Paradise or Bust was the promise in the title when the latest desert island reality show started last night on BBC2. Except that this is not a reality show. There are no contestants, no prize. It’s a business and this was a documentary. It seems the two are easily confused by some reviewers.

And you can see why to an extent. But Ben Keene and Mark James Bowness are entrepreneurs, who had an idea. The concept was to create an online tribal community using the key elements of social media – blogs, video, forums etc – to make decisions for an ‘eco-tribe’ on a Fijian island.

The tribe on the island would be made up of the paying online community exercising their right to visit for a seven days, a fortnight or three weeks based on whether they’d shelled out for a one, two or three year membership. To make it happen they needed publicity, got a piece in the London Metro, then the offers rolled in.

That’s how Paradise or Bust ended up on our screens and is sure to gain the business considerable exposure – great if you can get it! By the time the camera crews got involved the social business had already experienced its first major setbacks – keep watching though as there’s plenty more to come on that front.

The blogosphere, understandably given the nature of the idea, latched on to it. With almost a thousand people paid and signed up rumours circulated that it was a money-making scam no better than a pyramid scheme. There would be no island paradise at the end and Keene and Bowness would be making off with cash falling from their bursting pockets, bloggers stated – without any evidence to base their claims on.

With the aim of securing 5,000 members, this brought subscriptions to a near standstill. I had the pleasure of speaking with Keene some months ago, for a forthcoming book on entrepreneurs. As you would have seen in the programme last night, the personal attacks on Bowness in particular killed his enthusiasm for the project and he withdrew active involvement.

Keene was left alone and what you’ll have seen if you managed to catch Paradise or Bust is the young entrepreneur attempting, and largely succeeding, in creating a tribal village within five months. While there’s a lesson in the power of the online world and bloggers to destroy a fledgling business, Keene manages to exhibit traits of a successful entrepreneur.

Frequently telling the camera that he’s “never done anything like this before” in relation to DIY and clearing a building site, procuring a whale’s tooth to use in a ceremonial exchange, and of course creating a living and breathing tribe on a desert island, he gets on with the job in hand. And embraces it. Risk-taking and daring to be different – true entrepreneurialism.

Execution, as all entrepreneurs, is everything. And although far from polished, Keene does deliver the promised compost loos, a shelter and kitchen, and successfully gains the complete backing from the local Fijian community that decided to take a punt on his and Bowness’ idea.

For a social media / real world experiment he didn’t deliver on the required internet connection so fundamental to building and sustaining an online community, so members had to rely for months on him making trips to the one internet café in the region. Not quite what it promised in the brochure, but if you visit http://www.tribewanted.com/ you’ll see that much has happened since.

Given what’s to come – and I won’t spoil it if you do happen to be watching – it’ll be interesting to see how he deals with the adversities as they happen. When we spoke, the three-year project – after which the island and business concept will be handed by to the Fijian island community that is leasing Keene the stunning atoll – appeared to have strengthened its foundations and he was both sanguine and positive about his tougher experiences.

You can be sure that putting the pair’s concept on the BBC will result in a major spike in traffic for the site and, I dare say, a fair few paying tribal members. It might not make their fortunes, but Keene – and to a lesser extent Bowness – have put themselves on the entrepreneurial map. Watch this space.