The Hustlers
It's no longer grim up North. The revitalised cities of the North are home to some of the country's brightest and best young entrepreneurs. They're not happy working in the old industries for men in suits. They want to be doing their own thing – and doing it for themselves. The Hustlers follows the fortunes of five businesses, all run by young people working in the arts, media and fashion and all driven by passion and a burning desire to succeed.
Suits You Sir
Fashion guru Tim Shaw is a tough cookie. He pays his shop manager just £30 a day, whilst he fancies buying a Porsche Boxster with the cash that his designer clothes shops are coining in. But Tim, who's 24, resists the temptation of pricey German engineering and ploughs the dosh into opening a second shop.
His first store in Leeds, the fashion capital of the north, is doing well. But opening a second is a major gamble. He's picked Manchester, his home town, and he's lumbered with a long and expensive lease – so the clothes will need to start flying off the rails fast. Expanding his empire also means that Tim's got to lighten up on his control freak tendencies and let his managers do the selling. Can he pull it off and get a step closer to his dream of retiring at 50 and slipping behind the wheel of that Boxster?
Suffering for Her Art
Irene Rukerebuka has got to pull off a few cute moves if she's going to get what she wants. First, she's got to persuade a whole lot of people to work for her – for free. Then she's got to be talked about by the right cool people in the right cool places in Manchester's bohemian Northern Quarter. And lastly she's got to launch a new product in one of the most viciously competitive marketplaces of all.
Irene has chosen to launch an arts, media and fashion magazine called Rant – and she's trying to do it all from tiny poky offices on a small grant. It means sacrifices – 24-year-old Irene can live for over a week on a box of cereal and a giant bag of popcorn – and it takes a will to win bordering on the obsessive. Things get even tougher when most of Irene's staff leave and she's faced with bringing out the next issue of the mag all on her own. Can she persuade the advertisers to part with their cash, the shops to stock the magazine and the writers to produce the copy, all in time for the looming deadline?
On the Rocks
Joel Bravette fancies himself as Mr Popular. He likes nothing better than being the centre of attention on big nights out with his mates. When he got fed up with his accountancy degree at Leeds University, Joel decided to turn his party lifestyle into a career option. He opened a sleek designer bar in the party city of Leeds and sat back to wait for the coolest party people in the North to flood through the doors.
Just one problem, well two actually. The punters didn't show up and Joel's partner abruptly left the business, leaving him on his own with debts of £60,000. Joel soon found out that sweeping the pavement outside the bar and stocking up at the cash and carry was a long way from the fun-filled lifestyle he had imagined the bar would bring.
When a hard-headed bar expert tells 23-year-old Joel that his business is on the rocks and heading for bankruptcy, he has a life-changing decision to make. Should he sell up or tough it out?
The Griddlers
Neil Tipping and Jon White think they've spotted a gap in the market that all the fast food big boys have missed. They noticed that in France crêpes are for life, not just for Shrove Tuesday. With every street corner in the country boasting a crêperie knocking out pancakes to a hungry, and notoriously fussy, French nation they decided the concept could be imported to Britain.
We're not just talking lemon and sugar here. The boys spent a year researching every possible variety of crêpe filling and looking for just the right spot to open their first shop. They had to get it right because Neil and Jon, both 24, have massive ambitions. They want this first shop to be the template for a nationwide chain of crêperies that's going to make them a multi-million pound fortune.
But all fast food entrepreneurs start small, so Neil and Jon are masterminding every tiny detail of their launch in the country's biggest student area, Headingley in Leeds. But when you have to put together a menu, learn to cook from scratch and deal with suppliers abroad it's not as easy as it sounds. Can Neil and John get their launch right first time?
The Producers
Adam Kent and Ollie Royds have stars in their eyes – but no cash in the bank. They want to be big-hitting theatre impresarios, staging the kind of glitzy commercial West End shows that separate American and Japanese tourists from their money in double quick time. They know exactly where they want to be. They just need to decide how to get there fast.
First step was to stage a swing tribute show in Newcastle while still at university. It put 2,000 bums on seats and gave their production company its first hit – and its name. Now Bums on Seats, owned by Adam and Ollie, is staging a show in the most ferociously competitive arts festival in the world. Nearly 2,000 shows clamour for the attention of critics and audiences at the Edinburgh Festival.
Adam and Ollie, both 23, are staging their show on a bank loan and with a cast of out-of-work actors working for sweet FA. They have to write, rehearse, cast, finance and promote the show in just eight short weeks. Then they've got to persuade the punters to pay to put their bums on Adam and Ollie's seats. Ambition and talent are just the beginning – welcome to the unforgiving world of commercial theatre. Can Adam and Ollie pull it off?
