Myths & Lessons  
Popular, competitive industries and related concepts provide inspiration for top TV cable shows. The food industry, for example, has provided a rich source of ideas. Here are a few examples:

Food/Restaurant
Restaurant Impossible
Each week, an episode showcases how a hopeful entrepreneur bought a restaurant, yet failed to learn, beforehand, how to operate it successfully.

It’s not a program for viewers with weak stomachs. Many beginners are using their life savings or retirement funds, mortgaging their homes, or borrowing from family members to start a business they know little or absolutely nothing about managing.

Budding restaurateurs seem to think running an eatery is easy, or they’ll learn the ropes after they open for business.
Two expensive myths that result in a high failure rate in the competitive  industry.

The Great Food Truck Race
The mobile restaurant program illustrates how many things can go wrong while trying to sell food on the street; from a flat tire to faulty gas burners.
It’s a seemingly simple, low-cost way to enter the restaurant business that is anything but simple.

Chopped
Each show features common, odd, and interesting food ingredients from around the world. Chefs compete against each other to dream up and prepare a winning appetizer, main course, or dessert within 20-30 minutes after opening a mystery basket of ingredients.

There is a catch; of course… Each basket contains weird food combinations. For instance, one show featured a dessert round with red jalapenos, cream cheese, Sharonfruit, and short bread.
An environment in which participants have to think, create, and produce results rapidly in order to succeed.

Shark Tank/Money
Struggling business owners and budding entrepreneurs agree to become chum in the venture capital shark tank in return for possible financing, contacts and mentoring. Shark Tank has been on the air for several seasons, yet some hopefuls still appear on the program ill-equipped to present their proposal with financial numbers that will be attractive to the sharks.

Common myth: I don’t need to understand the financial aspects of the business because my idea is great!

The Fashion Industry
Project Runway
For some with a passion for fashion design, the glamour, glitz, and high-level creativity can create a hellish nightmare if one is ill-equipped to handle the stress and strain of the industry.

Despite a high degree of talent, some designers flee the demands of the industry (on and off the show).

Although there is a degree of hype in some of these programs, it’s a useful inside look at situations in specific industries.

Note: If you are  seeking insider information on other industries, such as farming or plumbing, I suspect those shows are not on the fall TV schedule.

References
http://www.foodnetwork.com/restaurant-impossible/index.html
https://nichecreativity.com/?p=384 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/the-great-food-truck-race/index.html

http://www.foodnetwork.com/chopped/index.html

http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/project-runway
https://nichecreativity.com/?p=755

http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank
https://nichecreativity.com/?p=478

Soups On?

Owning a restaurant is at the top of the list for many budding entrepreneurs. But it is an industry with a high failure rate. A new program debuted in January to help failing restaurant owners, and after watching certain episodes, some people might be tempted never to eat out again. But overall, this is an entertaining and educational glimpse at the food industry. For aspiring entrepreneurs considering opening a restaurant, watching several of these episodes might well prove invaluable.

Hosted by British food professional, Robert Irvine, who possesses a skills set reserved for many Roman gods, failing restaurant owners are selected for a two-day makeover. It’s a lot like Extreme Makeover: Restaurant Edition. Irvine has 48 hours and $10,000 to position a deteriorating enterprise into a profitable venture.

One episode in particular stands out. Two likable guys bought a landmark restaurant but after 18 months were about $900,000 in debt, having risked their life savings and everything else to run a business they knew nothing about.

The episode highlighted a lot of their mistakes, blunders commonly made by many inexperienced restaurateurs. Repairing their mistakes was the sole point of the program, but one of the biggest lessons that this particular show failed to address, mentioning only briefly, was how the partners ended up in a pit the size of the Grand Canyon in the first place.

Early in the program viewers learned that the pair paid an enormous sum of money for the restaurant and its prized recipes. The amount that they paid for the recipes would have been like buying several quarts of popcorn, six containers of soda, and several candy bars at a movie concession stand for a bill totaling $34,000.

The partners clearly didn’t know what they were doing. What I found most disturbing was that whoever advised them didn’t do his or her job.

The biggest lessons from this particular episode was that .when beginners buy a business in the field that they know nothing about, they need an experienced and knowledgeable business/financial advisor to guide their decision-making process, and to ensure that they are paying a fair amount for the business that they’ve selected. But knowing how to choose the right advisor is a challenge in of itself and I suspect that these two men found that out the hard way.

At the end of the program, Irvine had transformed the restaurant, bringing tears to the eyes of the grateful partners. But as the closing credits point out, the makeover made a big difference but whether the transformation undertaken now will undo all of the problems caused by the huge mistake made at the very beginning of the star-tup remains to be seen.

Reference:
http://tinyurl.com/mekl8d4