Has Anyone Appeared on the Dragons Den?

tacofries

Hey,

Has anyone here appeared on the Dragons Den before?

If you have then it would be great if you could send me a pm as I am just wondering how good the exposure/online sales that you achieve from it actually is.

Thanks!

jimmii

There was a poster around a few years ago who was on can't recall what they did though. Have you tried a forum search see if you can see if they are still active?

tacofries

I did a search but all the posts barr one or two are from years ago. Even the ones from back then don't contain much contribution from people that were on it unfortunately.

Really just want to see how many products we could expect to sell online after the show airs. Also looking to see by what percent retail sales grow. Obviously it depends on the type of product but speaking to anyone at all that has been on it before will be a good start!

Graham

Take a look through some of the RTE fluff. Keep in mind it's only likely to highlight the dramatic bits:

http://www.rte.ie/tv/dragonsden/ontour_eps1.html

Before Dragons' Den, Surf Seeds had 2 distributors started and the product was selling for €3.75. Sales were small, about €1,500 a month and no

Since Then... After the show, there was a big push to get the maximum sales and Surf Seeds took on 2 more distributors. The dragons' money was used to buy product which enabled the price to come down to €2.75. Surf Seeds also got listings with Superquinn, Dunnes Stores, Insomnia, apple green, Londis, Centra and Supervalu etc...

Sales took off and just 4 weeks after the show, sales were €10,000 a week. At the end of the first year, Dec 2009, things got quiet and the recession was getting worse so they lowered the price and got Surf Seeds on sale for €1.99 and sales took off again.

tacofries

Thanks for that Graham. I will look into all of the DD On Tour stuff.

cbres

I'd be sceptical to going on dragons den, as while it may gain exposure for your business, I have heard of a few people who were invested in and were not happy with how it worked out.
In some cases, I believe, the cash value that was sought was given by means of consultancy, whereby the dragons time is there investment. I have heard that some dragons charge up to €1000 per day for there time.
I cannot verify if this is completely true but I wouldn't say it's far off. As for exposure, as they say "all publicity is good publicity "

ideaburst

cbres wrote: »

I'd be sceptical to going on dragons den, as while it may gain exposure for your business, I have heard of a few people who were invested in and were not happy with how it worked out.
In some cases, I believe, the cash value that was sought was given by means of consultancy, whereby the dragons time is there investment. I have heard that some dragons charge up to €1000 per day for there time.
I cannot verify if this is completely true but I wouldn't say it's far off. As for exposure, as they say "all publicity is good publicity "

I believe it was your man who ran for president (Sean something?) who charged the €1k/day, or something like that. I'm guessing some people wouldn't be too happy if it was mainly just consultancy, but for others that might work fine - especially when they also have the cash input.

Bandara

Dragons Den is a tv show created for the purpose to sell advertising and make profit for the production company

On the flip side it gives the dragons good exposure for their businesses and raises their respective profiles

The people who pitch on the show are irrelevant to both the show and the dragons. Investing 50k into a business to make 20k profit a year on your investment is of not interest to a 'dragon'

It's an entertainment show. Nothing else.

tacofries

cbres wrote: »

I'd be sceptical to going on dragons den, as while it may gain exposure for your business, I have heard of a few people who were invested in and were not happy with how it worked out."

It is all about being smart really. You can put conditions in the contract like the investment must be in the form of cash and that the Dragon must meet with the entrepreneur once every month in order to increase the chances that once the dotted line is signed the investment will go according to plan.

I am bit worried that if we go on the Dragons Den in Ireland then we will be giving our competition in the UK an early heads up of our existence! I know it would set us up lovely in Ireland but at the same time our real priorities lie in the UK and US.

pedroeibar1

tacofries wrote: »

I am bit worried that if we go on the Dragons Den in Ireland then we will be giving our competition in the UK an early heads up of our existence! I know it would set us up lovely in Ireland but at the same time our real priorities lie in the UK and US.

I share Bandara's views. Den is the business version of ‘Menutainment’ – that’s not about cookery, it’s a vehicle to sell advertising and for the performers to sell cookbooks.

An appearance would be fine for some local exposure and good for inclusion in marketing media (“as appeared on Dragon’s Den” – if they allow you do that!). Are you doing it for the business reasons or is there a bit of ego involved?

How far down the road are you with product/company/market development? Surely if you have made progress you would be ahead of the pack/any potential imitator?

The US and UK markets are totally different, prioritise one, develop it and then start on the other.

The biggest mistake exporters make is to think that markets are the same because of a common language! (Not suggesting you have fallen into that trap, it’s just a general observation.;))

tacofries

Hi Pedro,

Ego wise, I would love to go on it! Unfortunately, and as tempting as the Den is, I have to do what is best for the business. My gut is telling me to sit it out and apply for the UK Den instead as getting on that would make us real money.

Regarding on the product development, we are just waiting on one little piece of the puzzle to fall into place. We are hoping this will happen in the next 2 weeks however this piece has caused us numerous issues over the last 8 months so I can't be sure. We have the specifications of what we need but to date we just haven't been able to find the piece at a reasonable price.

In terms of being ahead of the pack, we do have IP and have developed a product which will be strongly branded. Even with this however, we will be copied within the space of 6-8 months and so I do not want to put the UK market in any jeopardy!

Agree fully that US and UK markets are not the same but for sure we will still give them both a good shot when the time is right!

PARlance

Are you actively pursuing serious investment as well?

You'll get a loan from the bank if the product has any potential. You won't have to give up 40% for the 20 grand you'll be drip fed from an Irish Dragon. Not all of the Irish Dragons are spoofers, but most are.

tacofries

We do have one man who is dying to invest and there are a few more that we are getting ready to meet in the next few weeks. The ideal situation would be to have one investor that is already in the market that we want to be in and who would also supply us with a line of credit to fulfill future sales orders. Dragons Den is primarily a marketing exercise that would give our product a great launch! Also plan on getting Enterprise Ireland on as an investor just to take advantage of the matched funding.

PARlance

tacofries wrote: »

We do have one man who is dying to invest and there are a few more that we are getting ready to meet in the next few weeks. The ideal situation would be to have one investor that is already in the market that we want to be in and who would also supply us with a line of credit to fulfill future sales orders. Dragons Den is primarily a marketing exercise that would give our product a great launch! Also plan on getting Enterprise Ireland on as an investor just to take advantage of the matched funding.

Get on the EI process straight away would be my advice. It'll take the guts of a year.

I know 2 companies that were successful on Dragons Den, I get in touch with one tomorrow and get some feedback for us. Closing date is this Friday?

enricoh

A mate of mine was on it. Done the deal on tv, spent a few grand on getting accountants and stuff. Fast forward 18 months and he still hadn't got a fiver - pure spoofers! It held him up quite a bit.
Treat Irish dragons den as a free ad, have plenty of product in stock for sale online as my mate hadn't n was snowed under.
Good luck.

Digital_Guy

enricoh wrote: »

A mate of mine was on it. Done the deal on tv, spent a few grand on getting accountants and stuff. Fast forward 18 months and he still hadn't got a fiver - pure spoofers! It held him up quite a bit.
Treat Irish dragons den as a free ad, have plenty of product in stock for sale online as my mate hadn't n was snowed under.
Good luck.

This doesn't say much for your mate's business skills in fairness?! At least at the time!

tacofries

PARlance wrote: »

Get on the EI process straight away would be my advice. It'll take the guts of a year.

I know 2 companies that were successful on Dragons Den, I get in touch with one tomorrow and get some feedback for us. Closing date is this Friday?

Thanks Parlance, it would be great to hear how they got on after the show.

I have been part of the EI process for the last 5 months now so have a fair idea how they work! The deadline for the den is this Friday however they have already done a few rounds of interviews with people and have informed some if they have made it or not !

pedroeibar1

Hard to be specific/know what to say without more detail – from what you’ve written I’d stay off the Den. Also, the timeframe / market-entry steps for developing the business differs depending on the type of product you have. If it is really simple product and the sales channel is something like QVC, building the business would be easier than for e.g. setting up a machinery distributor. However, it’s ‘Marketing 101’ never to launch a new product in a new market – you have no benchmarks against which to measure its success / failure / strong / weak points or even how best to ‘tweak’ your market approach.

If you are not used to exporting start in the UK and develop the skills. The US is a much more difficult market (it’s actually ‘marketS’) than the UK, and if your product requires licensing or any type of regulatory approval you will need to allow a long time. An eight month head start lead over a competition that had an established distribution network would fly by / rapidly disappear in a market like the US.

If the product is really good and has a decent intrinsic life-span, finding investors would be much easier than finding a good sales partner in an export market. I’m a big fan of the federal approach when selling in a foreign market. I’d find local partners (each covering several states), then set up a US Co in for e.g. Delaware and have agency agreements with each of the vendor/distributors. Alternatively set up a JV marketing/sales company (governed by a strong shareholders’ agreement) with a dUS partner. Distribution is critical – a partner with little cash and a good distribution network would be worth considerably more than one with lots of cash and no network. You can always work around cash.
Glad to see you’re in contact with EI, I’ve had periodic interaction with them for yonks, (even back to their CTT days!) and they will prove very helpful in many ways, not just funding. Best of luck with it

PS Friday might be the deadline for the Den, but Thursday night is the deadline for the Oscars, so the possibility of a gold statue won’t be a runner for you!

tacofries

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Hard to be specific/know what to say without more detail – from what you’ve written I’d stay off the Den. Also, the timeframe / market-entry steps for developing the business differs depending on the type of product you have. If it is really simple product and the sales channel is something like QVC, building the business would be easier than for e.g. setting up a machinery distributor. However, it’s ‘Marketing 101’ never to launch a new product in a new market – you have no benchmarks against which to measure its success / failure / strong / weak points or even how best to ‘tweak’ your market approach.

If you are not used to exporting start in the UK and develop the skills. The US is a much more difficult market (it’s actually ‘marketS’) than the UK, and if your product requires licensing or any type of regulatory approval you will need to allow a long time. An eight month head start lead over a competition that had an established distribution network would fly by / rapidly disappear in a market like the US.

If the product is really good and has a decent intrinsic life-span, finding investors would be much easier than finding a good sales partner in an export market. I’m a big fan of the federal approach when selling in a foreign market. I’d find local partners (each covering several states), then set up a US Co in for e.g. Delaware and have agency agreements with each of the vendor/distributors. Alternatively set up a JV marketing/sales company (governed by a strong shareholders’ agreement) with a dUS partner. Distribution is critical – a partner with little cash and a good distribution network would be worth considerably more than one with lots of cash and no network. You can always work around cash.
Glad to see you’re in contact with EI, I’ve had periodic interaction with them for yonks, (even back to their CTT days!) and they will prove very helpful in many ways, not just funding. Best of luck with it

PS Friday might be the deadline for the Den, but Thursday night is the deadline for the Oscars, so the possibility of a gold statue won’t be a runner for you!

You actually just wrote out a summary of our route to market right there!! Basically everything that you said is what we plan to do so good to see that I am not insane in thinking that forming solid partnerships is the way to go in the US. Only thing that differs is the JV marketing as I am not too sure what companies would benefit by joining efforts with us. There are one or two that I originally thought of however I think these companies would rather just pay us a royalty and then go off and do their own thing with our products (which would be an ideal outcome for us!).

QVC will be most likely be our first point of call in the UK and the US as it is a pretty quick process to get products on those channels. No regulatory approvals are needed and it doesn't even need a CE mark although I'm sure the Germans will insist on us having one if we are ever to approach that market (we might try QVC Germany before QVC USA just to ensure market validation).

I am thinking the same as you regarding the pros/cons of the Irish Dragons Den. I am just not convinced that it will make a positive influence on our company in the grand scheme of things. With this in mind, we are setting up an English company as we speak so that we can apply for the UK Dragons Den as if we were to get on that then we would find it very easy to quickly get some sort of foothold in the British market. I know the UK Den application process will be a lot more competitive than the Irish one but there is no harm in trying...

Honestly not too worried about private investment at all. I know that it will come in due course so once we actually begin to look for it I am confident that it will not take too long. In fairness to EI they are such a great help. I can only but compliment them as we have received such massive help from them to date.

We will have to scale our product very quickly so regarding the 'work around for cash', our aim is to have proper invoice discounting agreements in place in order to fulfill sales orders. We will also require investors to offer some amount of a line of credit. Do you think that this is a reasonable approach or do you have any other recommendations on funding that I should look into Pedroeibar?

P.s. Oscars are over-rated anyway!

davindub

tacofries wrote: »

Honestly not too worried about private investment at all. I know that it will come in due course so once we actually begin to look for it I am confident that it will not take too long. In fairness to EI they are such a great help. I can only but compliment them as we have received such massive help from them to date.

We will have to scale our product very quickly so regarding the 'work around for cash', our aim is to have proper invoice discounting agreements in place in order to fulfill sales orders. We will also require investors to offer some amount of a line of credit. Do you think that this is a reasonable approach or do you have any other recommendations on funding that I should look into Pedroeibar?

+1 about the BBC dragons den.

I don't see investors rushing in to give a line of credit, they are already supplying cash investment. It sounds like you have approached suppliers for credit and been refused already?

Not to be harsh but I think you need to get someone to give your prepared budgets a good bashing. You should have a budget for 0 investment and then flex the budget according to investments. Then test with lower than predicted sales, really test the business to see what it can bear. That is sometimes what it takes to get a sense of the levels of finance you need. There is a lot lot more. It might be more beneficial to seek an investor with experience in launching products with little funding rather than establishing supplier credit.

Gloomtastic!

tacofries wrote: »

We will have to scale our product very quickly so regarding the 'work around for cash', our aim is to have proper invoice discounting agretements in place in order to fulfill sales orders. We will also require investors to offer some amount of a line of credit. Do you think that this is a reasonable approach or do you have any other recommendations on funding that I should look into Pedroeibar?

You should seriously reconsider your plan to Invoice Discount. You will find it very difficult to get rid of these vultures if your business proves successful. You may also be paying interest rates above what a bank would charge for a loan.

You look like you've done your homework with your new idea, any bank should be similarly impressed if you went for a loan.

Good luck to you!

tacofries

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

You should seriously reconsider your plan to Invoice Discount. You will find it very difficult to get rid of these vultures if your business proves successful. You may also be paying interest rates above what a bank would charge for a loan.

You look like you've done your homework with your new idea, any bank should be similarly impressed if you went for a loan.

Good luck to you!

It is actually AIB or BOI that we would be looking to do the invoice discounting with. I know of business that have got very good deals with them in the past (approx 4% interest + 7-8k annual fee). I am actually meeting with AIB on Monday to try and put things somewhat in stone! A loan would be much better but just think they would be more inclined to do the discounting as it is a bit less risky for them. I will push for the loan though... Thanks Gloomtastic!

Davin, all of our suppliers will give us the standard 30 days credit initially and then take it from there. I f we have written sales orders our main supplier said they would extend it a bit. Even that wouldn't be enough though when you consider that we won't actually be getting paid for 90 days. Our suppliers MOQ's are quite large so that doesn't help. I have a few meetings lined up with banks, accountants and advisors over the next few weeks so hopefully they will go through everything with a toothcomb!

It is going to be a fun few months ahead but it is hard to be patient and wait till the time is right to just try and explode onto the market...

pedroeibar1

tacofries wrote: »

Only thing that differs is the JV marketing as I am not too sure what companies would benefit by joining efforts with us. There are one or two that I originally thought of however I think these companies would rather just pay us a royalty and then go off and do their own thing with our products (which would be an ideal outcome for us!).

If you JV with a US partner(s) you cement a relationship. You build a presence and they (hopefully) a solid foundation for a future business together (provided you are not a one-trick pony). You bring the product, they bring the local expertise. They also form an alliance with a new product provider (you). That is a strong basis on which to build a business. Should you go down the route of a royalty payment you cede control of ‘sales drive’ to the US distributor, they can put the emphasis on whatever product they want (not necessarily yours), you become a bystander, and, as they say over there, you really have no dog in the fight.

tacofries wrote: »

I am thinking the same as you regarding the pros/cons of the Irish Dragons Den. I am just not convinced that it will make a positive influence on our company in the grand scheme of things.

If you have a really scalable product forget about the Den– yes it is sexy and attractive, but it is a distraction. In the US or the UK nobody will give a s#1t about Den Ireland or your appearance on it, and video-shoots, ego-waffle, etc., will take your eye off your real business, which is growing your company. Who watches the Den? How many are potential customers?

tacofries wrote: »

We will have to scale our product very quickly so regarding the 'work around for cash', our aim is to have proper invoice discounting agreements in place in order to fulfill sales orders. We will also require investors to offer some amount of a line of credit. Do you think that this is a reasonable approach or do you have any other recommendations on funding that I should look into

Cash is king, cashflow is critical so stress-testing your figures is a basic necessity. Alongside that you need to see how your own company/business is perceived as a credit risk – is it a start-up or of relatively recent creation? You say your credit terms with existing suppliers are 30 days – that is not long enough for anyone in the export business. Do any of them have their credit exposure to you insured? With whom? How solid are you in the eyes of those credit insurers? Find out! Why are you selling on 90 day terms? Dated from when - invoice? From end of month? I’d also investigate export credit insurance on your sales to proposed main distributors (if at arms’ length) – having insured sales might make you more attractive to your bankers so you might be able to operate on an OD facility with the credit insurance policy assigned as security to cover the o/s. Certainly before you jump into bed with invoice discounting you should look to (and push very hard) your main bankers. Ensure you have an account manager that understands the business - too many of them have no idea and simply sell what is their target product for the month. ID can be a very slippery slope. You also need to look closely at currency exposure – you are talking US, EU and UK.....Trump, Brexit and various EU elections are not yet fully factored into current market rates. Be very careful on currency exposure, there will be big swings and this will mean the difference on profit/loss. While ID can be expensive it also can be worthwhile if your margins can withstand it. (And no, I don’t want to get into an argument on ID & a CBA)
My experience is not on small unit cost widgets, it’s at the very opposite ends of the spectrum, so take any of my suggestions as ‘generalities’.

tacofries

Love to see a post like that Pedro! Honestly, I never even thought of most of the things that you said in the last paragraph. It is good to hear about things like how are we perceived as a credit risk. Going to look into all the things that you mentioned next week. Really like the sound of the export credit insurance as having that in our business plan when applying for funding really does make it look like I have done my homework. Also good to hear about the account manager not just reaching sales targets but actually understanding what makes/saves us money.

Currency exposure is a massive issue for us. That is something that I am also going to speak to AIB about on Monday. I am going to look at the JV marketing again just in case I didn't give it enough time before. If you have any other info or things for me to be thinking of/learning about it would be great if you could send me a pm! Thanks Pedroeibar