Even Peter Jones gets it wrong...

For those of you that didn't see it, ITV's Tycoon was a programme in which Peter Jones (of Phones International and Dragons' Den fame) mentored a number of aspiring entrepreneurs through the early stages of their business.

It was meant, I assume, to be a cross between Dragon's Den and The Apprentice, but failed on all levels. First of all - the concept. Peter Jones trawled the country listening to elevator pitches, and chose six start ups to be based at "Tycoon Tower". The six businesses were:

• A range of branded gardening products to appeal to women;
• Lower cost, but high quality, hair extensions;
• A system for easy reuse by customers of supermarket bags;
• An importer of remote-control helicopters;
• A free magazine aimed at sixth formers;
• A new kind of vodka drink aimed at women.

The businesses were to be judged on profits over a 10 week period. The winner, chosen by viewer phone poll, would receive the profits of the other businesses. All sounds interesting - why didn't it work?

It seems to me that profit in a 10 week period is a very narrow, and potentially misleading way to judge the longevity of a business.

• I felt that two of the businesses (hair extensions and helicopters) might look good for a time but ultimately would build no long term value - both relied on being the exclusive UK importer of their product, and were one product businesses subject to the whims of fashion.
• Two of the businesses (vodka and gardening) were brand focused businesses. The former would take an enormous amount of money to deliver volume sales as it's a hugely crowded market dominated by big players with deep pockets; the latter had identified a niche, but with the best will in the world wasn't going to be able to fly within 10 weeks.
• The plastic bag business was very interesting. It hit the market at an ideal time, and whilst each was low margin this would be a high volume product if the IP was protected. There would also be opportunities to roll it out in overseas markets.
• Investing in a student magazine concept would take someone extremely brave - print is very competitive and being squeezed constantly by new media. However if it worked then the revenues could be exciting.

So what happened? We had two one-hour shows on consecutive weeks in prime time. No one got the chop, and by the time the repetition was removed, and the ad breaks taken into account, the viewer never got a real feel for the businesses nor gained any empathy for the entrepreneurs. ITV obviously felt the same, as the show disappeared for a few weeks to reappear as a 30 minute cut-down version shown at 10:00. At least two businesses did go - the magazine because the entrepreneur could never decide what he wanted it to look like, and the Vodka drink because of any one of about 20 reasons.

The final, filmed live outside in the raging wind of Summer 2007, was a bit like Blind Date, as the embarrassed Peter Jones and his surviving entrepreneurs were paraded on stage ready for the results of the phone vote.

The helicopter business won (it had been the most profitable, after all), although we never got to hear the results of the phone vote. Perhaps only one person called? We never got to hear what happened to the other businesses - in the passage of time we might come to realise that the plastic bag business is in every home, or that for some reason we've been given pink wellies for the garden at Christmas - but if they were binned simply because not enough ITV viewers called up, that would be a crying shame.

What does this tell us? That being a massively successful business person doesn't always mean that they know best. Even the best make mistakes, and that's something worth remembering.