Far too often, when we scour the web looking for stories concerning apprentices and apprenticeships, that **** "Apprentice" show features in our search results. Speaking for ourselves, we find it a bizarre combination of great idiocy on the part of people who are supposed to be intelligent … and the occasional hint of common sense.
All in all, and with all due respect to the makers and performers, should any variation on any kind of apprenticeship game show appear on our 96-inch HD 3D TV we switch it off and go do something else.
And this is why we haven't made any reference to any of it in this blog. Until today.
Today, we're celebrating (if that's the right word) the kind of attitude we seldom see these days - and it's an attitude we should see more of.
We're not talking about raising a middle finger in the direction of Lord Sugar ... or are we? Actually, yes, we are - but for a very valid reason, and only metaphorically speaking.
The story is this: "Apprentice" candidate Nick Holzherr was working on the app that was to bring him fame and fortune when he appeared on the series ... and found himself on the receiving end of a broadside from Lord Sugar, who dismissed it totally out of hand.
"It's achievable," said the tycoon peer. "I get that. But so's sending a man to the moon. What are we going to get out of it at the end? Who could be bothered with it?"
Well, for a start, Nick could be bothered. Ignoring Lord Sugar, once he’d had that famous finger pointed at him Nick went on to raise over half a million pounds to make that app a reality.
Called, simply "Whisk", his app combines recipes and online shopping for their ingredients, making it simple for people to come up with their ideal menu - and have all the right ingredients delivered to their door.
And it seems people are loving it.
It just shows that if you think your business idea is good, you should stick with it, no matter what the experts say.
