January 12, 2005
One more Apprentice post
This was just too good not to post. Expedia is promoting The Apprentice Legend Cruise. Check out this must have pitch:
After a VIP bon voyage party featuring “The Chairman” himself, Donald Trump, you’ll leave the Manhattan skyline in the distance, sailing for exotic Caribbean ports-of-call. You’ll be entertained in Trump World style with gala events, luxurious receptions and over-the-top parties. Rub elbows with past cast members and get to know thousands of other fans while you test your competitive edge at our “Apprentice-type” activities and contests – come ready to win!
This is unbelievable!
Posted by Martin at 6:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 28, 2004
One last Apprentice post
A reader sent me some background on the winner, Kelly. More grist for the mill. It doesn't surprise me that Kelly has some dotcom arrows in his back. Thanks Justin!
This Kelly Perdew guy is a dot-com veteran:
You start from here and you Google every name and you will get a good idea where he went/what he did/with whom/when besides his “official resume”.
http://www.kellyperdew.com/proreferences.htm
So he basically started as a West Point graduate. Gets his MBA and Law from UCLA, goes to Deloitte, joins a video conferencing equipment company and starts an event management company called K12.
Then he ends up as a “Senior Vice President, Business Development” at eTeamz, that won the UCLA Business Plan competition and obtained $5 million VC funding (founder/CEO Brian Johnson, now 29). 2000/2001, the company got into trouble, hired Steve Wynne (Adidas USA president) http://www.telezoo.com/press/wsjpress.asp as CEO and sold the company to Active.com (apparently in the 10 digits). Kelly claims to be acting president at the time of sale, so Wynne probably left before the sale.
Kelly then founded LayoffLounge.com with Jeremy Gocke http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/dot_life/1368739.stm in about 2001 offering “pink slip” networking events and franchising the concept around the US… some time between then and now, he starts MotorPride.com with Jon Kraft (Jon founded Stanford Technology Group (Hummer Winblad/Sequoia) and SavageBeast Technology (Garage, Labrador, Walden)). http://www.coreobjects.com/data/medent.htm
In March 03, Kelly and Jon joined CoreObjects as COO of US Operations and SVP of Sales and Marketing: http://www.socaltech.com/archive/030328.html .. CoreObjects is a software outsourcing house (to India) which developed some software for Stamps.com.
With Perdew on board, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump makes some major Internet “real estate investments” in 05 :-)
Posted by Martin at 10:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
December 21, 2004
The Apprentice 2: The last post
Since everyone on the planet (or at least reading this blog) already knows the results, I won't go into the gory details. Kelly won. And Jennifer was the runner up (as I had predicted from episode one). Lets do a quick review of how my predictions matched up with The Donald, then I would like to go into a much longer discussion about the Apprentice in general (hell why not?).
For the season I am 12 for 14 , batting .857. Not a bad season!
I predicted one of the two finalist from show #1 (Jennifer) and picked Kelly as a finalist half way through (after I saw him in action).
My finalist from Nov 14 (when I had to add some since Raj was fired):
Jennifer (hard core and straight up)
Kelly - solid organized, player.
My original finalists from the very start of the show were:
Raj - kookie but maybe smart behind it all (turned out to be just silly and not smart)
Jennifer - Steel eyes, very crafty.
Elizabeth - Very quiet and tight disposition that unfortunately fell to pieces as soon as she was put into leadership.
Overall, I have to agree with Trump on hiring Kelly. But Jennifer put up a very good fight. I truly believe that Trump was torn and did want to hear other people's comments in the boardroom (Kennedy Center). Trump likes people who perk up in the board room. Remember how Andy got "killed" by the two girls? Kelly didn't do a good job defending himself. All he could do was say "my record, by background". His teams were 10/4 where Jennifer was 8/6, but I don't think that really matters. The real difference was that Kelly was 100% as project leader. So was Jennifer, but she only was PM once to Kelly's three. Jennifer was good at staying out of the board room and good at taking credit for other people's work, but The Donald saw through that. One very REAL part of the show as when Trump's COO couldn't talk in front of a camera. Here, a big guy with a mustache. It can happen to anyone. I didn't give two shits what Omarosa had to say. That was pure theatre to bring her back. And that outfit? Please. Well, no cash offer's this time, but it was pretty funny that Ivana Ma was about to say she would drop her skirt again until The Donald convinced her otherwise. Kelly is right to have taken the NYC job. Stay close to the Donald.
As you know, The Apprentice 3 has a new twist. Highly educated MBA's against street smart people with highschool diploma's. Mark is obviously getting bored with the format and frankly so am I. I like this angle. This year had too many ivy league people and was pretty boring. I loved Troy last year! He totally outsmarted a couple of those smarty pants ivy types. Well the Donald made $750,000 for the Apprentice 1 and $3.2M for the Apprentice 2 (not including tie-ins), how much do you think he is getting paid for the Apprentice 3? I bet over $6M. And more product tie-ins.
But, oh fair reader, you won't get my commentary on The Apprentice 3. Yes, you see I have better things to do. Like watch Boston Legal. Maybe I should write about that. Actually I will probably watch less TV in the new year. This Venture Capital thing is really heating up (now that Ivana is out of it). Something else. I would NEVER want to work for The Donald. And moreover, I would NEVER hire anyone he thought was great. The Donald is an anachronism. His management style is straight out of the 50s. I mean the guy still wears suits every time you see him. Have you seen his penthouse? Did anyone bother to tell him that goldtone fixtures went out with the French Revolution? The Donald is straight from the "my way or the highway" management style. Which, by the way I like VERY MUCH in an early stage start-up CEO. In many ways I was like that at Loudeye. And he makes quick decisions and doesn't look back. That is all good in a fast changing environment where you get paid for hanging your balls out there (like a tech start-up). But I would never want to work for the guy. And his style would not work in a tech start-up because unlike the real-estate business, in tech the CEO has to hire people who are intellectually superior to himself (they are called developers). The CEO is usually not the most technically proficient person in a tech start=up. But he has to know how to recruit and motivate them. For all his bluster, Larry Ellison knows how to do this. So does Bill Gates. The both have very abrasive in your face management styles, but also have a culture of meritocracy. Challenge everyone and let the smartest win. The Donald may be like this, but I doubt it. He has too much of an ego. He was peeved when Jennifer didn't stick around and hold his hand. No Donald, she was doing this thing called WORKING. The Donald asks people for their opinion, but I don't really think he wants it. All of the truly smart people I know are innately curious. I don't get the feeling that the Donald is innately curious or interested in much other than what he thinks he already knows.
So he is off the list. I am done with the Donald. Thanks for reading.
Posted by Martin at 10:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 30, 2004
The Apprentice 2: Andy's Alamo
Since Episode 1, I have been predicting the demise of Andy. Not out of any malice, but simply I couldn't see me hiring him as President or CEO of anything and thought The Donald would agree. To cut to the chase, he finally did.
This week we get another brand tie-in: Pepsi. Create a promotion for the new Pepsi Edge (the soft drink's LAME attempt to address the Atkins frenzy). I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall during the Coke/Pepsi bidding war! The Donald showed his decision criteria again at the beginning (Gawd I wish he would stop doing that!).
Again with the "corporate reshuffling". The teams are getting so small that this will be a regular thing. This week it was exacerbated by the fact that last week Donald fired two people. The Producers again played to our stupidity by prequeling the solidarity between Ivana, Kevin and Kelly against the fourth wheel, Jennifer. So of course they punted Jennifer to Mosaic as quick as you please. Their mistake. So Mosaic is Andy, Jennifer and Sandy. Apex is Ivana, Kelly and Kevin.
Jennifer had wanted to be Project Manager of Apex, but since they booted her and Mosaic had already chosen Andy, she gets to contribute. Being project manager this week carries the extra perk of going directly to the final 4 without passing go (due to the free ride next week). Important choice. I was impressed with Andy as PM on the advertising task, but his team's victory was due more to the mis-steps of the competition than any heroic efforts on his part. I still wouldn't hire Andy for anything other than Excel model builder. In the Venture business I spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out if a potential hire actually contributed to the success of his prior companies or just happened to be standing on the right corner when the bus stopped. Andy was at the right bus stop. He is not a driver. This analogy is not going anywhere, so back to the show... OK, immediately upon entering PepsiCo world Headquarters, Andy starts mainlining the stuff. I guess he was deprived as a child. Andy started acting a little Stacie J on the team bouncing off the walls. The team came up with an interesting under the cap promotion where you collect countries to make a continent (thanks Sandy). But they took the geography concept too far and put it in the bottle making this dumbbell looking thing that you couldn't see into. I see looser written all over this. During the late night graphic design session on the bottle and label, Andy gets a little Raj on everyone and does some kooky stuff. He hands out $100 bills as incentive to the highly paid PepsiCo designers but denies them pizza until they finish the task. God this kid is young and inexperienced. Carolyn in completely perplexed. The team goes into present and gets surprised to be presenting to the whole PepsiCo marketing team not just the VP. Andy's caffeine fix carries him though though and he earnestly and enthusiastically pitches geography as cool and hip. Sandy pitches the game, but stumbles on her words. This is the first time I have seen her nervous. No formal education following the US college debate champion would make anyone nervous. Jennifer wisely minimizes her role in this disaster. The audience isn't buying it with grimaces all around. The first comment after they leave the room is "when was the last time Geography was cool?". Uh, never. Looser.
For Apex, Ivana gets the PM job after successfully shuttling her competition (Jennifer) over to the other team. Kelly immediately comes up with the killer idea of making the bottle spell the word Edge. Ivana ads the idea of having a hole in the bottle in which you could put some kind of promotional material. Good concept. They didn't go much further than the bottle with their concept which at first worried me. The team goes home early satisfied. The first time a team has finished early. They are a bit concerned, but I like it. Make a decision, implement it and go. Their problem is that they looked back. I don't think the Donald would appreciate the looking back part. Needless to say, Apex's presentation went much better. The marketing team liked the "edginess" of the concept. It had some logistical issues (the bottle is hard to make), but it was a big swing of the bat with a line drive straight at the target demographic for the soda. A solid base hit. Winner Winner, chicken dinner!
The Boardroom. Everyone goes of course. Andy should be fired. He is not a leader and not experienced enough to manage teams effectively. Sandy stumbled a bit, but not enough to cause the loss. Geography was Andy's idea. The bottle was Andy's idea. The game was Sandy's, but that is secondary. Jennifer kept her head down (smart). Andy and Jennifer agree to gang up on Sandy in the board room. The Donald immediately whacks Andy for a stupid looking bottle and the geography concept. He accepts blame and keeps remarkably quiet. Andy goes after Sandy who surprisingly shows alot of pluck defending herself against the set-up by Andy and Jennifer. The Donald is impressed by Sandy's pluck and underwhelmed by Andy's seeming lack of ability to defend himself (especially for a debate champion) and fires Andy. But Donald says he thought he was going to fire Sandy which I don't get at all. Maybe that part is just theatre.
So I am 11 for 13 , batting .846. Up this week!
Ivana, or Kevin should be one of the next to go
My finalist are:
Jennifer (hard core and straight up)
Kelly - solid organized, player.
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Ivana - She will do something silly and stupid.
Posted by Martin at 11:07 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 24, 2004
Them's fighting words...
My friend Tom Ryan has become a Branson partisan. Athena Chief Ramblings: Trump's Reality Bites. Branson better. I caught one episode of his show and, like Cuban's show, I found it lacking in drama. I credit much of that to the producers. I mean come on, Mark Burnett is the man in reality TV. You can tell that both Cuban's and Branson's shows are much more about themselves and not produced for a mass audience. Tom does have a point about true entrepreneurship though. Trump comes from the NYC old money turned into more in traditional businesses mold. Branson is more of a shake things up with a big new idea kind of guy. I would prefer to fund the second type of entrepreneurs.
Posted by Martin at 11:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 18, 2004
The Apprentice 3: casting call
:: Solis posted the schedule. You may already be too late.
Posted by Martin at 10:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 15, 2004
The Apprentice 2: The Raj Mahal
On November 4, I was lucky enough to again be still under the influence of opiates from sinus surgery, so I missed the live show. Shortly after I was back into it though and got caught up on work. Ok enough excuses, lets get to the real goods...
At the outset I was hopeful for my pal Raj being picked as project manager for Apex. The guy is in real estate after all (so he says). Sandy gets the nod on for Mosaic. I am looking forward to seeing Sandy in action as she has not been very involved in prior tasks. Nice hair though. The producers must be feeling the mid season blues because they felt the need to throw a wrench (or wench) into things by bringing back some of the previously fired people. Apex got Bradford (still cocky) and Stacie J (still crazy). Mosaic got Rob (still earnest but no leader) and Jennifer (still a bitter backstabber). I hope my man Raj comes through. The producers also played to the lower IQ audience (are they polling something I don't know about) by having the Donald set up the key success factor for the task up front. "contractors will pick you pocket if you let them". Funny as I was just having a similar talk Saturday night at a fundraiser I was at with Kenny Logins (don't ask). Did you know he wears Prada boots on stage? (Alex noticed). So I am chatting with one of my table mates about contractors and architects as we are going through that with our house now. My key learnings are that you need three things for a successful large scale construction project. 1. An architect that shares your vision and won't try to sell you stuff you don't need. 2. a contractor that you can trust to meet budgets AND schedules and 3. a contractor and architect that have worked together before. Oh, but I digress, this should be about the Apprentice yes?
The Donald calls the teams up to the deck of the $35M penthouse of an apartment building he is renovating and has them stand in a queer line with these silly yellow construction hats on. Raj, undoubtedly worried about his hair, makes a statement by holding his hat under his arm. The task is to renovate two crappy houses in some hellhole outside Manhattan that still has single family houses. Similar to the Apartment renovation task last season. I doubt Maria will be wearing her distracting earrings for this one! I wonder what Raj will wear. Can you do house demo in a bow tie? I am sure he will try. So off they go. Immediately on Apex Chris starts whining. He is dropping in my book. Doesn't want to scratch his Rolex in this task probably. Their house is a mess and Raj decides to invest in a bathroom upstairs (good) minimal changes in the kitchen (bad), consolidate two bedrooms upstairs into a master (getting REALLY bad), and siding for the house (ouch Raj, you are really killing me here!). First thing is to get a contractor. Kevin calls around and gets a referral to one from a contractor that is too busy (watch out). Ivana and Kevin sell the contractor to Raj who has zero input (a surprise) and doesn't even interview they guys (at least that we see on camera). Raj starts to show some of his kookie side waxing poetic about the inner human need to destroy and create. Well this is part of the lovable side of Raj we all love, but I am hoping that it hides a killer inside that will come out here. As things progress it is clear that they have chosed a bad contractor. He would rather eat tacos than finish the job. Jennifer is rock'n on this task, a real driver. Raj is disorganized as a team leader and lets the contractor not finish the job. I can't believe this guy is in real estate. I believe his father is really in the business. Oh, well. When the appraisers come to see the house, the work is not done and looks like crap. The bathroom doesn't even have the fixtures bolted in and the new carpet in the stairs is dirty. They cringe at taking out a bedroom. A master is nice for the uppity neighborhoods, but not here Raj! Apex spends $20K and moves the price of the hosue from $385 to $412 (not even your cap ex dudes - the siding was a waste). 7% improvement. Bad news.
For Mosaic, Sandy turns out to be a pretty capable leader. She has a good artistic sense and knows where to make the investments, bathroom and kitchen. Stacie J. starts some ruckus with Ivana in the suite, but on the job works her skinny little butt off (good work). The first contractor they chose I am suspicious of. Lucky for them, another contractor is driving around the neighborhood and notices the cameras and work and decides to come in and fix it. The guys are Lenny, Vinny, Johnny, Paulie, etc. Big cigars are a must. Everyone is related. But they are good guys who actually pour lots of people at the project and start making excellent progress. I have no idea if they blew the budget, or pulled any other tricks, but the NJ mob definitely saved Mosaic's butt getting the work done and clean up on time. In the end their house went from $390K to $430K, a 10.26% increase. And more importantly an increase of greater than the capital expended. It was the major kitchen remodel that did it. Winner, Winner, chicken dinner.
The Boardroom. I predict Raj, Ivana and Chris. Raj because he had a poor plan and executed it like crap. He should know better. Chris for being a whiner. While Ivana got lots of paint on her shirt, I still didn't see much from her and she needs to go. Raj picks Ivana and Kevin (for choosing the contractor). I guess I agree with Kevin over Chris. Note this is the first time I have missed the draw. On his way out, Chris popps off about how disfunctional the team is and how they are going to loose next week again. Donald gives Raj the chance to keep Chris in the room for being disloyal, but he doesn't take it (big mistake). Chris's blabbing gets him set as project manager next week when I predict he will be fired. Right off The Donald asks why Raj took a 4 bedroom house and made it a 3 bedroom. Raj stumbles. Donald makes sure Kevin knows he messed up with the contractor. Donald doesn't think Ivana should be there. He fires Raj. Raj did step up to take responsibility for the loss, but he should have done better as a leader. Come on, this was real-estate!
So I am 7 for 9 , batting .777. Up this week!
Ivana, Chris, or Andy should be one of the next to go
Two of my three choices for top finalists are gone so I will have to make new picks. My top three now are:
Jennifer (hard core and straight up)
Kelly - solid organized, player.
Wes - he is playing a waiting game. I don't think he is great, but he is keeping his head down.
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Andy - On Donald's shit list and will mess up again.
Chris - He is a boisterous blowhard.
Posted by Martin at 9:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Apprentice 2: The lost episode of Oct. 14
Some ardent readers pointed out that I did not write anything about the Oct. 14 episode when John got fired. In part I was out of the country in Goa, India. I just watched the show tonite on Tivo. Trust me, we didn't miss anything. John had a nice butt which helped his team win the restaurant task, but other than than he did not step up and was totally in the shadows. Rather than recount the whole sorid episode, lets cut to the chase. I would have fired John half way through the show. Totally disorganized and headless.
That makes me 6 for 8 , batting .750. Up! (with perfect 20/20 hindsight)
Ivana, or Chris should be one of the next to go.
My choices for top finalists are still:
Raj
Jennifer
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Andy - On Donald's shit list and will mess up again.
Chris - He is a boisterous blowhard.
Ivana - Still hasn't produced anything. Maybe she is good at Excel like alot of VCs. Too bad there is no Excel task.
Moving up on my scale:
nobody special that week.
Posted by Martin at 1:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 28, 2004
The Apprentice 2: The no Brainer
(i screwed up this previous post by editing it, so I am reposting it)
OK, I have been out of my head on narcotics after sinus surgery Tuesday, so I wasn't sure if I would be on my game tonight. luckily I didn't need to have all my marbles, the course was set from the get-go when Elizabeth got the nod as project manager. Some may remember that I had thought of her as an early favorite, but after her melt-down last time, there was no where to go but down. So here I am faced with Andy and Elizabeth as project managers, both people I pick to be fired sooner rather than later. This is going to be a no-brainer.
Staying with his over the top style, The Donald calls in this task on videophone from his jet flying to Buenas Aries for Miss Universe (give me a break). The task this time is to create a recruiting commercial for the NYPD and pitch it to Donnie Deutsch (from last year's Apprentice). This could be a bit of a brand tie-in as Dcorralut of the room when he came back from the boardroom last time, no-one expected him to live another day (but of course I did). Maria the advertising executive immediately tries to start riding herd on poor old Andy, but to his credit, he doesn't allow her too much room. This is his task as PM and he is going to run it. After a little too much planning, they have a shot list and Andy starts driving the troops (literally) against impending storm clouds. Maria wants more sex appeal. That seems to be her solution to everything. I am still distracted by those earrings! After shooting, Andy has a little tussle with Kelly over who makes the pitch to Deutsch, but does the right thing by letting Kelly pitch since Kelly has a personal story around service. During the whole filming of Mosaic's campaign, the producers never tell us the team message or their ad theme. That would have made it too easy. In the pitch to Deutsch, Andy and Kelly get Donnie (wow, they could be a 70s rock band) nodding which is a good thing. Their whole campaign is tied together with the question "when was the last time you..." Very cohesive and "to the heart" just as Donnie had suggested. Winner, Winner, chicken Dinner. Donnie says "it was not even close".
For Apex, Elizabeth gets the nod. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Unfortunately Elizabeth just doesn't have any strength of conviction and it becomes obvious from minute one. The team is throwing out all sorts of ideas for campaign themes and Elizabeth is just listening, repeating them and then moving on. She is doing nothing to corral the process. Nothing to lead the group through some process toward a solution. She even goes so far as to act like she likes one idea, gets the team half pregnant, then drops it. Finally Raj pushes a heavy military idea through. He went a little Stacey J. (whacko) on us for a minute there, but got things back under control. Elizabeth didn't like the military theme and wanted something "softer", but didn't have the where with all to convince the team and submitted to their will (the only option on the table actually). So they do all their shots with this military idea and Kevin and Elizabeth are in the conference room at 11:30 when she confesses she just can't go with the military idea. Kevin pitches in and works on ideas until they have one they like by 2:00am. In the morning Elizabeth pitches the total 180 to the team and the barf on it (of course). So what does she do? Back down! Start over! Now the team is in full on revolt. I think they should fire her right there and take over the team themselves. A coup is in order. For some reason it doesn't happen though and they let Liz finish the editing of a military campaign that she hates. At the pitch it shows that she doesn't really like what she is selling. Deutsch and his lieutenants cringe during the whole thing. He says "Now NYC is a police state?" Just doesn't make any sense.
The Boardroom. I predict Liz, Liz and Liz. There is really no-one else who deserves to go. Maybe Liz will try to blame Raj and Chris for the military idea, but The Donald should be smarter than that. Of course he is. He doesn't even let her choose people to bring back to the boardroom! He fires her immediately to "save time". "You let your team change your mind? Stupid." The Donald is 100% right. Another one of my predictions came to pass.
So I am 5 for 7 , batting .714. (thanks to Tom for correcting my baseball stats) Up this week!
Ivana, Chris, or Andy should be one of the next to go (although Andy got a free ride this week).
My choices for top finalists are still:
Raj
Jennifer
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Andy - On Donald's shit list and will mess up again.
Chris - He is a boisterous blowhard.
Moving up on my scale:
Kevin - he really did his team a solid trying to help the struggling Elizabeth. Showed great strength.
Kelly - Solid organized guy with passion.
Posted by Martin at 9:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A reader knows Raj
A reader (Chris) sent this along...
I thought I’d read through your blog before I wrote you this time, and see that you’re a huge Apprentice fan. I actually know Raj – he was good friends with my sister in college. On the first day of college (they went to BC) he had a Napoleon poster above his bed and said he wanted to be President. Since then, he’s been bouncing around doing all sorts of odd jobs and trying to start various companies and is (was?) working the front desk at the Holiday Inn in Vail. Thought you’d like the additional background on him.
Thanks!
m
Posted by Martin at 3:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Everybody gets 15 minutes
Even the pathetic candidates on The Apprentice: Stacy Rotner now has a site where you can go invite her to come give a motivational speech to your group. Is this for real? And check out the model photographs. Can you say airbrush? Unbelievable.
Posted by Martin at 12:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 24, 2004
The Apprentice 2: Trump silences the Whiner!
The Apprentice 2, Trump silences the Whiner!
OK, I have been in India for the last two weeks, so I am WAY behind on Apprentice, I will catch up next week when I am bedridden after surgery. Tivo will be my best friend. Went to the launch party for The Marketing Playbook last night but made it home in time to watch the show. The Donald and his producers are obviously becoming enamored with staging some drama into the process. This time he called the teams just after the last board meeting and told everyone to come down to the board room. There with half the people in business attire (fresh from the boardroom) and half in sweats (got a comment) he made each team immediately choose a leader. Then he made the leader of each team "fire" over to the other team his three worst performers. Thus new team mix. He needed to do this since the Men were killing the women. Now teams are mixed. The sending over of the lowest performers was an unusual way to balance the teams. Usually you would start from the top down. Those who had been "fired" got fired up to prove their former teams wrong. Good for overall morale. A better system actually than top down. It is always a total bummer to be the last person chosen (as I often was for basketball). The task this time was to take $1000 and start a pet business for one day. No obvious brand tie-in. And of course both started dog washing services (LAME!), not much else you can do with just one day. This task is measured on gross profits (finally!) instead of gross sales. Oh, and there was no obvious set-up in the start of the show as to what the firing criteria would be this time. I like it better that way. More of a challenge.
OK, so Mosaic Wes as a project manager. He fired Raj (mistake), Chris and Kevin. So Wes gets stuck with Stacey who immediately starts being her annoying self which prompts Wes to groan (to the camera) "Why won't she just shut the **** up?" (my feelings exactly). Stacey is totally overlawyering and overthinking it. It is a DOG WASHING BUSINESS you silly git! The team decides they need some kind of angle to get people to buy their service so they fall back on the old stand-by a portion of profits to charity. This is LAME and never works. First of all, you never know if your contribution to charity may be the few dollars that make you loose (there have been some TOO close ones here). Second, customers don't really care about the charity. They care about the service or product. Unless you are a girl scout with big weepy eyes, you ain't gettin' my money out of sympathy. Three people waste hours trying to get the NYFD to take charity but they have their procedures. So little orphan Andy lines up a CAT charity (but this is a dog wash folks!) and promptly after closing the deal, he drops his cell phone in the cab which drives off. That half of the team is now stranded without communication. I see disaster ahead. Even if they win, this tactical error could be fatal in the boardroom. So after alot of wasted time, the team gets to their location in Central Park AFTER the lunch rush (1:00). Silly, silly, silly. They also price their wash at $15, $5 below the other team, but I am getting ahead of myself. Stacey has a stupid idea about doggie photos which Wes rightly vetoes as too expensive in COGS (more wasted time looking at doggie costumes). Team does mostly washes. Stacey doesn't touch a dog or do much of anything but scowl. They end with $122.12 in profits. Pathetic!
For Apex, Jennifer gets the nod (great!). I have been saying Jennifer is a sleeper with finalist potential. She fires Sandy, Maria and Stacey, all the right people to let go (although I would have fired Stacey first rather than last). Immediately she organizes the process, sets on a dog washing service with some service extension and sets wash price at $20 (told you she was a smart cookie). They set up BEFORE lunch but it starts slow as many dogs don't want a wash. Less than 30% of the dogs want a wash (duh!). That immediately leads Jennifer to start pushing other services like dog massages, nail clippings, etc....) to capture some of those wary dogs. Chris starts whining that dog washing is too degrading for him and his Rolex Presidential. Shut the ***** up Chris. You are on a TV show that is built on humiliation. Grace under pressure and humiliation is one characteristic of a great leader. Complaining that you are too good for the task is not. Ivana continues to make stupid random comments (I swear she is not really a VC). With sales slow, the team wants to open a second location and after some thinking, Jennifer agrees, good decision. They walk away with $307.41.
The Boardroom. I predict Wes will take Stacey and Andy (Maria was no peach, but she has a bye from last week). Right, 100%. Wow, I am getting good. I get ready for Stacey to start with her "it was the project manager's fault" tactic that she has used the last umpteen times in the boardroom. Never has taken any blame at all. Acts surprised she is even there. Trump starts out aghast that Andy lost the cell phone, "Andy has been a disaster". Trump thinks the cat charity was "stupid" (told ya orphan Andy). Stacey starts her "Wes made me do nothing" tirade. Trump asks why she can't keep quiet. Unless Trump takes out his frustrations on Andy for inexperience and incompetence on prior tasks (on this one he sold 45% of the revenue actually), he should still fire Stacey. Carolyn asks Stacey what she did since it looked to her like nothing. Stacey says "I was promoting". Carolyn "four feet from Maria?" "You didn't do anything." Trump piles on too asking Stacey why all she does is complain. Out they go. Both advisors say Stacey. Trump fires Stacey. She tries to act surprised. She is so unbelievably un-selfaware. Self awareness is a key characteristic of any good entrepreneur or leader. Stacey didn't know that she was annoying and didn't change anything.
Wow, this is so easy. Trump did the right thing. Stacey wasn't even entertaining in her complaining. Bye Bye birdie.
So I am 4 for 6 (excluding last week), batting 666%. Up this week!
Andy, Ivana, or Elizabeth should be one of the next to go.
My choices for top finalists are still:
Raj
Jennifer
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Kevin - Still haven't seen anything great.
Andy - On Donald's shit list and will mess up again.
Chris - He is a boisterous blowhard.
Posted by Martin at 10:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 30, 2004
The Apprentice 2: The Lamest episode EVER
Ok, not conflicted at all this week. This episode sucked so bad that I am not going to recount the greusome details. Here it is in a nutshell: Task was for each team to create a restruant concept, menu, etc. open for one night and the winner would be the one that received the best Zagat rating based on customer surveys. The men killed the women again. Incompetent Apex team leader Jennifer C. gets fired in a no-brainer.
Now for the commentary. Two nights ago I was wide awake at midnight (too much coffee) and started channel surfing. I found a first season Saprano episode. The one where Tony moves his mother into a nursing home and Chris is still not a made man and is on drugs and rips off the wrong trucks. Lots of time spent in BadaBing. Lots of course language and random acts of violence. A total slam on Starbucks rip-off of Italian culture by the NJ gumbahs. I LOVED it! It reminded me how great the first season was and the things that made me fall in love with the show and the characters. Then I remembered the lethargy and pain of last season. Made me pine for the original edge. This week I was pining for the old episodes as well. I hope The Donald and his producers are not reaching the end of this concept. While there was some drama here, it was LAME LAME LAME and the firing decision was obvious from the first few frames.
There was only ONE bright spot. Remember last season how the women used sex to sell so much that The Donald had to call them out on it? I kept waiting to see if the men would catch on to this trick. I expected them to hire women to sell things for them, which they did somewhat in the icecream task. This time, though they used John as a sex object to change four gay men in their restraunt from grumpy old men into happy bubbly customers! John did his bros a solid and deserves extra bonus pay for that one!
For the boardroom I picked Jennifer C., Jennifer M. (bad interior design/concept, and Elizabeth (emotional breakdown). Jennifer C. picked Elizabeth (they hate each other) and Stacy R. (called her a "troll" and ripped on "old Jewish ladies" - Stacy is Jewish). Blatantly personal reasons rather than performance reasons to bring those two. The Donald booted her as I knew he would. Good for my average.
My prediction for next week: Reorganization! New teams.
HOW AM I DOING?
So I am 2 for 4, batting 500%. (Up yea!)
I am dumping Elizabeth as a finalist, this week she is too easilly sent into emotional tailspins. Can't perform under pressure.
My choices for top finalists are down to two obvious (from the beginning) :
Raj
Jennifer M.
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Jennifer C. - GONE! Yea I was right!
Andy - Too young and already deemed a "project" by The Donald. May be kept for a few episodes for entertainment, but not long for this life.
Stacy - Too mousy.
Pamela - too impersonal, cold and very unavailable as a team member and leader
Ivana - God I wish they could recruit some Venture Capitalists with operating experience instead of eggheads. She is an organizational disaster.
Those on the move up this week:
Mary - She is a cold blooded heartless competitor. This is the kind of women The Donald likes. She was a solid contributor on this task. Even though her earrings are still too big.
Posted by Martin at 2:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 28, 2004
The Apprentice 2: Pamela gets in touch with her inner bitch
Landed from SFO attending the Web 2.0 conference just in time for the show. At Starbucks during the show I ran into Mark Cuban and we talked about his show The Benefactor. He is happy with how it is being received. It only took him a month to film it all versus over 2.5 months for The Donald and The Apprentice. Mark was as happy and bubbly as ever enjoying all the playing around that he gets to do now. I asked him if he has another season planned and he said he wasn't sure. Whatever happens, I know Mark will be having fun.
This week we got TWO marketing Tie-ins. The meet up was at the UPS warehouse, and the challenge was to sell a product for 12 minutes on QVC. As with last week, the producers put up front a comment from The Donald which turned out to be the key issue in the task: Price is important. The teams had to choose a product and pitch it for 12 minutes on QVC. I don't like staging the key issue like this. It makes it too easy to figure out who will win/loose. STOP DOING THIS DONALD.
As I had predicted last week, there was a team re-org. And to no surprise, Donald put Pamela over with the Apex to "whip them into shape". I predict disaster.
So Mosaic picked their team leader, by drawing straws (again). I can't even remember who it was, because he didn't do jack! Kelly and Raj were the stand-outs in the process. The men picked a grill to sell (very manly again). Kelly wanted a high price, Raj wanted a price under $70. I would have personally gone with the under $70 price I think. The missing facts (missing for the audience anyway) were price history for similar products. I am sure QVC has this kind of thing. Also gross margin was not even discussed! The task was measured on gross revenue, not gross margin. That makes the pricing decision much easier and the task less interesting. Come on Donald, make these things real! We also didn't see the process which led them to the DeLonghi Panini grill. Which products did they consider and discard? That would have been interesting. I didn't like the selection because the product is a nice to have and crowds up the kitchen. How many people really want another small appliance on their counter? Anyway, the men put together a pitch and sold their product for 12 minutes pushing 252 grill, way below their goal of 800. Not really much drama here, although they were ready for a loss.
All the drama was (again) over at Apex. Pamela had the thankless task of uniting a team of women who hate each other and have lost every test yet. Her style was to become ultra bitch and just ride roughshod over everyone. This is in stark contrast to other Apex leaders who took the more participatory style. It was refreshing to see, but unfortunately had the predicted effect. Unhappy team members and dissatisfied people. Probably MORE division rather than uniting. While watching, I was trying to figure out what management style would bring this motley team together. I think the key is going to be to get them to focus on the EXTERNAL enemy: Mosaic. On every task, they have been focused internally on the individual performances and the interworkings of each person. They need to unite against a common outside enemy to take the focus off themselves. Obviously this didn't happen this week. Apex chose a whacky "new" product, "It Works", a cleaning block for removing markers and crayons from walls and stuff. They priced it too high (Pamela) for a product that customers were not used to buying. You had to convince people to try a new way of cleaning something with a new product that they never heard of. That behavior change would have been easier to swallow with a sub $20 price. When you get over that, the customer has to think harder about taking the risk. Pamela put Stacy on the legal stuff and Stacy did what lawyers do, overlawyered the process. She spent too much time with the QVC counsel pointing out potential liability issues. Pamela was right to point out that Stacy's job was to get the QVC guy to a yes. I bet Stacy is a litigator not a corporate counsel. Maria and Sandy self-selected to be the on-screen presenters. Sandy was a natural and Maria was a disaster. Too fast talking and too many gestures for TV. From the control room it was blatantly obvious. Pamela called down on the radio to Ivana to tell Sandy she did a great job and Maria that they needed to talk. This conversation was heard by Sandy and Maria, OOPS! Pamela was being the bulldog in a situation where she should have used kit gloves. Anyway the presentation went on air and for the first couple of minutes they didn't sell squat. They had to demonstrate the product for half their 12 minutes before orders started coming in. By the way, the computer system that QVC has to track calls, orders, etc. is WAY COOL! After a last minute push helped by a caller, Apex ended up selling 659 sets of cleaning blocks at $27.23 each for a total of $17,944.57.
In the boardroom, the stats showed that Mosaic had won by just over $10! Wow, a quick calculation in my head had the men loosing, but this was close! Ouch! Pamela the Warton/Harvard grad had failed. So who should go to the boardroom: Pamela, Maria, and Stacy. I picked the line-up right! So into the boardroom. I pick Pamela to get fired since her management style, while decisive, led to wrong decisions and didn't work for her team. During the "who should get fired" stage Maria and Stacy fell back on a well used line for Apex: We failed due to poor leadership. Every week the team has ganged up on their leader and not taken any individual responsibility gang up on Stacie J. causing The Donald to say "hey this is the only thing those two agree on. They don't even like each othershow turned from reality (ok, it is a stretch) to PURE TV. The Donald said "go get everybody" in order to flush out the Stacie J. problem. It was a surprise boardroom move and I am sure well planned by the producers. Only theatrix. I thought it was irrelevant to the business decision. So all the women come down and every one of them says Stacie J. scares them and makes them affraid. Mostly around the magic 8 ball incident two shows ago! So the Donald fires her because her whole team is against her and he "can't have any loose canons." I know she is not right for a finalist, but at least let her fail on her own merits during a task instead of submitting to the will of the masses.
The ultra-conspiracy theory put forward by Michelle (at Ignition) was that the producers arranged that to fire Stacie J. while putting the blame on the team. At the start of the show, it was clear to me that the producers had gotten Stacie J. to be the Omarosa of this year, but maybe they thought she was now a liability. By having the team gang up on her and the donald saying "I had no choice" then he gets out of the blame. Hummm...
HOW AM I DOING?
So I am 1 for 3, batting 333%.
I am sticking with Elizabeth as a finalist, she was much better than Trump gave her credit for.
Pamela, Ivana, or Mary should be one of the next to go.
My choices for top finalists are still:
Raj
Jennifer
Elizabeth
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Jennifer C. - you can't become a billionaire by mimicking how a real one eats shrimp cocktail!
Andy - Too young and already deemed a "project" by The Donald. May be kept for a few episodes for entertainment, but not long for this life.
Stacy - Too mousy.
Pamela - too impersonal, cold and very unavailable as a team member and leader
Ivana - God I wish they could recruit some Venture Capitalists with operating experience instead of eggheads. She is an organizational disaster.
Mary - her fumble on the printing pricing puts her at risk. She has some gumption though and may come back.
Those on the move up:
Kevin - Although he has no real business experience, he did well as team leader this week and showed some chops.
Andy - Still on the short list to go, but he had the big idea of giving away $1M for the men and they ran with it.
Posted by Martin at 3:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 16, 2004
The Apprentice 2, Episode 2
The Apprentice 2, Episode 2
Most people thought the young guy would be fired. He knows he is a marked man. Bradford got a get out of jail free ticket, but his team members didn't think he deserved it. They thought they won despite him rather than because of him. I tend to agree. Apex choose Kelly, the military guy as team leader, solid choice. The guys tried for distributors quickly and knew they would get killed by the women on a direct sales on the street deal. Good decision to break the team up into flavor team and sales team (led by Wes). The women had Ivana as project manager, but she comes from the analytical side of Venture capitalists and put people off immediately with diagrams of what price is. I bet she has an MBA rather than real business experience. A common problem. Ivana went for too much velvet glove, group hug decision style. Kelly, the Military man was the polar opposite setting time limits for each discussion topic. I think this task will be like the Trump Water task last year, the one who gets the largest wholesale orders will win. I wonder if they will again measure is gross revenue, not margin. Anyone can make it on gross sales. The key is margin. Here is the water post from last year.
For Mosaic, Wes was head of sales. Got alot of hang ups. Didn't generate any meaningful wholesale leads. Oops, down a couple notches Wes. Interesting ice cream tidbit: 14.5 hours from mixing through flash freezing to get a product. The Dunkin doughnut swat operation, was very cool. Swoop in, take all the doughnuts and leave crying kids behind. Very take charge action. Make a decision and just do it. They had 25 minutes to get the ingredients and made it. The sales team didn't really get many leads, they only did leads to restaurants. They should have expanded the net by calling ice cream retailer stores, small deli's, etc. Wes didn't get any orders, so they decided to go for a direct sales approach. Raj and the other guys on the "sales" team didn't seam to do anything either which was a big mistake. They should have had different sales people going after different customer types. In the end, they went for a "part of sales go to charity" retail strategy, tried and true. Decided on two carts in Times Square. Then the men left all their strategy out in the open on the tables and computers. BIG MISTAKE. Why show your competition your game plan? Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. Good to get on the street at 7:30am. The food squabble "don't eat all day to save expense money" was silly. Don't eat? Raj being Hypoglycemic? Weird. I like his clarity of vision though "I am right, he is wrong". Raj came up with breakfast ice cream pitch (doughnuts!), good idea. The Leukemia pitch was a good one as well. Raj continued his weirdness and kooky action. Pamela was very weak, she is not energetic at all. This is the second task where she felt it was beneath her. They hired attractive scoopers, VERY good idea! The first team to leverage hiring people, about time! They had a higher cost problem with the ingredients (doughnuts) and the contribution to the charity. The part they forgot about was that the contribution to Leukemia Society might put them below the profits of the other team. So I guess they are being measured on net profit after all expenses, good idea Donald. I guess since the teams had much more control over the COGS and selling expenses than during the water task last year, they moved to Net profits. Good decision. In the end their profit was $2,700 on a higher expense basis.
For Apex. Team havoc. Lots of ideas, lots of writing on the whiteboard with no organization. Utter chaos. Ivana liked to hear herself talk and spent a lot of time, too much time on the ideas for flavor. Didn't have a flavor or any idea of ingredients until the last minute. The CEO had all the ingredients which was very lucky. What if he hadn't? Apex spent the whole time on the flavor and didn't do any sales. Stupid. They went on the phone to do the sales and came up with the idea of hiring temps (Stacey J). The rest of the team was hated it and wondered why she was going behind their back. I liked the bullishness of it. Stacey J may be annoying, but she has balls. None of the other teams ever used leverage (yet). When they got back to the loft, the women read the men's plan and made a plan to compete directly knowing the competition strategy. I don't like Times Square as a place to sell. Have you ever been there? Thousands of people trying to sell you crap. No-one listens to any pitch. Remember the teams trying to rope people into Planet Hollywood last year? The women want to sell to the line waiting for discount tickets, good idea since people are just waiting there, but a very popular strategy. Will be interesting to see if the men try to poach the line. Bradford wanted to sex it up for street sales, the women generally didn't want to play that card which is bad. You need some hook for sales and the women have a built in one. They can choose not to use it (fine), but you need to replace it with something. The location they choose got hijacked by another street vendor with a permit. Ivana backed down immediately, bad move. They spent too much time debating where to move. Did not do good location analysis. Bad planning. The picture of women dressed in business attire in high heals pushing an ice cream cart down the sidewalk of Manhattan caused a few double takes. All that time spent moving around was taken from selling. No-one executed on a distributor strategy, but with only one day it was probably not very realistic. I got to believe that they could have sold to ice cream stores though. What does a tub of premium ice cream sell for? Go to the ice cream stores with a new flavor at the same price as their existing ones. At least one team should have split their sales force into different channels including bulk. Why does every team put all sales efforts in the same channel? Doesn't anyone there have any concept of sales channels? Bradford was the hustler guy. It made a difference. In the end Jennifer convinced some of the restaurant guys to come to their street team. It worked. Finally someone was selling whole tubs. I didn't think they had it in them. It was too little too late though and only netted them $2,472.
The Boardroom. The men hustled better, their gross sales were much much higher. The men even admitted that the red bliss flavor from the Mosaic was better. Mosaic lost because they started selling too late and were disorganized. In the boardroom should be Ivana, Stacey J and I don't know who. Ivana did a very crap job on leadership and organization. Wow, VCs really need better representation on this thing. The lightening and storm clouds leading to commercial were a nice touch. The ads have been hyping "the best boardroom ever", I wonder if they are going to try to use that every week, it is going to get old. I have got to say, I would fire Ivana. And not just because The Donald hates that name. The carts were not selling for three hours and it was an organization problem. The Donald said it would have been ok to use sex to sell. Carolyn pointed out that Mosaic didn't do anything as a selling angle. Apex had better outfits and the Leukemia pitch. Bradford gave up his free pass and it was a STUPID move. The Donald said so. He did a good job so he shouldn't have to be in the Boardroom. The Donald asked everyone who they would fire, that is different this week, usually he only asks a couple people. Most said Stacey J. Two or three, she choose two then the Donald challenges her and she says three and brings in Bradford because he was stupid to give up his exemption. So Stacie J, Jackie, Ivana and Bradford. Humm. Since Bradford gave up his exemption, that changes things. Do I think it makes him more friable than Ivana? Not really because he did it out of confidence. He volunteered to go to the women out of confidence. He may be too cocky, but he was not bad at this task. He was energetic. With half an hour more of selling I bet the women could have won. Ivana could have gotten that out of better organization.
Wow, this is hard. Wow, he choose Bradford. His reasoning was that Bradford's decision was impulsive and stupid and if he was running a company it could have killed it. Even though he was the best one in the room, The Donald believes it is worse to have a loose canon than an disorganized one. I disagree. I would rather have to reign in someone who acts out of confidence than have to micromanage or clean up after someone who can't make a decision and underexecutes.
So I am 1 for 2, batting 500%.
And one of my four choices for finalist has been fired. Kelly did a great job as team leader and has moved up in my book, but not a clear finalist yet.
Pamela, Ivana, or Stacey J should be one of the next to go.
PS. Trump, the game. Surprise, another brand extension. Very good Donald. I bet you will sell a lot at KMart. Too bad the guys who created BurnRate didn't have your brand.
My choices for top finalists are now:
Raj
Jennifer
Elizabeth
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Jennifer C. - you can't become a billionaire by mimicking how a real one eats shrimp cocktail!
Kevin - No experience, not very swift.
Andy - Too young and already deemed a "project" by The Donald. May be kept for a few episodes for entertainment, but not long for this life.
Stacie J. - Too unstable. May be kept for entertainment, but never a finalist.
Pamela - too impersonal, cold and very unavailable as a team member and leader
Ivana - God I wish they could recruit some Venture Capitalists with operating experience instead of eggheads. She is an organizational disaster.
Posted by Martin at 11:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Watching the Apprentice, Tivoing The Benefactor
Again underwhelmed with Joey this week. The laugh track was totally anoying. Going to stick with The Apprentice this week and watch The Benefactor next week. Mark posted his success factors on his blog. Fairly standard "don't let anything keep you from your goals" textbook management motivational stuff. I know Mark has spent time with Kwami from last year's Apprentice. And Richard Brandson is working on his own show as well. Trump has a much harder nose to his business success. Mark is a cowboy and a technology geek. Brandson is all marketing and not very deep on any business. It will be interesting to see who has a better sense for people.
Posted by Martin at 9:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 9, 2004
The Apprentice 2, Episode 1: Girls beat Boyz (again)
No surprise that The Donald pitted the women against the men again. The surprise part was that one from each team had to be sent to the other making them the odd man (or woman) out. Neat trick. The men started by suggesting pulling straws or putting names in the hat. Very Manly suggestions. The women started to talk it out and consider all sorts of very ladylike ways to decide (all involving lots of talk and no decision). But then Bradford did the extremely Manly thing: He "put his balls on the table" and volunteered to go. He thought it was taking the bull by the horns and showing initiative, but I wouldn't have done that. The power bitch of the women Pamela got fed up with all the nice talk and did the same thing on the women's side. She just up and decided she would go. Good initiative and probably the right thing for a woman to do (show a man's initiative).
So the team naming starts. Raj tries to sell "Empire" to the men. They really only consider two or three names before voting quickly on Mosaix. The worst idea I had ever heard. Sounded like a girl team name, or a line of cosmetics or table linen. Raj's skin crawls and that makes me like him. The women have a list of over 20 names (everyone's idea is equal girls). They suggested Empire as well, funny. They chose Apex Corp. A manly name. So the women get a manly name and the men get a girly name. Not a good start BoyZ! When the meet the next day and tell The Donald their names he winces at Mosaix and asks "do you really like that?". The men drop a notch in his book and know they are off to a bad start.
So over to Mattel to create a new toy. I wish I had counted the screen time the Mattel people and their logo got. It was like a 45 minute commercial for how neat their toy creation process is. Someone has got to know how much they paid for the privilege. So the challenge was to create a new toy for boys. I though the men would have a chance since they were all (except Pamela), well BOYZ! But things started out bad when they went for an action figure. And a line of them at that. Action figures are dolls! Boys DON'T like DOLLS! They somehow forgot what they did as kids. Only two had kids. Pamela made some very offensive comments about the focus group kids when behind the glass wall winning her Carolyn's evil eye. She obviously didn't know anything about kids, nor care. But as team leader she should have figured out a way to be good at it rather than showing open scorn for this crappy task. I say again men, DOLLS? What the hell were you thinking?
The women created a motorized transformer car. That utilized parts and themes from an existing toy line at Mattel. Brand and line extension is always better than green field. I bet this was Elizabeth's idea. So the women follow their macho trend and create a manly toy. A car that runs into walls and explodes. That is cool!
Of course the women win and the men loose. Suck'as. So Pamela takes do nothing Rob and whiney punk Andy into the boardroom. There was an interesting option for the team leader. They could choose two or three people to come with them. The idea being more people gives themselves better odds against getting fired. Pamela takes the ballsy move (since she obviously has them) and only brings two. The Donald likes it. He notes Pamela's hard edge and says he can't figure out if she will loose it or not (probably not). He says Andy is a "project". But of course he fires simple minded Rob who didn't have the self awareness to know that not stepping up and waiting to be "delegated" something was not the way to win a CEO position. His whole team was against him. I choose him to go and The Donald agreed with me.
So how is my prediction score:
1 for 1
Batting 1000 so far...
Posted by Martin at 11:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
New season of The Apprentice!
Flew down to the Valley tonight to attend the August Capital annual meeting. Had to bail out of the VC confab early to beat it back to the hotel for the premier of The Apprentice 2. And I wasn't disappointed! First a couple observations:
- The Apprentice has become a major money maker for Trump, not just an ego boost (as I suspect it started out as).
- Trump is really exploiting brand tie-ins this year. All the tasks are with major brands. You can bet they are not getting a free ride. Look at the list of vendors this year!
- Trump is really leveraging this one with the commercials for Visa and more to come. He is also not doing those for free.
- I estimate The Donald will make 5-10x more from this year's show and tie-ins than last year's show.
There were small changes in the format:
- Tasks are now mostly with major brands and are more complicated than last year's lemonade (although next week is ice-cream on the street).
- The winning team leader gets a get out of jail free card if his team fails next week. I don't understand the logic behind this change. Maybe they felt they were being too hard on the team leader and not providing enough incentive to be team leader. Last year there were many pitfalls of being leader but no real upside. I guess the get out of jail card is upside. Don't know if it will change contestant motivation though.
- No ugly girls at all. Even more boom in the babes than last year.
- There are more of them. Read more Episodes = more $$$.
The producers also kept some of the winning formula from last year's team selections:
- The cookie loose canon (Sam). This year it is Raj.
- The offensive off kilter black girl (Omarosa). This year it is Stacie J.
- The slightly neurotic anorexic loudmouth (Heidi). This year it is Maria.
- The Frat boy (Bill). This year it is John.
- The good old boy who Really is not very smart (Bowie). This year it is Rob.
So like every year (I hope) I will go out on a limb at the beginning of the season and pick four people who I think will be in the final four. This is very hard after only one show because I didn't get to see many of them in real action. I probably will recalibrate in mid season. But here goes:
My choices for top four finalists are:
Bradford
Raj
Jennifer
Elizabeth
My choices for most likely to go sooner rather than later are:
Jennifer C. - you can't become a billionaire by mimicking how a real one eats shrimp cocktail!
Kevin - No experience, not very swift.
Andy - Too young and already deemed a "project" by The Donald. May be kept for a few episodes for entertainment, but not long for this life.
Stacie J. - Too unstable. May be kept for entertainment, but never a finalist.
Posted by Martin at 10:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack