Peter Jones' reality check for overconfident tech entrepreneur! | Dragons' Den - BBC

next up his home firth based tech entrepreneur marketing gould who has a lot riding on his trip to the den today is huge for us in our company because we've worked really hard for the last two years to build something that's great but we've recognized that we need some help martin's decided that to win the Dragons over honesty is the best policy I'm gonna be transparent I'm gonna be friendly and hopefully when I get back in that lift I'll have a big smile on my face hi dragons my name is Martin gold on the CEO of Y boo I'm here today to ask for an investment of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds for a two point five percent equity share in our business why be limited dragons did you know that in the UK every single year consumers overpay for mobile phone contracts they don't know what they use so they don't know what to buy and the market is deliberately complicated we made why boo to solve that problem 1 download waifu to use your smartphone as normal 3 sit back and wait for wai boo to match you to a deal that's best for you not only do we match you on price but we also match you on signal strength and rai Deeley place to scale in the UK and internationally but we need you guys on board to help us do that quicker look forward to receiving any comments about the product an app that tracks your call and data usage to recommend the best mobile phone deals is the offering from York Sherman Martin Gould he's asking for a sizeable 250 thousand pounds for a two and a half percent share in his business Sarah Davies is keen to know more about Martin's experience in the mobile phone zone Martin hello you are from the industry absolutely we've been in the telecommunications industry for twenty years I was one of the first employees that sell net when he was analog and the networks know us and do they love our team and our people absolutely the you've just gone in found a few of the best people put the super duper awesome team together we've built a team to solve a real problem for consumers and mobile networks and we've got the foundation to grow and I do believe in it because I spent 14 months with no salary no income spending my savings to launch this service that's how much I believe in it Martin's passion and his impressive credentials seemed to be going down well with Sarah Davies Peter Jones made his first millions in mobiles how will Martin fare been quizzed by an expert Martin hi hi Peter you said a selling point is the fact that it will tell you the coverage where you live areum the best Network for you how do you get that information so we crowdsource it from users and we know that people have their mobile phone with them all the time this is from our own systems and our own algorithms and how many users do you have and so to date we've had 40,000 people that have downloaded our app and how many people in the UK have a mobile phone so there's 60 million people that have a consumer connection 60 million people have a connection yes and yet 40,000 people tell you where the coverage is so I'm gonna go on your site I bet and I put my postcode in you're not going to know whether the coverage is good for me or not so if we don't know we will tell you that we don't know we're completely transparent and will tell you - I get the message but say I'm sorry just don't know it as we scale in the UK we'll have more detail crowdsource and information and hopefully when you won't get it that is my point you'd be far better to utilize an average network coverage map I I think we've made the right decision in not using operator maps and being independent of every single mobile network the operator maps are static they take no account of population but totally agree with you but you've got 40,000 people out of a population of 60 million Martin's failure to embrace all the data available to improve his service signals trouble with Peter Jones will he get a better reception from Deborah Medan on the subject of the company's finances how much money we spent so far so we've spent about 1.1 million pounds and that's across the whole of our business so that's on technology development patents operation sales people premises ok and marketing 300 thousand pounds you see I think 300 thousand pound I'd have expected possibly to have heard of you okay and three hundred thousand pound for forty thousand signups does that sound like a good return to you know the reason we're here today is because we need your experience to grow quicker so tell me what happens a day to here's two hundred fifty thousand pounds what are you gonna do with it so we're gonna use that money to launch internationally what is the rush to go internationally when you haven't even tested the market fully Here I am I think there's a huge desire to go internationally because the products possible one of our key target areas is Australia because of the geographic landmass there's a real problem with signal strength out there so Martine you know sometimes people can't get right what's in front of them yeah but expectations go somewhere else we think that our app has the potential to scale internationally and you know that's the return for investors I mean it's like saying you know you can't get UK right maybe there's a softer target elsewhere I think you're delusional okay Martin's plans for world domination haven't gone down well with a wound up to casue Lehman and it looks like he's not off the hook yet as Peter Jones wants more information on the company coffers what has been your last year's turnover so I'm shaming this is going to be a very very big number because you valued your business today at 10 million it's not as big as we want it to be but we're well-placed to scale in the millions what's your turnover been so for the financial year 18 to 19 we're going to post revenue of around fifty to sixty thousand pounds fifty to sixty thousand Penn absolutely seal my chair okay okay that's I wasn't expecting that well how do you go from there do you want to know why we've arrived at the valuation with that help no I don't think you could put any level of common sense to that valuation Martin Peter might not want to know but I do good I'm fascinated then the other thing that bruh that supports our valuation less than twelve months ago one of the major price comparison sites tried to buy us on the valuation that they gave us at that time was five million pounds is it possible to see that offer yeah I've got it here I'd like to see Erica please you said that you received an offer for five million pounds for the company here's the reality you raised 2.1 million pounds 1.5 million of debt 650 of equity only to receive an offer from this company yeah of 2 million and they would have invested 2 million on the base of the fact that the companies already got 650,000 pounds of cash so the offer that you really had was not 5 million to be clear sorry I probably misrepresented what happened by accident the debt facility was after that offer arrived we did not have that 1.5 million pounds debt facility on the table when that offer arrived but you can't use that as a suggestion that your company a year ago was worth 5 million your company was worth significantly less than that and the offer shows that in writing okay so sadly I'm not going to invest today and say that I'm out tech tycoon Peter Jones dismisses Martin's valuation of his company and is the first to exit proceedings and the flaws in Martin's finances haven't gone down well with Debora Medan either I'm not happy about somebody standing in the den who is misrepresenting and offered the level of which this offer has been misrepresented so to get that letter and I presented to their board their complete UK operating board there's things and conversations behind that letter which makes me believe it's completely genuine that makes it worse this is clearly just an indicative proposal you're either very naive or you think I'm very naive it must be me it's me well either of those scenarios are not one that I particularly want to be part of so I won't be investing I'm out Martin I think you're in a very difficult position but you're an optimist won't be even better is if you're a realist okay and I think it's a good piece of technology actually but really the value of this technology only comes in when you've got about five million users and you can get the accurate data that you need for me it's not an investment today good luck I'm out so Martina you're not a big company you're doing 50,000 pounds a year turnover a little market store with there's more than that so if you got a valuation ten million pounds which is probably worth no more than a million as it stands today you think a dragon will come along and save you one thing's for sure I'm not I'm out that thorny issue of Martin's valuation just won't go away as touka Suleiman becomes the fourth dragon to hang up on the investment proposition but does Sara Davies think she spotted a kindred spirit in the entrepreneur you know it's fully madness I'm a salesperson that's what I do all day every day day in day out I sell and I'm watching you and I'm trying to read your body language as you're going because it takes one to know one okay I think you're a great sales guy thank you but I actually think you are believing a lot of what's in that letter and that for me is what's willing me and that's why I'm out thank you so that's it for Martin the confident entrepreneur remained cool under pressure but in the end his company price tag proved a hot spot he just couldn't get away from that goodness you asked for that so that letter in black and white says we'll buy your company for a lot of money and after two years after we've put more of our money into your company will give you more money he's a good salesman I think the Dragons of mr. trick I hope I bump into them all in a couple of years and I can buy them a drink [Music] you

Channel: BBC

Views: 484,348

Rating: 4.7611942 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, Deborah Meaden, Sara Davies, Peter Jones, Tej Lalvani, Touker Suleyman

Id: SCN5qE8cpjU

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 18 2019