Entrepreneur's Dirty Play On Fellow Shareholder Disgusts The Dragons | Dragons' Den

[Music] and hoping the Dragons don't let another potential multi-million pound hair products slip through their fingers is stylist nicola wood from Berrien Greater Manchester who's turned frustration in the salon into a creation for the salon there was nothing else on the market that did what I needed it to do so I decided to design it myself this is one for Tudor pizzas probably my main dragon it do real benefit for my brand [Music] hello dragons my name is Nick Lord and I'm the founder of easy left I'm here today for 80,000 pounds but it's 25% stake in my business the easy left is a hair extension holder that's been designed to hold all hair extension types both in a domestic and a commercial environment working with our extensions can be quite difficult especially because your workstation just isn't quite big enough the hair often falls on the floor gets caught in the tools and it can be quite stressful so for hair extension specialist like myself I've designed the easy eft allowing you to dry style and store the hair since I first started I've sold 1,600 units and it retails at 19 pounds 95 thank you for listening and now like to show you my product hoping her holder for hair extensions will cut it with the Dragons is Nicola would take one and you want to take some hair as well who's offering to trim off 25% of her company in return for an investment of 80,000 pounds first with the questions is Deborah Medan thanks Nicola I know a lot more about hair extensions than I ever ever thought I would because of course I did strictly and I became very familiar with actually the issue that you're talking about because every time I had hair extensions I they said to me even keep them and then they ended up looking like some kind of dead animal in the bottom of my drawer so you sell sixteen hundred units and what does that meant in terms of revenue turnover today is fourteen thousand okay with a gross profit of eight thousand and we're in negative equity with the it's all right [Music] making a net loss of fourteen thousand and are you making any money on a monthly basis or are you still losing money on no we're making money now you're no vacant yeah okay the initial loss was because of tooling and production and design of the package and design of the product Nicola hi it's a nifty little product I think I like it I've got some bad Falls of those in my drawer at home so yeah quite like the idea excellent so what do you next two years numbers look like so this year itself we've got projected sales of two hundred and five thousand okay and next year next year is four hundred and twenty thousand mm-hmm that's a pretty phenomenal growth from a fourteen thousand gray to two hundred and five thousand yeah and then doubling again to four hundred twenty thousand how much of you sales increased in the last three months then so in the last three months we've sold six thousand pounds worth of products or two thousand each month roughly yeah okay but you still feel it's going to double it two hundred five pound weights this year yeah absolutely a scale up that I know in mountain time yeah it does sound huge but I totally believe that we can do that so why'd you need a dragon and I think because I've not got any marketing background I'm not got any sales background whatsoever and I know it's an absolutely amazing product because it saves so much time and effort what's the nearest product to this out there and there's something in America well if prongs are very sharp and the quiet close together so it's quite different the UK what's the closest thing there isn't anything outside oh you know think this is this is it this is it I must commend you I like it when people come up with simple products that foresaw the problem and you've done that quite well thank you but with a product like this it's a one-time purchase versus a shampoo or a hair product that's a reusable custom we'll come back and buy it yeah so my concern is that if someone's bought one that's it your your markets gonna the limited number what we're finding in salons is one style is still buying a product and then it has a knock-on effect because anybody else that's working in that salon will also buy it I mean whilst I think it's a great solution and invention you would come up with I really think that the market size is quite limiting you don't get repeat purchase and you know for that reason I'm fortunate I'm gonna say I'm not gonna invest but I'm out Heys Levani gives the hair product the brush-off and makes an early exit Peter Jones is the entrepreneurs favored dragon and he has a startling admission to make looks like I'm gonna really surprise you now and I know a little bit about hair extensions - brilliant yeah best in a business that did hair extensions right okay so to understand what the opportunity could be how many women in the UK where hair extensions one in seven was the last one in serve a function okay that but that's good and how many women are there in the UK of that age group that would wear it at the age group will hair extensions come people from about 16 year old going right up to 60 70 year old ladies okay so how many women are in that demographic I do know this Peter and I'm really upset with myself because it's not could it be 1520 million I think is yeah this so this part it's Wednesday it's 15 15 million women 15 million and then one in seven of those is your market yeah so your market is two million people in the UK it's a huge market I really like the product and I'm also sitting here thinking and you know sometimes I don't know the real size of the opportunity like we've had something in here that Tangle Teezer and I've got that wrong having previously rejected a hair product that has gone on to make over a hundred million pounds of sales Peter Jones isn't keen to make the same mistake twice meanwhile touka Suleiman wants to find out if there's the potential to make big bucks from this hairstyling accessory Nicola hello you mentioned there was a couple in the u.s. that does this what's that turnover I can't tell yet but that's the first thing you should have said to us I said Here I am would it product my competitor in the u.s. is hurting over 100 million and you guys should invest all their ears will go really but if I tell you that there's almost a billion pounds span worldwide last year on hair extensions that that just makes my ears prick up massively obviously I do need help with getting it out there too right then you leave you need a lot more money if I gave you 80,000 pound today what would happen to that easy browsers so 40,000 pound was gold towards marketing and the other 40,000 pound I have a friend that started the company up with me right up it was my idea and it was his money that started easy left off so who owns a business so what percent do you own I own 50% at the quiff keeper said yeah and and he owns 50% 50% so you're using the money to buy him out 40,000 pound yeah you're actually using half of this money to buy your partner out yeah I'm 40,000 pounds by is 50% of the company yeah so you want 80,000 for 25% but you're willing to get for 40,000 pounds 50 percent of the company yes yeah yeah but do you see how disingenuous that is I'm giving you 80,000 pounds and 40,000 of it will go to somebody else to give you 50% of the company you don't own and yet I only end up with 25% I totally understand where you're coming from I don't think that's good Nick I think that's appalling actually do you really it's really really really bad yeah that's something you should have mentioned from the outset I wasn't hiding in peace hours I was obviously no but that's really a question that's quite a big now that's a big thing like that just doesn't that doesn't work I think that kind of does it really just doesn't kind of work for me so for that reason I'm out the entrepreneurs bombshell revelation leaves the Dragons gobsmacked and niccola's favored investor Peter Jones cuts and runs will Jenny Campbell come to the aid of the struggling entrepreneur Nikhil I think that has been a big faux pas not saying that in the beginning I actually said to you what you want to drag him for and you could have said it then sorry Jenny but if a part that for a moment I say to myself is there a gap in the market yes there is is there a market in the gap yes and but then it's about how big but your sales are not where they need to be yet to make that growth believable okay so probably for that reason rather than what I would call your faux pas I'm out Nicola okay you've made the thing very complicated I like the product and I think you'll sell some but it's not one that I want to invest in today and I think I'm out okay it seems the entrepreneurs post investment plans have paralyzed her pitch Deborah Medan is niccola's only remaining hope for investment will she be any more forgiving I have to say that was a bit of a catastrophic moment when I put my money into the business I want that money to work to drive that business forward half of the money gone can I add something yes I am more than willing to get a bank loan to pay for that far 2,000 pound to go dragon on board that's great but you've said that now under pressure I just don't there's something however all of that said you are good and you've done a cracking job thank you I'm really sorry Nicola babe I it's too much I won't be investing I'm out good luck all the best thank you the Dragons just couldn't get over niccola's buyout blunder well that revelation was a bit hair-raising mm-hmm I don't believe that she did it deliberately yeah just a bit of naivety I wasn't trying to hide anything in the den at all did I do it the right way probably not should I said it sooner but there was a lot of positive feedback in there I know just crack on I'll make a massive success Tangle Teezer so I need to say you you

Channel: Dragons' Den

Views: 1,506,696

Rating: 4.8329105 out of 5

Keywords: dragon's den, dragon's den uk, evan davis, deborah meaden, peter jones, touker suleyman, tej lalvani, business pitching, entrepreneur, game show, reality tv, shark tank

Id: Bs95vGpGk2M

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 30 2019