Bullheaded Millionaire Demonstrates Why They Need Him | Dragons' Den

welcome to Dragon's Den home to five titans of the business world who are ready to pounce on profit producing ideas it's the season of goodwill but will there be sleigh bells or alarm bells in the Dead first to find out is an entrepreneur whose products are much in demand at Christmas time what am I worried about not much I don't think they'll probably say some nasty things about my business I expect but I'm pretty confident that I know most of the numbers [Music] heat of the moment may well mean that those slip out of my head but we'll see what happens when I get in there hello dragons my name is Andrew Pierce I'm the CEO and founder of thoughtful an online greeting card marketplace I'm here today to ask for 80,000 pounds for 5% of my business the the grief sorry I've totally lost myself I actually thought you're just being thoughtful did you know the online greeting card market is worth 1.6 billion pounds in the UK per annum and the innovation in this space hasn't really moved on it's moving launched over ten years ago that's where thoughtful comes in so thoughtful a market pace where we allow anyone to design create and upload their own content and with every card that we sell on behalf of the creator they receive 50 P which is a market-leading royalty our mobile app allows people to navigate really quickly to relevant cards you can even add your own handwriting we've been running for 12 months we have over 65,000 customers in 2017 we predict that we'll do 1 million pound turnover 2018 we're predicting we'll do 2.5 million turnover and 2019 6.7 million turnover I've got a couple of cards for two-hander and Qi world after a very nervous start Andrew Pearce finds his feet and manages to finish his pinch I hope I'm right with your card whoa he's offering a 5% equity stake in his online greeting card business and seeking an 80,000 pound investment in return Deborah Medan wants to understand the shopping experience of Andrews card clientele Andrew hi there's actually a lot of places you can buy obviously online so if I went on your site today it's actually actually I can actually transact 107 how many cards have you got active in our databases about 12,000 and how much they cost two pounds like nine plus postage so you're literally giving me the same experience if I walked into a shop bit to card up from a till walked over to the till I paid for it and then stuck a stamp on it yes okay you've got your 50 pence that goes out which is your commission what's else have you got in terms of cost of sales so you've got credit coffee printing in production so it's about one pound currently it's about one pound 20 ish that we make per column Deborah Medan breaks down the figures and discovers a healthy markup on the business's products but Jenny Campbell is wondering if the increasing use of social media might mean the writing is on the wall for a traditional card company Sandra this that card market going to decline all these people have stopped sending cards because they just posts a message on Facebook or they send you a text and cards become a thing of the past like handwritten letters have become a thing of the past the car market is still growing Jenny so it's still growing year-on-year I think it was five percent last year so people and we love giving a receiving cards in this country here were the biggest card giving nation in the world Andrew I'm not overly convinced that what you've pitched is anything unique yet I missed something because you can personalize using your own handwriting in an upload today currently yes okay so yeah what is it that you believe that you've got that's a real USP the USP is that some percent of our content is not available on the high street okay which is OK that's fairly unique so what have you spent on developing this app today we spoke about one and a half million pounds oh all right you spent one and a half million yes Wow Andrew I'm now completely intrigued where did you get that money from so okay so basically I've run my own businesses before before today from about the age of 21 I set up my first business which was a an outsourced call center and how much can you sell for we sell that for 12.1 million how much did you make six well so and then after that I thought why don't we try some conference calling so something totally different because you did that and what do you sell that business for sold that for about 37 million and how much did you make about 15 [Music] you've made 21 million yeah and you clearly you are a mega entrepreneur no question about it you should be seen here not quite yet the revelation that there's a sixth multi-millionaire in the den has caught the attention of the Dragons but mega-wealthy touka Suleiman appears more concerned with his two-pound ninety-nine personalized card thank you for calling me the old dragon now why are you here you don't need to be here well I mean the first reason for being here is I really need I really would like a dragon to be on board to help us grow the business over the next two years you could quite easily write a check out for 80,000 ballot you are blink absolutely Craig right so you don't need the money no you're not quite sure what you want from a dragon I think further on down the line with in terms of raising additional funding I'm a hundred percent certain what I was looking for with a dragon which is which is help networking opening their black book to different funding opportunities something that I've never done before so I've never raised any cash before I'm gonna banker that's okay give me the ball yeah look I think if a dragon puts in 80,000 pound for 5% within two years he'll be diluted down to about 1% I hope it won't be a division to 1% so having a dragon on board yes will definitely add value to your business hundreds of right and there's a price for that so if I was going to invest in your business I'd want to know that I won't be diluted so can you can you give me that guarantee I can cut it I call you back okay I'm looking at this I'm out thank you touka Solomon's concern that future investment will lead to some serious equity shrinkage makes him head for the door and Deborah Medan has an issue with the slice of the company that's up for grabs in this business I can see very quickly that you're going to get to a stage where you need millions okay raising of that doesn't concern me at all the bit that does bother me that if I started anything close to the percentage that you're offering I end up doing all of this work bringing you all of the funds in and ending up at the end of the day with a tiny tiny tiny piece I want to own a chunky bit that keeps my attention you are really good but it's just not my style so I I won't be investing I'm out but you're obviously a smart guy and a very successful businessman congratulations your previous business how did you build your customer base in that exact same ways I'm doing now was it online yeah and when you saw the company what were the sales of the company 16 million right and so you you did that without any investment yeah I'll tell you what I'm thinking I think it's a neat idea but you're gonna be diluting investors substantially by raising significant money and that's concerning look I will make you an offer but I'll need to have a certain amount of equity for it to make any sense and I'd probably be open to sharing this with another dragon so my offer is half the money 40,000 pounds for 10% of the business thank you tej Levani makes a move for the greeting card business however he's only offering half of the 80,000 pounds the entrepreneur is asking for any deal requires another dragon but just to have yet to declare time for Peter Jones to put his cards on the table Andrew you're the type of person I'd love to work with because I think it's good to work with somebody that clearly has entrepreneurial Flair talent been there done it and actually is putting their selves on the line and having another go but I'm really concerned for you with this business this is a very very very tough business to get right without a huge amount of capital behind you Andrew I'm gonna wish you well on your way and say that's the only reason why I'm out and but many many congratulations on your previous success thank you Peter Jones decides past riches don't outweigh future risk and declines a deal only Jenny Campbell remains her banking credentials could help to secure finance further down the line will she want in or opt out so I guess I sit here Andrew thinking come on it's a drop in any ocean that money to you and you've done it all before really if you need someone and I certainly don't like the small piece of equity but I'd like to be part of this journey because because you've been so successful and you know you buy the person first and foremost and you truly believe in this and I like a good card so I'm gonna offer you half the money for seven and a half percent thank you do you need to go and talk to the wall no not yet I think I think that might be a bit later on no at the moment there's not a deal that even works because at the moment Jenny's on seven and a half percent and you're on ten and I would like you both on two and a half each so what's the deal from structured that works for you guys and worse works for me as well well I mean look what I can do is I could drop it down to six percent when the money was paid back I would have to say no that that doesn't work for me anything more than ten percent for me today is something that I'm very very definite that I don't think we should do okay I think you know a ten percent is a good percentage and a good slug of equity in this business let's meet halfway eight percent dropping down to five point five percent each one some money's paid I just don't see that I have to stick to my guns here and I think it's it's it has to be say whatever you have a think on that one yeah yeah I'm sure I think and Jenny would match that as well would you yes tage Levani and Jenny Campbell's revised offer of a collective 16 percent reducing down to 11 once their investment is repaid is still more than the maximum the entrepreneur is willing to give away will he agree to the dragons terms or walk away from the deal hey Jenny I would like to set the office good decision Wow after a battle of attrition in the den the vitamins boss and banking kingpin unite to seal a deal and the entrepreneur departs with the 80 thousand pound investment he was seeking the open feeling is joy that it's finished oh it's a lot more nerve-wracking in there than you think actually you're right to push for the little bit extra because you're going to be seriously dilute I'm really excited to have Jenny and daizy on board with their backgrounds we will grow to a six and then hopefully going to 12 million pound business over the next few years you you

Channel: Dragons' Den

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Rating: 4.7885199 out of 5

Keywords: bbc iplayer, united kingdom, british tv, british tv shows, watch uk tv online, watch british tv online, dragons, den, best, new, series, worst, pitches, funniest, moments, most, shocking, ideas, products, businesses, peter jones, deborah meaden, dragons den worst pitches, dragons den funny, dragons den series 17, dragons den 2019, shark tank, shark tank 2019, new dragons den, new shark tank, sara davies, tej lalvani, touker suleyman, Andrew Pearce, Thortful Cards, Christmas Cards

Id: JpwOhUS4UwI

Length: 14min 47sec (887 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 14 2019