This weeks pitches on Dragons’ Den were:

• tingotang – is a symbol for single people, described as a simple way to show people you are single, friendly and approachable. They were looking for an investment of £100K and offering 20% equity in return. They were intending to spend £13K on a PR campaign but didn’t explain what the rest would be used for. As they had only turned over £850 to date their valuation was unrealistic. I’m with the Dragons in this one, I would not have invested in this business opportunity.
• Mr Stripey – Was looking for £90K to promote and sell a machine that produces an ice cream painted with thick stripes of multicoloured syrup. With only 20 sales over a four year period and the Dragons own experience in selling ice cream it didn’t find any interest. I’m not quite sure what problem this business solves, my local ice cream man just pours the syrup on…
• Magnetic Connection Company – Wanted £165K in return for 10% equity to develop and sell their magnetic light fitting. They started off well but it rapidly fell apart when Duncan Bannatyne demonstrated a problem with the design which could lead to the light bulbs falling out. James Caan stepped in an suggested an improvement to resolve the problem, but the problem was obvious really shouldn’t have been there in the first place. It was then revealed that another investor already owns 40% of the equity and the equity was provided in return for a loan rather than an investment. Caan offered them half of the money they were looking for in return for 12.5% on the same terms as the current investor but no other Dragon wanted to take the other half.
• Whatsyatag – Looking for a £100K investment they offered fashion with codes on. The dragons didn’t see the market. While it’s not my cup of tea it might be a viable business opportunity especially in Japan where QR codes (a type of two dimensional barcode) have really taken off and in some case been integrated with fashion.
• IR Hand Dryer – A short pitch for a rather large hand dryer that used IR, needless to say it didn’t get an investment of £100K. As a business opportunity I suspect it’s got some tough competition from the new dryers being developed by Dyson.
• The Happy Horse Company – Looking for an investment of £95K The Happy Horse Company sells a saddle pad which has endorsements from leading vets in the UK and USA but just isn’t selling. She upset the dragons by saying that she had never advertised and then declaring that she’d tried one ad and it didn’t work. I’m not surprised it didn’t work, as most advertising done by SME’s is poorly designed and to design a good advert you need to keep testing the advert and evolving it, running it once is just not enough. As she was only selling two per day at an average price of £36 it wasn’t a business opportunity that the dragons were interested in investing in.
• Dolphin Alarms Looking for an £150K investment to promote their pool alarms for kids.
• Seaphina – They wanted £75K investment in the pre-natal & post-partum stomach control belts.
• Electro Expo – A truly bizarre approach from Peter Moule, he clearly didn’t need the investment as he guaranteed their money and stated the business had profits of £300K per year and £250K cash and no debts on its balance sheet. Instead he was after advice and mentoring to get into the retail sector. Quite why he thought the Dragons were a good place to get it I just don’t know, he could have brought a LOT of business consultancy for the less than the dragons cost him. Especially as Bannatyne, who invested didn’t believe there was a retail market – which there is, I for one have a use for his chocbox and I can think of a number of applications that do not violate the Part P regulations that were mentioned.

What did you think of the pitches?

I’m now convinced that the only current Dragon I’d ever want to work with is James Caan, the others seem to delight in being rude and obnoxious. I wish the BBC would replace them and stop promoting this negative image of entrepreneurs. It’d be nice to see the return of Richard Farleigh and Doug Richards. Who would you want to work with out of them all?

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