Dragons' Den

Peter Jones in a foul mood tonight

Catching up on iPlayer.

Fat Lad at the Back -- dunno. Quirky name good for initial business but maybe Dragons are right that it limits future sales. I'm surprised no-one invested since the brand name is easy to change and they've already sold a few.

Nanotechnology -- so tied up with the dodgy contract details I've forgotten what the product does, apart from you stick it on, erm, something -- replays start of pitch -- actually, that is the product -- it is the stickyness. She's in Wilkinson's so you'd have thought a bank loan would be better. Really, she needs Theo, who (a) could stick it straight into his shops, and (b) would know how to renegotiate the agreement. Deborah would surely have been a better bet than Duncan given she has the contacts.

Drinks holder on umbrella in case you want to drink and use a phone in the rain -- solution in search of a problem imo. Otoh, it would not have surprised me if Peter had signed them up as product designers because it was a nice prototype.

Keepy-uppies with oversized badminton shuttlecocks -- I can see it as a 1-year Christmas craze, and maybe developed for schools as a sort of cheap PE lesson. Whether either will make enough money, I doubt, but the schools market might be worth a punt.

Walking stick gizmo -- too vulnerable to existing manufacturers adding lights to their sticks. They'd already have the contracts with hospitals, physiotherapists and so on. I'm out.

Marshmallows -- I've ordered posh marshmallows over the web so there is a market. Trouble is, I do not think it is a very big market. Peter offered more money than was asked for: has that ever happened before? Silly entrepreneur was too hung up on the percentage rather than the size of the whole.

ukick is one of them things that you buy and end up using it once then it sits in the wardrobe for 3 years until you bin it.

they should do a sponsorship deal with ukip

ukick is one of them things that you buy and end up using it once then it sits in the wardrobe for 3 years until you bin it.

And surely most of the people who are any good at it will already have practised keep-uppies using footballs or even ordinary shuttlecocks, so why would they want to change?

Huskies -- good that they know what they want to do with the money. I don't like dogs so I'm out. Peter Jones (and Theo) bought out the Red Letter Days events company from Rachel who went bust early on, so might have some knowledge. Shame the accountancy let them down.

Hot chocolate -- they are in the supermarkets; they know their numbers; why are they there? Leaving aside the doubts over their contract and management structure, what did they want?

Computer game -- dominated by the big boys unless you get very lucky. £1 million for a company that has no income?

Vase/greetings card mash-up -- I'm not sure Peter understood it.

Dog stuff -- see above.

Bike visor-wiping glove -- how have they spent £100,000 on this?

Plasterboard fixing gadget -- DM invested. Well done.

Tonight was £1m company night although all of them were underwhelming.

Yes the 18 year old kid did well but give another 18 year old kid £200,000 to launch a product and they may do better.

i missed the start of the radiator gizmo, what does it do exactly?

A way to screw into plasterboard for wall fixings

Grip It Fixings
http://www.gripitfixings.co.uk/

According to what presumably is his local paper:

Jordan came up with the idea for Grip It in 2008 whilst putting up curtain rails with his then 74 year-old grandfather Stan. Having difficulty installing the railings via traditional methods, the pair spent the rest of the afternoon in his grandfather’s garden shed figuring out a more effective mechanism.

Aided by his grandfather’s engineering background, it took the pair just a matter of days to come up with a prototype for the fixings, and, following months of testing, they applied for a patent in 2009, when Jordan was 14.

Makes you wonder how the inventing was divided between the 14-year-old and his engineer grandad. It is like those stories, "teenage genius makes cancer breakthrough", and then you read on to find mum is professor of molecular biology at the local university.

But fair play to him because it looks like he is taking his mates along for the ride:

Making up the Grip It team with Jordan are 11 of his friends, all aged between 17-19 years old, who look after various areas of the business, from accounts and production to packing and distributing. Jordan’s girlfriend Laura is in charge of sales.

Forgot the link:
http://www.whitehorsenews.co.uk/blog/2014/08/12/westbury-teenager-aims-to-create-history-on-dragons-den/

hes gonna be a very rich young man

Ramruma     17 Aug 14 23:04 

Hot chocolate -- they are in the supermarkets; they know their numbers; why are they there? Leaving aside the doubts over their contract and management structure, what did they want?
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I thought exactly the same - Ramruna

Their overheads do not appear excessive - No convoluted production methods, etc.

Distribution will only be to the Supermarket Warehouses - not to each individual Supermarket.

I was waiting for one of the Dragons to ask ...

'What do you want the money for?

Wanted a dragon. They'd already got free tv advertising of the product by appearing on the programme.

That is what I thought - Facts

To then - Advertise it as a 'Dragon's Den Winner' ... had it happened -
- and get a Dragon on board to give the product a push.

@King of Dubai I bet he pays his buddies a fair wage, unlike the slaves at the diamond mines that earn his 'pocket money' for him.

Wrong question. Start-ups normally have low wages but share options or the like. You see occasional headlines to the effect that Google or Facebook have bought a company whose receptionists are now millionaires. So the question is: has he given his mates a fair share of the business?

First off, I wouldn't hang something like a radiator on to plasterboard.
You're asking for trouble. The same goes for cupboards.
The golden rule is not to hang anything with any weight in it on plasterboard.
Simply drill straight through the plasterboard into the brick behind and screw into that.
If it's a stud wall put a brace behind the plasterboard to take the radiator screws. Or put the radiator on legs.

For all the other plasterboard fixing jobs there are plenty of cheaper alternatives that do the same job just as well.

i dont get the drinking chocolate thing. what are the dragons on about again?

my daddy owns a gold mine, gimme some money.

@sideshowbob -- i dont get the drinking chocolate thing. what are the dragons on about again?

If you look round any big supermarket, there are umpteen upmarket and sometimes exotic varieties of hot chocolate (and tea and coffee). Apparently this is one of them.

I'm not really sure what caused Deborah to change her mind so abruptly, tbh, and can't be bothered to watch it again to find out.

They couldn't give her detailed forecasts of how they expected the business to grow. The financial guy was making numbers up on the spot and the others just started flanneling. All fell in a heap !

piers linney is a complete waste of space dont think iv ever seen him invest unless theres another dragon to go into partnership with

@BARROWBOY re Piers Linney

A quick look at his Wikipedia page finds:
Dragons' Den investments
Skinny Tan - £60,000 for 10% of the business (joint investment with Kelly Hoppen)
Mainstage Travel - £100,000 for 15% of the business
Vini & Bal's Rustic Indian - £50,000 for 30% of the business
energyEGG - £50,000 for 30% of the business
Skribbies - £30,000 for 12.5% of the business (joint investment with Kelly Hoppen)
Lost My Name - £100,000 for 5% of the business

Without any evidence, I do get the impression he makes his mind up very early so is often among the first ones out.

Tbh, until recently I'd have said Deborah Meaden tended to follow other dragons but recently she has seemed far more aggressive in securing deals for herself.

cheers ram,have to say i dont watch it every week,maybe hes just been lying low on the programmes iv seen,he never seems to make a surprise offer like some of the others though,looks like if one of the other dragons slag a pitch off hes immediately out

That 10% investment in getting the Cardiff chairman to lose weight looks risky.

i thought i watched it every week, but i dont remember ANY of those! 

A dull show now without Theo Pap......( "I'd rather stick red hot needles in my eyes than invest in you".)

Debroah improving sort

How much is scripted ?

How much is scripted ?

If you mean the dragons talking, probably none, and you will notice most of the biplay between dragons is between Peter and Duncan, who have been there longest, with Deborah third and the relative newbies Kelly and Piers least of all.

It is heavily edited, of course.

A few years back there was an article in "Professional Electrician" about a man who invented a new type of cable-rod.

He went on Dragon's Den.  He was quickly offered £x for x% of the business by Duncan Bannatyne.  Every time he tried to talk to the other dragons (there was a lot of civilised round-the-table discussion that doesn't get broadcast), Bannatyne would shout "you've got 3 minutes - take it or leave it".

Jokingly, this bloke said, "Duncan, if you don't shut up, I'm out" - at which point Bannatyne spat the dummy out and tried to have him ejected from the set!

I don't think it was broadcast, and I don't know if he ever got funding; but he is still in business, taking out large ads in the trade papers.

Pants On Fire - another delusional valuation

They got an offer, I wasn't convinced personally.

I thought tees were usually plastic - and are cheap as chips

fed up with dragons and their long faces

Piers point about the umbrella getting mouldy was the first thing that occurred to me. Not a bad idea though, in the context of getting into a car

oh look, half attractive bird turning up at very near the end

She's a bit nervous - too tense

Cant believe how little she is selling her wigwams for.

winner all day long.

I just don't get that at all

Yep - she's got a good thing there.

She chose DM

Meaden would be the very last dragon I'd want on side personally. How could she possibly turn down the other offer? The mind boggles.

Maybe she thinks DM's got better contacts.

But yes, generally she would be the last one I'd want on board

I wouldn't fancy getting into business with the ginger bird personally, she looks too hardened, don;t think I could work with her, it'd be her way or no way, whereas with Deborah she seem a lot more personable and in tune with people, someone you could get along with, you could see her face how much the ginger one wanted it and then the shock of losing to higher stake offer "I'm pissed off"

As a matter of interest, is Levi roots still the most successful entrepreneur from the 900 that's appeared in the Den in the last decade?

Strange view, i reckon  Deborah would be a nightmare,her way or no way.

The gingar would be much better imo.

The ginger bird? Wasn't that Rachel Ellinor?

No, Christina Hendricks

With the snub of Duncan and Kelly it got a bit intense at the end.

first time I've seen her, haven't watched it in a long while so didn;t know who she was and didn't know who piers was either, just the impression she left, wouldn't appeal to me as a entrepreneur but each to their own, deborah I've always liked as she's very open, the behind the scenes documentary I saw a while ago was good reflection on  her too. Peter for me is the ultimate dragon

Yeah debrohah is open and blunt , so probably ideal for business, but those ginger curls

Catching up on iPlayer.

Pants On Fire -- once a decade, a boardgame makes millions; the rest don't. They are in a lot of shops, yet turning over practically nothing.

Out order: Piers; Deborah; Kelly; Duncan offered £25k (half) for 15 per cent, describing it as an enjoyable gamble; Peter offered the other £25k but for 20 per cent. It was eventually agreed to drop to 30 per cent (sfaict).

Torch Europe -- lights on bikes -- the person pitching was outed by Peter as a multi-millionaire. The patent put the Dragons off but it is hard to see why. How did the dragons make their money? Gyms; hotels; caravan parks; interior design; selling phone accessories -- no patent protections in sight.

Out order: Kelly; Deborah; Peter; Duncan; Piers.

Golf tees -- magnetic so you can pick them up with your club. Too expensive and not clear they could sell enough.

Out order: Kelly, Deborah & Piers. Peter and Duncan.

Pop-up tables -- nice patter but lousy product.

Umbrellas -- I didn't really get it tbh.

(I dozed off at this point so might have missed something.)

Tents -- well-designed; three offers and she took ostensibly the worst one -- presumably on the grounds that Deborah wanted to sell all sorts of other tat on the site.

That Ukick thingy from the other week, iy's called Jianzi and it's a traditional game in Asia.

When I was in Guangzhou there were groups of grannies playing it in one of their little parks every evening.

60k for 25% of a non business

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jianzi

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1303097/Dragons-Den-winner-reveals-80k-promise-fact-loan--26-500-emerged.html

that's 4 years old that article

Does put the show in a different light though

Yep, and I think she went on in 2008 but I didn't know about this until today

they don't get that rich by playing with a straight bat.

Although I watch and like the show I bet before the entrepreneur's  appear they have to produce full set off accounts and much more info than we get to view which the dragons will get before they see them. As well as doing their own research before the show on the products etc etc

I also read about 50% of offers actually don't go through (not sure if that's true)

I suspect all offers are subject to verification of numbers, further research etc and that the Dragons reserve the right to pull out if they don't like what they see

Repeat tonight.

The one with the two women with the tanning product which received offers from all five Dragons.

Also, the guy with the noodles who got very emotional but had three offers

duncan's the man.

make a ridiculously low offer, wait for the inevitable knock-back, and repeat for years on end......investing in virtually zilch in the last few years

@Emden -- my reading of Duncan is that he tends to make an offer to people who don't need it -- when it is not really clear why they are on Dragons Den in the first place because the business is already making money and maybe just needs a Dragon to give half an hour's advice and reassurance or make a phone call.

Watched some last night and wanted to watch "catch up" just now, only to discover it was a repeat!

I think the clue was in an hour long show when it's usually half an hour, I think!

Apparently we only see a fragment of the presentation, and indeed many are made an offer that comes to nothing!

"Texas Joe" comes to mind when an offer from Peter was the last time they spoke. He only had a call from one of his minions!

Which Dragon  invested in some woman and then tried to get her to sign a contract that would have allowed him to dilute her shareholding to virtually nothing.

Jeremy Clarkson in the Dragons Den, with his P45.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANjTkM0ni9s