'The Apprentice' loser Nick Holzherr secures food website funding
Published Jun 29 2012, 09:29 BST | By Andrew Laughlin
Nick Holzherr, runner-up in the latest series of The Apprentice, has secured £170,000 funding for his food website, despite the idea being rejected by Lord Sugar.Holzherr said that the funding would be used on hiring new staff and developing the online platform for Whisk, a new website that would create online shopping lists based on recipes.
© BBC / Talkback Thames
© BBC
The idea was turned down on the final round of the BBC One show by Lord Sugar, who said that it was "achievable", but ultimately: "Who could be bothered with it?"
"It's achievable, I get that," said the millionaire investor. "But so's sending a man to the moon. What are we going to get out of it at the end?"
However, Holzherr has found four investors who are 'bothered' by the idea and have stumped up the cash to get it off the ground.
Speaking to the BBC, Holzherr said that his backers were "knowledgeable" about tech, and considered that he had a "scalable business".
His idea for Whisk is that people could create their online shopping list and then print them off to take into stores, or buy directly from the site, with Holzherr taking a cut of the transactions.
Holzherr admitted that he had overcomplicated his pitch for the idea during The Apprentice final last month.
"I explained it too technically, too many details - it meant it wasn't really understood," he told the BBC.
However, the popularity of the reality TV show had led to significant interest from the public, said Holzherr, particularly from "mums".
Alongside shopping lists, Whisk also claims that it will help reduce food wastage by assisting people to "cook optimum portions and use leftover ingredients to cook additional recipes".
Holzherr hopes to launch the site within the next two to three months.
"I was trying to stress to Lord Sugar and his advisors that you don't need a lot of money to build this," he added.
"We're hoping we'll be able to generate revenue quite quickly."
Midlands-based entrepreneur Doug Scott, who decided to back Whisk, said that Holzherr had found a gap in the market.
"Quite simply, blending recipes with online shopping is a space in the online world which remains untapped, but certainly won't for much longer," he added.
> The Apprentice Nick Holzherr as Harry Styles, Bud Fox
It is a great idea but I felt not in the way he was working towards it. This is more a system that he needs to create and then licence to the various food retailers and cooking businesses, rather than just develop his own website and hope to take a cut of profits.
As mentioned already, a lot of supermarkets and sites use their own system to offer recipe lists and buying options, so if he was to develop a simple system that could be made available to anyone and everyone that wants a pre-built system they can integrate into their sites and re-brand as their own, he would make a lot of money from the licencing of that system.
If anything I think this project would be much better suited as a smartphone app whereby you can choose a meal on your phone, it selects the ingredients you need and could even direct you to your local major supermarket right down to which aisle each item is located on and what price it currently is selling at. If you are stood at the shelf and it is out of stock, you highlight the ingredient on your phone and then select "select alternative" and it will tell you the next best option. There would be no point having a website tell you what to buy and then finding out it is out of stock and your not at the laptop to check what to do next. Then, to make the system keep up with the latest technology, you could even have the smartphone pay for all the shopping with the smartphone wallets that all the banks and phone networks are now starting to make use off. The technology is already available but needs brought together to make it an all in one system.
June 29th 2012 at 6:34pm
It was a stupid idea with many issues. Many recipe sites have their own relationships with a specific shop. The shops do not have a recurring revenue system (they will generally pay for first time customers) - they're not going to give you a slice. They already have recipe systems on their own sites. If this system did take off, so you add £5 worth of ingredients to your basket - then you still have maybe £35 of stuff to add, so price comparison goes out the window. It would require a lot of logistics... i.e. an ingredient isn't available what does the system do? Does it substitute? Is the substitute good? What if people want organic, or what if people want cheap?
And let's remember he said £200k would deliver £140m within a few years. How can you do business with a guy like this? He should have come last.
June 29th 2012 at 5:06pm
I liked Nick's idea the best but Lord Sugar doesn't always see whats in front of him and only goes with what could make him big bucks. I couldn't see how Ricky's idea would make money, I understand the concept but isn't it just another Hays or Pertemps etc for jobs of a scientific nature?
June 29th 2012 at 4:22pm
It was narrow minded to dismiss the idea since there was already a proven prototype that was getting interest from major retailers. There are dieting sites that generate shopping lists based on a dietary plan and then allow you buy the shopping online. There are also really popular recipe sites and interest in them because a friend I know who is a web designer has gotten a lot of working making similar sites. Since there is a growing interest in natural foods and people are watching what they eat it gives them the option to make the foods themselves.
I can see that Lord Sugar would see the idea as not a major earner and saying it can be like Facebook is silly and when presented with ideas that can make much greater returns in a shorter time it wouldn't be picked up. I think the comments they made didn't show a real understanding of the idea or of the market and in the end probably wouldn't be the right investor for Nick anyway.
June 29th 2012 at 4:00pm
I thought it was a great idea - even better if he could link it into Saturday Kitchen; I often fancy doing their recipes!
June 29th 2012 at 3:43pm