indecisive, with Brittany feeling more like an equal team member at this point. Even Karren’s noticed. “Does the ‘Oh So’ read like some kind of Japanese furniture brand?” Harpreet asks, her confidence dashed.

Again, Kathryn’s logo comes together relatively painlessly. She’s gone with the same navy blue that she was called up on in week one’s Bouji Cruises branding. It doesn’t go down well with the rest of team, who think it looks too cold and corporate. The characters on the logo look like Neighbourhood Watch gone bad. “It’s like a horror movie” says Harry. The consumer feedback says the logo is very “charity shop” or “has come from a healthcare authority”. Though Kathryn has mentioned family pyjamas in her tagline which contestants have failed to do in previous branding challenges.

Digital entertainment

Fan faves Nick and Akshay are with Navid to mock-up the digital billboard and TV advert. Nick is still wide-eyed and snacking through Harpreet’s brief.

Brittany has concerns that the digital team have been left without a babysitter. Cut to the boys having an audition to find whose cake face will win a spot on the billboard. Nick is in the bag, surely? Nope, Navid wins! During the shoot, Navid tries to give a repeat performance and Akshay is not best pleased: “I don’t like it.” Akshay protests. The cake breaks in half and falls onto the plate as Navid’s spirit crumbles. Nick hops in and gets the shoot right first time. Order has been restored. “It should be poppin’ – as in amazing” Navid points out.

The chemistry isn’t poppin’ on the other team, though. Amy and Akeem are starring in the billboard as a married couple, with Harry directing. “Chemistry, I want to see chemistry!” he demands of Amy and Akeem, who are nailing the awkward catalogue couple. By the time the advert shoots, poor Akeem has found himself as a third wheel (and not against the toy dog) in Amy and Harry’s bitter bickering matches. It’s pretty compelling. A good screenwriter could extend this promo into a decent full-length drama.

Harpreet loves the advert and finds herself crying with laughter at it: “Nick, your acting skills are superb!” she beams. Meanwhile, Kathryn is actually crying at her team’s advert, despite the team’s squabbles.

For her signature product, Harpreet creates a chocolate chip cookie shot glass, taking a twist on an classic bestseller. But with the unease about her USP last week, is choc chip cookie dough going to be unique enough? Kathryn goes for jungle PJs as it’s an easier design to do unisex, though it seems concerningly similar to the set Linda pulled out in the interviews last week from another retailer while questioning Kathryn’s unique designs. Long story short: Linda wasn’t fooled by Kathryn’s jim jam flimflam.           

Hitch-less pitches?

It’s time for the pitches, with the rest of the candidates eagerly watching over the railings.

Harpreet’s first up to pitch and she’s nervous. “Remember to slow it down and breathe,” she says to herself. Though she stumbles, she seems to carry the pitch through successfully while Lord Sugar smiles knowingly at Nick’s acting prowess. The panel quiz her about scaleability, especially in such a saturated market.

Kathryn sells her matching family pyjama business as “on trend, affordable and comfortable” with great confidence. She gets questions about standing out in a crowded marketplace as well as a challenge about jungle prints being “on-trend”, saying that it was on-trend a couple of years ago. “I don’t see a gap but I see an opportunity” says one of the panel after the presentation.   

The final boardroom

It’s a mix of hot and cold in the last boardroom debrief. Akshay hails Harpreet as a “deserving candidate” while Kathryn’s team praise her clear vision.

Things get spicy when Navid says Akshay pissed him off when they were in the boardroom. Of course, Amy and Harry’s terse relationship was a key talking point.

The others leave and it’s time for the Harps and Kath showdown. Lord Sugar questions how Harpreet will scale the business if she doesn’t bake the goods herself. He must know he’s going to get called out on this as 2019 winner, Carina Lepore, earned the reputation of “the baker who doesn’t bake” and she still won the show. “Has the boat gone on dessert parlours?” he asks. Harpreet stresses that delivery is the USP, but in reality, her business was started five years ago, so she’s probably been cruising pretty comfortably.

Lord Sugar worries about the popularity and longevity of Kathryn’s business, plus the validity of jungle print being on-trend. She tries to defend herself, but Lord Sugar seems to be tuning it out.

The most important question is: what would they spend the investment on?

Harpreet would take a portion of the money to invest in three stores, but she wants to go more ambitious than her business plan outlines.

Kathryn wants to scale up and do online marketing with influencers, looking to expand to retail shops in future.

Even though there have been tensions for the entire episode, the two finalists don’t each other alive. It’s all rather civil.

There’s some faux head-scratching and umming and ahhing from Lord Sugar. He ponders that a lot of businesses he invests in start from nothing like Kathryn’s, but this is dismissed almost immediately as Sugar points his finger at Harpreet, the winner of The Apprentice 2022.

Watch the final on BBC iPlayer

So, that’s it for another series! Catch up on the rest of the episodes below:

The Apprentice: Hardly a cruise for the candidates – series 16 episode 1 review

The Apprentice: Oops they did it again – S16, ep 2

The Apprentice: Shaken and stirred with plenty of zingers – S16, ep 3

The Apprentice: For goodness’ hake – S16, ep 4

The Apprentice: Gaming, blaming, shaming – S16 ep 5

The Apprentice: Ask and you shall be ripped off – S16, ep 6

The Apprentice: No peas in these pods – S16 ep 7

The Apprentice: Hig-speed hijinks – S16 ep 8

The Apprentice: Can we say it was life-changing? S16 ep 9

The Apprentice: Always check the label – S16 ep 10

The Apprentice: Interview to a Kill – S16, ep 11

The post The Apprentice: This final is poppin’ – S16, ep 12 appeared first on Small Business UK.

There was a vegan theme this week, with a plant-based cocktail and vegan skincare brand vying for investment from the dragons.

Glaswegian Paul Crawford offered the first of these with Panther Milk, the “world’s first plant-based ready to drink cocktail brand”. This vegan beverage is based on a Spanish alcoholic drink from the 1920s.

He was after a £50,000 investment for a 7.5 per cent stake in his business, looking to bring a flavour of the Roaring Twenties to the 2020s.

“Cor, strong,” exploded a surprised Touker Suleyman after taking a sip of the concoction. “Drink one of those and you’re gone.”

Paul was projecting sales of £1.89m in year two after winning over three festivals to supply the drink but it was clear he didn’t have a clear marketing strategy, admitting he didn’t know much about launching a business.

Touker, recovering with a dizzy head (well, it does say 15 per cent on the bottle), thought Paul’s business was too small for the investment he was after – a view shared by Peter Jones.

Steven Bartlett thought it would be too much hard work and he would need to own 90 per cent of the business to make it worth him getting out of bed. On a positive note, he did say he’d happily finish off his salted caramel cocktail.

“You can have mine as well if you want, Stephen, because I’m not convinced,” Sara Davies declared. She was put off by floating bits at the bottom of the bottle.

Only Deborah remained.

“I think you are spot on,” she smirked.

Drinks companies, she said, had made clear in various conversations with her they were looking for new brands and ideas – especially vegan products.

The poker-faced dragon offered all the money for 30 per cent of the business. Didn’t you just know she was quietly conjuring up an offer as one by one the other dragons dropped out?

A trip to the wall followed.

“I’m praying for his sake he says yes,” Steven whispered.

“I can’t go beyond 20 per cent,” came the eventual reply.

“I would agree at 25 per cent,” Deborah stated. After a nervy pause we had a deal.

Next into the den were Edinburgh-based Caroline Kennedy-Alexander and Sarah Bell-Jones with luxury lingerie brand LoveRose Lingerie.

They were after £70,000 for 15 per cent of their uplifting business venture.

Caroline told how she and her two sisters had breast cancer, which can bring psychological scars alongside physical ones. LoveRose offers a luxury choice to those who have gone through surgery.

Deborah was first to applaud the idea but wondered how many other brands were doing the same thing, worrying about the lack of patenting potential.

Cue some dragon drama.

Touker claimed the duo should have come into the den with a wider range of lingerie.

“I think it’s the opposite, I have to be honest,” countered Steven.

“I’ve been in this business for 45 years,” Touker said defensively.

“And I’ve been building the biggest brands in the world for the last ten,” boasted Steven.  

These two really rub each other up the wrong way.

“Invest then,” Touker sulked.

He didn’t.

Despite being inspired, the other dragons didn’t either and Caroline and Sarah left empty-handed.

Next up was Zara Saleem with her skincare remedy business, Delhicious. She was after £50,000 in exchange for a 15 per cent stake.

This all-natural, vegan, cruelty-free skincare brand, originally from India, was founded after Zara developed a dry skin condition while pregnant. Not wanting to use creams that contained chemicals, she tried out natural remedies passed down generations in her family. It was then, she said, that she discovered her “magical ingredient” – Indian black Assam tea. Bet you weren’t expecting that.

“My skin transformed within a week,” she assured them.

But before you reach for the tea caddy, Delhicious also contains essential oils, sugar and salt and sweet almond oil. Up until now, Zara has been making all of this from her kitchen.

While Deborah was lauding the smell and essence of the body balm, Peter Jones was in the corner struggling to use it.

“I wonder if that’s a design fault,” the confused dragon pondered, making a mess of the product.

“Yeah, I’ve done that and look what’s happened,” Steven added, getting mush all over his fingers.

But it was the confession that sales plummeted during the pandemic, while the rest of the beauty sector was growing, which ended any hopes for investment for Zara.

It was a blast from the past last up for Deborah and Peter as Peter Neath and Ian Hutchinson returned after making an appearance in the den in 2009. After leaving the den without an investment, their barbecue fat-collecting product went on to be a success and now they were back, hoping they wouldn’t get another grilling from the dragons with Saucestream.

“As barbecue aficionados…” Peter opened, with Ian giving a “told you so” nod to Peter Jones.

They were after £75,000 for a 10 per cent share in their plastic-free squeezers, which clip onto glass bottles to encourage a move away from single-use plastic. One sauce brand alone, they say, produces 650 million of just one of their sauces every year.  

“One thing I could definitely do for you is sourcing,” Touker quipped.

Steven saw the potential of millions of the products being sold on Facebook and asked which dragons the two were looking for. The answer? Why, Peter and Steven.

“Well, that’s made my life easier,” Deborah said.

“There’s a gameplay tactic here,” Sara said. “What you do is sit on the fence but you’re well and truly off the fence.”

The resulting grovelling and mumbling didn’t help the pair, who found themselves in a pickle of their own.

“I can give you a massive spade if you want to keep digging, mate,” Sara snapped.

And just like that, Sara was out.

“I’m never second choice,” Touker huffed, with the bitterness of a schoolboy not picked in the playground football team. “You weren’t even third, no offence,” Sara corrected.

At this point Ian was clearly feeling the heat.

Luckily, first-pick Steven saw the social media potential and invited Deborah and Peter to join him in a deal.

“I think you could get three dragons onboard today who would absolutely knock this out the park,” Peter said excitedly.

Deborah however was big enough not to be piqued at being second choice and said she would share with Peter and Steven.

In a unique situation, it was the three dragons who could have benefitted fro a trip to the wall as they whispered what percentage they would offer for the money.

In the end, they offered all of the money for one third of the business between them.

What a saucy deal.

More on Dragons’ Den

Dragons’ Den: Smell the coffee, S19, Ep 11

 [TA1]nice

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Warning: spoilers ahead

It’s interviews week and the candidates’ business plans are about to go through a four-stage shredding process: namely Mike, Claudine, Linda and Claude.

Cue the montage of the Final Four going over their business plans. Brittany reads through the plan for her high protein alcoholic drink business idea. “I’ve never written a business plan in my life.” Oh no.

At 6am the next day, Brittany run into one of the bedrooms and leaps on Kathryn, excited about the day ahead. But the advisors’ job is to tear through all of the shortcomings and inconsistencies of the business plans, and I’m not sure if she’s expecting any potholes.

Lord Sugar seems chipper as he greets the candidates: “If you’ve got any skeletons, this lot will find them. Oh, just one more thing. Claude is back” he rounds off with a massive grin.

Here’s how each of the Final Four got on during the interviews process.

Kathryn

“Can you tell me what design experience you have?” Linda starts. Despite saying so in her business plan, it’s revealed Kathryn didn’t design the pyjama prints. Just then, Linda pulls out an identical set she’d found from another retailer.

In her second interview, Kathryn is uncomfortably smiley, her ivories a shield against the battalion. Claudine challenges her on the ethics and the sustainability of importing manufactured clothes from China, thousands of miles away. “I can’t answer that,” Kathryn admits.  

Her business sells matching pyjamas for the whole family, including the dog. The company will have designs for summer and winter collections. “That’s a hell of a lot of stock,” scoffs Claude, who has concerns about the costs. “More designs, more headaches.” He says her profit and loss forecast is impossible: “This is the rantings of a lunatic.”

Mike discovers that Kathryn hasn’t bought the domain name for her online pyjama shop, myeverydaypyjamas.co.uk. In fact, someone else has bought it: him. He’s also bought the .com, .net and .uk variations to eliminate any chance of competition. “You’re looking for a £250,000 investment in a website you don’t own,” he says. Though he does gift her the web addresses.

>See also: Different domain endings – do you need to buy them all?

Brittany

Mike pushes Brittany to reveal that she’s only ever made her alcoholic protein drink at home. Fortunately, he’s had someone make up a batch based on the formula in the business plan. He pours a glass for himself and Brittany, insisting she goes first. “Do you like the taste?” he asks the nervous candidate. “I like the taste,” she replies, lacking some certainty. “I think it’s chalky and quite bitter” Mike says. “To have high protein, some people may not mind that the taste isn’t bad enough not to purchase,” she attempts.  

Mike presents Brittany with one of his business plans and compares it to hers. “Can you spot the difference in business plans?” he challenges. “I can spot it straight away,” she replies, dejected. She starts getting teary. Mike reassures her that she’s done really well in the process and hands her a tissue.

>See also: Example business plans

Linda points out that Brittany has no experience in supplements or alcohol. “I buy clothes, but it doesn’t make me a dressmaker,” she says. She also unveils that a product like hers was already around in the US and was created in 2008. “I haven’t heard of it ‘cos it ain’t a hit” she says.

Claude is “mystified” by Brittany’s business plan. It doesn’t include key elements such as a profit and loss forecast. The drink manufacturing costs aren’t in it, either. “Unless it’s made in your bath, someone’s going to have to manufacture it,” he says. It gets worse: “This is not a business plan – interview terminated.” Ouch.

Harpreet

“You don’t come across as someone I would want to work with,” says Claudine, who is evidently the gentlest of the advisors. She points out off-putting statements in Harpreet’s business plan, with hot takes such as “No emotions before 7pm”.

Claude pulls her up on the fact that she co-owns the dessert parlour with her sister, which the audience haven’t been aware of up until this point. “It’s a lie,” Claude protests. “[Lord Sugar] has met you, he hasn’t met your sister. One of you is superfluous.”

“Why has your growth been so pedestrian?” asks Mike. Her plan is to open one more store per year. “You’re making it up as you go along,” he says, getting increasingly impatient.

Linda challenges her on what her unique selling point (USP) is. “Have you got a USP?” “The USP is me!” she chimes back. It’s becoming increasingly clear that customers like to know a business owner’s story, but it’s not a USP. Find out if your USP stacks up at Three tests to measure the strength of your USP.

Stephanie  

The edge Stephanie’s second-hand clothing brand has over eBay is authentication, so Mike tests her with a designer children’s t-shirt. She says that it’s a fake and she gets it wrong. She admits the authentication would be outsourced but Mike looks into the company she wants to work with and discovers it only authenticates handbags and shoes.

Linda reveals to the audience that although Stephanie’s business is new, she’s only sold 50 garments. Coupled with no fashion experience, it’s quite a worry. Linda insists luxury second-hand children’s clothing is an exclusive small market, but Stephanie disagrees, saying it has a broader appeal. “Thinking, hoping – it’s a pipe dream with no substance,” Linda says.

There’s a touching scene between Claudine and Stephanie, with the advisor telling her how much more personable she is when she lets her guard down. Stephanie reflects that she perhaps could have let her guard down more throughout the series.

Claude opens with a somewhat more sobering statement: “Stephanie, you’re going to have an uncomfortable time with me.” With £160,000 in marketing, website enhancement and authentication costs, he’s concerned that she’ll blow Lord Sugar’s investment before she’s even made a sale. “It’s not conservative, thoughtful or careful” he says.

“I’ll never fear an interview ever again,” sighs Stephanie at the end of a tough day.

Advisory boardroom

The advisors come to the boardroom to meet with Lord Sugar, Tim and Karren to discuss the interview highlights. The Greatest Hits include Brittany’s ‘glorified brochure’, Kathryn’s ambitious profit forecast, Harpreet’s co-owner revelation and Stephanie’s start-up costing.

The penultimate

As in the interviews, the candidates are addressed one by one.

Kathryn: Lord Sugar says she will lose his whole investment in two years. “China is off the agenda”, he declares, as she won’t be able to react quickly to fluctuating stock.

Stephanie: He questions who she’s using for authentication and disagrees that you can analyse garments through photos. He also comments on her crazy sales projections.

Harpreet: She wants to scale up beyond the cafe and kiosk she has at the moment, assuring Lord Sugar that her sister would be prepared to step down from the business (whether the sister knows this is another matter).

Brittany: Lord Sugar advises Brittany to start where she has some experience. He points out once again that there’s no pricing for manufacturing in her business plan.

Lord Sugar tells Brittany that she still backs her own ideas, even when they’re bad. “Good luck, rethink this” he reassures her as she leaves the boardroom.

Stephanie underestimated the complexity of her chosen business, according to Lord Sugar. There’ a moment of trickery when he asks if Harpreet’s dessert business will be Sugar-free or not. But he turns to Stephanie and fires her. Tricksy.

So, it’s Harpreet and Kathryn in the final two.

Watch the whole episode on BBC iPlayer.

Next week: Final

Kathryn and Harpreet will have three days to launch a company. They must create the branding, a digital billboard and TV advert and pitch it to Sugar himself. The fired candidates from this series will of course be on hand to help out the finalists. Join us as we find the winner of The Apprentice 2022.

Catch up on the rest of the series

The Apprentice: Hardly a cruise for the candidates – series 16 episode 1 review

The Apprentice: Oops, they did it again – S16, ep 2

The Apprentice: Shaken and stirred with plenty of zingers – S16, ep 3

The Apprentice: For goodness’ hake – S16, ep 4

The Apprentice: Gaming, blaming, shaming – S16 ep 5

The Apprentice: Ask and you shall be ripped off – S16, ep 6

The Apprentice: No peas in these pods – S16 ep 7

The Apprentice: High-speed hijinks – S16 ep 8

The Apprentice: Can we say it was life-changing? S16 ep 9

The Apprentice: Always check the label – S16 ep 10

The post The Apprentice: Interview to a Kill – S16, ep 11 appeared first on Small Business UK.