Top 3 Rejected Products That Made Millions | Dragons' Den

first stop the glamorous district of kensington an ideal location for hairdressing entrepreneur sean pulfrey who's looking to make his fortune in an industry worth over 5 billion pounds a year [Music] shawn entered the den in 2007 with an innovation he hoped would revolutionize the hairdressing industry offering a 15 stake in his company he knew it would be a tough job to gain 80 000 pounds of the dragon's own money i was expecting the worst that way i wouldn't be disappointed i thought i covered all aspects about the product where i was going and things and so i thought it was a nice solid presentation itself tangled knotted hair drives hairdressers insane tangled teasers uniquely designed teeth will glide through the hair removing knots and tangles that is of cause and associated with conventional tools on the market today and we get them now there is two markets for tangle teaser one is consumer and one is the trade i will be taking tango teaser to the trade already i've received two nominations for finalist competition for innovation within the trade itself and finally not only do i stand here for investment today i am also looking for a dragon that can help me take this product to a global consumer market sean what is what is it that's so unique about this product what is it that makes it untangled okay the product set itself is actually in the teeth the teeth has been designed in a slight three-tier system so when they actually touch into the hair rather than obviously in the conventional way it causes friction the teeth are designed to collapse and spring back sean you're obviously a hairdresser hair colorist yeah your color is yes what's the difference i i specifically divide just some coloring hair itself i don't blow dry cut or style i just color you just color like debra sorry sorry can we just go back on that i'm sorry you just colors like her hair i think well i color yes like beverly's highlighter clearly don't because there isn't any color on this oh well i beg your pardon this one beautiful palette well there you go wonderful one beautiful go back to my question question questions about you sean right so you cut our hair yeah and when did you invent this idea if i was pitching for 80 000 pounds of somebody's own cash i would avoid accusing them of dyeing their hair i think i turned around and offended deborah quite badly regarding a certain hair colour and it was obviously intentional it was just that the product works really well on coloured hair so i think she wasn't too pleased about that have you got the patent on this have you as far as the pattern goes recently i received information about from my patent lawyer there'd been some citations made against it but no citations had been made against the t um what's the difference between this and the horse grooming tools that are used with sort of collapse what looks exactly like that actually so i'm just interested how you think you can get protection on something i think i've got in my stables at home from what i received back from my pattern lawyer was that the actual design on my teeth had been no citation the one you may have back in your stables may flex and feel like you're missing the point sean you see i don't care how it's designed i don't care how yours is designed i don't care how the one back in my stables is designed all i care is that it does its job okay so if there is already a product out there that's doing exactly the same as yours or be it for horses but it would be very easy to say well let's make a smaller one and sell them okay i don't know i've never seen the one for horses but all i can tell mine to say that is that i should certainly look at that one for horses and see if it functions and performs like mine shawn's suddenly sounding less confident under the scrutiny of keen equestrian deborah meaden he needs to get his pitch back on track quickly sean um how many of these have you put into the market for testing there must be about 300 350 floating around over the night and how many how much what's the stats on the feedback how many feedback that i've i've had from that how many people i would say up to well just recently collecting 20. i had never actually gone any further with that feedback because for the simple reason i have not had the product to actually sell and that's why they've never been why didn't you sell some of the 300 instead of giving away because i was more interested in getting the feedback from the people themselves actually using them but you haven't got the feedback you just told peter you're 20 feedback 300 why don't you give them away and say okay i want feedback within two weeks but no that is the feedback that i just recently chased up that isn't just listening to your answers you know i think you know working with you'd have me pull my hair out it's not a business sean it's not a business that would make any money and uh you know well i'm out shawn's lost his first dragon will peter jones share the concerns of his rival investor sean this is really frustrating because you can't give me any indication that your product is good you've just got a brush that's all it is unless you can come in here and say i've gone out to 300 people 280 have signed up to some research because they got received it free 276 of them said they will buy one and they're willing to place an order i wish you the best of luck okay but until you have research that's backed up you can't get an investment from somebody at least of all me so i'm going to declare myself out now if you got 80 000 pounds from somebody here today what would you do with it well now do they um i would use it first of all for a stock investment yeah i would also then use it to um put more full time into this just for promotion what does that mean i'd have to actually reduce my work hours at work so how much of this 80 000 would you be 30 30 yeah so 30 of it's going to go to cover your costs and the rest of it in stock how are we going to make money out of this investment then from the from initial sales going into the wholesale through the hairdressers and from online so how many would you have to sell and in the first go yeah the first one two uh twenty thousand and they're gonna cost you how much each what to make one pound twenty five peaks are you gonna sell them to the trade yes how much five pound fifty have any of the wholesalers uh giving you an indication uh that they will take this i haven't had the product yourself so the answer to that has been no but i will be doing well that's absolute rubbish and not having no product to sell is irrelevant actually knowing whether they're going to take it you can then make the product but then i've actually never got to make the product and then have twenty thousand sitting in your back bedroom and then saying actually sean it's rubbish mate that's not clever is it you really had one job to do today which was demonstrate that this is a cracking product and it's the product that needs to go out there you haven't demonstrated that you talk about your patent protection even if you did get a patent the patent will be meaningless because there are other products out there that might be slightly different in their design but they actually do the job and if they see this out there oh that's a good idea we'll do it in their market so i'm sorry i'm out sean can i tell you where i am um i think you haven't really thought this through very carefully at all you haven't really got a qualified patent yet i think so from my perspective i think this is a waste of time saturn out the dragon's confidence in sean's business acumen is slipping away all that now lies between him and expulsion from the den is theopathis you're going about this all wrong you've failed dismally to actually do the basic things if you'd come here and said i've spoken to three distributors they'll all take it they know the industry they know the salons done done deal you didn't do it for those reasons i too am out mom theo i thank you and that's exactly what i'm going to do when i leave here do it thank you i will do thank you very much indeed i think sean should have taken quite a lot away from the den and that is how we demonstrate his product how to be non-aggressive towards the people that are going to invest in them it's a hair brained idea and whether or not he should talk to distributors there's so much he should have taken away that i think he should have gained from the experience so it's almost two years since the den and sean's brushes out and on the market has he learned any lessons from the ultra-critical dragons i did not receive any investment from the dragons what i did receive was some good advice i took that advice and obviously put it into action all in all we've crossed quite a few sectors high street into the professional and direction to consumers so business is excellent thank you duncan bannertine is in kensington to see whether sean did indeed leave the den a wider entrepreneur hi john how are you very welcome how are you doing yeah sean's keen that duncan gets to see his invention in its own setting right over here duncan we have the tangled teether in action there you can go maybe you'd like to have a go at it this time around um you had one look at that model is that yeah yeah yeah maybe you should have a live model when you came to dragon's den you didn't do that did you well that had made there any difference i think it might have done i think it might have done it might have worked yeah we'd all come up and tried it yeah the product works and it's better than i call there's no doubt about that so many of you sold jonathan and this is god's honest truth we've manufactured over 250 000 the question was too many of you sold 250 000 you sold 250 yeah no drive stock i do rolling stock we do forecast we manufacture here in the uk so we never stop power but this dragon wants the full lowdown on the company and what should be made what manufacturing the product are actually made yeah this year 127 000 pounds we made profit so if i get your account from company services 127 000. the account just did all the books yep they're not in company associate because they just got last year so they should have lost we did we made loss of 18 000 last year this year made a pre-tax profit of 127. [Music] sean's business may be growing but he knows he's got a long way to go i've learnt a hell of a lot i certainly don't confess to know it all i'm going to be the first to say i need help where do i go or you know if i need an answer to question i'll find a person who's got the answer listen nobody knows everything about business business is not an exact science yeah and we learn every day and i learn in dragon's den every single week some of the rangers would say they know everything about business the british school and business and they know everything they say that but they don't they learn we're all around every time i often get asked by individuals and the press which is the one that got away which is the one that you wish you'd invested in that you didn't and i have one or two that i mentioned but maybe this is the one we'll take over now didn't walk away with cash but walk away with valuable advice and like i said i wasn't too afraid to admit it and obviously go away and use it i think you've done very very well well coming for you duncan that is an absolute thank i do think we give sean a little bit of too hard of a time on dragon's den i think this product and other products that sean's inventing in the industry that he's in have got the potential to make him quite a lot of money a really good living and perhaps i shouldn't figure something valuing a company at a million pounds or more often riles the dragons if you're going in there doing that you'd better have some good figures to make your case can our next entrepreneur james nash from surrey justify a 250 000 pound investment for 25 of his company hello my name is james nash i'm the managing director of wine innovations limited and i'm here today to ask the dragons for 250 000 pounds for 25 of my company i've been working in the outdoor events arena for some time i also uh went to one event where i saw glass bottles be decanted into cardboard cups and it didn't look very nice at all so i thought that's horrible if i could come up with a good idea that enable people to pour wine or take wine in a goblet ready to serve it's got to be the ideal way so that's exactly what i did it was nerve-wracking because this was money that was generally needed i was spent out by now i mean nearly three hundred thousand pounds me and my wife have put in so we were thinking god if we we don't get this money um it could be the end of the company it's plastic you can bend it which a lot of people are amazed at um to demonstrate how strong they are uh one of the things that um we like to show people is i put my nine stone on it and as you can see it completely doesn't break at all it's fast to serve it's easy to peel the consumers love it they can pick one two three up go back to their seats it's perfect for them we have a patent which enables us to do the whole process of filling the wine glass sealing it and just before we seal it we put our secret patent way of making sure that the the oxygen is taken out and then inert gas goes in which seals it and gives us a 12-month shelf life which is great for the product we're selling it into big wine companies right yeah and i'm hoping that we'll get your support to take you into america where we've got a lot of inquiries and also europe for the moment i'd like to give you all the product and demonstrate how good it is and then welcome any questions and answers from you um how many of you actually got out there how many people have adopted this form of selling we've done trials last year we took it up to the rothschild concert at hampden park and we sold 20 000 units in one evening of four hours and then to make sure it wasn't beginner's luck we went to the chili peppers concert three weeks later and we sold 23 000 at that event okay and can you brand this yes we that's what we do we are we're a packaging company and um we've been working hard with world leading brand that's coming on board and you will see a brand label on the top there okay what's the implications of that for the business well at the moment they're offering us possibly three million units in the first year what does possibly offering us three million well we've got a letter of intent with us with us at the moment can i see it it's an immense deal and james's initial nerves seem to be settling now james khan wants to interrogate him on his financials what's the um production cost per unit can you give me some numbers well at the moment the whole thing is going to cost me 38 p we would sell it to the wine brand owners for about 53 they then take it to market for me i don't have to do the distribution i'm just the packaging company that packs their wine and their brand okay so you think you'll do three million where did what did you base the three million on well basically they've given they've given an indication on their case the case prices that the cases that they're going to order off me okay if that deal doesn't happen yep um would you still be projecting three million units if that didn't happen we'd go with possibly our unknown lame bull that we know and that might be about one and a half to two so therefore your profits would drop by 50 yes yes absolutely so you're putting your valuation on the back of your letter of intent yes yes james is confident in his future deal but duncan banertine is concerned that copycat rivals could easily steal sales away james come on this is this is a plastic glass yup you didn't invent the plastic glass no not at all okay it's going to be filled with wine you didn't invent the wine you don't run away nope that's right it's going to have a seal on the top you didn't invent the seal because there's loads of things that seals on the top absolutely so what have you got this unit why can't a wine cellar make his own glass put it in and put a tap on it well i think that there's nothing to stop them except that i've got there first i've got a pattern which protects the process of doing it the process of putting the top on or on this yeah on top well no no it's making sure that we we get rid of the oxygen and put an inert gas in it so we get a 12-month shelf life james yep is it a pattern that you've applied for or is it a pattern that you've actually yes we've probably been granted no it's an apply for pattern so we've got 12 12 to 18 months before it's granted if there's no objections and when did you apply uh not long ago we had to wait till the machine was built and it was only about three weeks ago i've never had that one before well process of getting the glass through the filling machine you could have applied for the patent for the machine before you started manufacturing the machine well we had to get the we have to understand the way that the glass was accepted to the to the machine you don't understand it before you started making the mission well basically i've it's brand new it's a brand new technology it's brand new to me so we've actually you know it's a little bit of you know a brand new company james is faltering under cross-examination in the meantime deborah meaden has been scrutinizing his all-important letter of intent i'm a bit confused of what i'm looking at i was expected to see a letter that said i'm intending to buy from you no they've they said they sent me that through as their intention of the order with the skus james this isn't what this is this there isn't there's there's nothing here that says i actually intend to buy this product from you this is one of those moments when i looked at what was supposed to be a letter of intent and realized it wasn't actually a letter of intent but i just thought oh no i think it's amazing many people come along to the den and they say they have an order or a letter of intent or something and we read the letter and actually it isn't what they think it is or what they said it is it's something completely different i was kind of expecting uh uh i think you said three million yeah yeah no they've they said they're not prepared to do that yet until we've done the qa well when i ask you for a letter what do you think a letter of intent is i let you into something prepared to purchase the product off you okay well this isn't everybody this is a list of his products and if they purchase the product then that might be what it would cost james just so i can go back to the the question i asked you previously you value your business at a million pounds and i said is that on the strength of your letter of intent to which you said yes it was yes and now we've established that we have no orders yep so it's a verbal they've given us a verbal indication of what they're looking to do as a venture capitalist do you think i value businesses on some vague statement that somebody makes or do you think i base it on tangible numbers absolutely tangible numbers and uh opportunities i'm out thank you can i tell you where i am sadly james a letter of intent turned into an extremely weakened version of that it turned into a letter it was just a letter there's too many of putzone maybes on this one so i'm afraid on that james has alienated two dragons theo perfetus still has some unanswered questions about the patent what happens if i give you 250 000 pounds yep of my money and the patent office just laughs at you well at the moment i mean i i can't yeah i mean at the moment we've applied for patent we've got we've got 18 months to get our product to market before anyone objects james i'm i think that you know that your patent will have a load of objections i think you know your patent won't stand up well um my marketing director who's downstairs waiting for me can give you some facts and figures on it because he knows all about the patents and how it sells them yeah well he comes from one of the leading wine brand owners and saw it and said i like this product let me see your market manager okay i'd like to ask in a bid to salvage his pitch james has called upon his advocate ian belcher hello dragons tell me about you ian what have you done um i actually have 10 years experience in the wine industry um i've been working as the european marketing controller for one of the largest wine companies uh that would be gallow winery james approached me with the with the idea and said ian i want you to have a look at this and i have to say in my 10 years experience within the wine industry i think it's one of the most innovative products that i've seen and so you placed an order for how many um no at that time are you working for galore wines james approaches you with this you think it's the most innovative thing i've seen in the wine industry for 10 years james here's an order now for the we we didn't place an order because at that time james was was talking to an even bigger wine company at the time and uh that's that's where we're at at the moment what happened to the even bigger one company then have they placed another we have a verbal agreement admittedly it's only verbal where this is past the qa process i was like just so fed up with it which is absolutely ludicrous ridiculous so no one's placed an order which proves to me that it doesn't work as a selling item because people don't want to buy wine and plastic glasses like that we're still on top it's as simple as that so for that reason i'm up okay it's a damn in condemnation now only peter jones and theo pefitus are still in james i think you've asked for a ridiculous amount of money okay i think you should have come in here and said i'm not sure what i've got i've got a verbal arrangement but hey it's a punt and if it works it could be good for you i would have invested in that but you've placed yourself out of the market 250 000 pounds is ridiculous and that's the reason why i'm out okay thank you okay for me to actually invest and not know whether in six months time six weeks time something comes out that would work because you've only applied three weeks ago for a patent and i have not got a business and my money's lost is not a risk that i'm prepared to take for a quarter of a million pounds so that's why i'm out okay thank you james couldn't prove his product would make any money and the remaining dragons passed on the opportunity coming out with a no was pretty um daunting really and i thought oh my god you know what what's going to happen i'm going to lose my house and everything [Music] but luckily for james not everyone agrees with the dragons and 12 months on his business is i've got a phone call and somebody said look i've seen your product i love it could i invest he saw merit in there and said i'm going to invest the 250 000 for 20 of your company in a way it was a big relief [Music] the goblets may be selling well as events but the low profit margins mean he needs to start shifting in [Music] and volume has just secured an agreement with one of the biggest chains in the country seeing the product in marks and spencer stores absolutely sends my hands on my back of my neck go up there are plans now to roll out the goblets nationwide but is it enough to finally make james a profit great that looks good we're expecting to produce somewhere in the region of about three and a half to four million units which would actually give us the gross turnover about 1.8 million pounds james's projections are ambitious and now he wants to prove to duncan that he got it wrong i don't think i'm going to say i told you so but hopefully you'll see the product and think to himself oh yeah this guy done okay i'm very skeptical about how it's selling whether they're selling one per week or two per week or even slightly more than that but i'm here to see i am a bit nervous but i'm not as nervous as i was when i was in the dragon's den and hopefully he'll see and appreciate what we've done here we go here he comes ready hello duncan and as you can see so this is the product yes this is it this is uh the wine goblet which we showed you in the dragon's den and we've been very successful in getting the patterns approved for the production and how we seal it to give us that pattern which was great very good and how's it selling very well it's exceeded all expectations we're in double-digit growth week on week if somebody expects to sell two and it's l3 then that's exterior expectations they are increasing week on week in a substantial way enough to give us the confidence to go into 600 stores so the customer obviously liking it james has done everything he can but the dragon is only interested in one thing profit what does it cost you to produce it it's it's something around these 65 70p but that's without the wine in it so with the master there is very little margin in it well it's volume related it's like big product any product like this is all volume related from the figures he's been given duncan is convinced that james doesn't make enough profit but james begs to differ what we're turning over now expectations for the end of the year that 250 thousand pounds is going to be given back to our investors so he's he's more than happy at the moment which is great news right yeah you could buy his shares yeah so 250 000 that's right so we were ready 2010 yes end of 2010 yeah you're not going to have 250 000 pounder bank against 2010 duncan has a proposition but it's not what james had in mind i bet you 50 quid that your your end results for 2010 your profit before tax will be a loss before tax i'll take you up on that bet 50 quid okay good luck anyway thank you very much nice to meet you helen thank you very much thank you very much thank you for coming it's down for two pounds minutes to v8t and it's costing over a pound to produce so much smells supposed to be the very very thin margin and james must be as well there's very little profit now it's got an awful awful lot i sincerely hope that james proves me wrong i hope he does well i hope he makes a fortune hope it doesn't lose his house but you know my head still rules my investments and i wouldn't invest in this now the margins are far too small for duncan but james isn't put up given the anguish and heartache i've gone through getting it to hear from my perspective i'm over the moon and i'm and i know my family are and it's brilliant it looks good it holds the wine great for a year customers are loving it now and and i think that is giving me the confidence to answer don't come back and say duncan no you're wrong the first time you were wrong this time you're wrong right yeah and you'll be wrong again at the end of the year [Music] the dragon's den tour continues into bristol which has always been at the hub of britain's role as a trading nation bristol is one of the uk's most affluent cities and is home to a vibrant design community and to rob law creator of one of the den's best loved products [Music] back in 2006 when businessman richard farley was part of the dragon lineup rob came into the den asking for a hundred thousand pounds for ten percent of his company was just over three years since i was in the den it's not such a distant memory i think trixie the pink trunky still actually has nightmares about it my name is rob law and i'm here today looking for an investment of a hundred thousand pounds for a 10 share in my company to design and distribute revolutionary luggage and travel products for little people under our very own trunky brand now i'm sure you're all aware and familiar with the stresses and strains associated with traveling with small children mix toddlers limited detention spans with inevitable delays at airports and you have a recipe for disaster that would challenge even the most experienced parents even those of you who may happen to travel by private jet so let me introduce you to a solution meet terence and trixie the world's first and only ride on suitcases for globe trotting tots toddlers can pack sit on and ride their trunkies while parents can keep their kids in tow quite literally the child sitting on the case the trunkies are lightweight and durable made out of the same materials adult suitcases are with generous space inside for children to pack their favorite toys and games i've designed it with a soft rubber rim so when the children are packing the case they can't hurt their fingers but to date we've sold 20 000 units and are available through the trunky website thank you for your time now would anyone like to test ride a trunki okay i'll do it here we go have a go on terence designer rob law has got off to a strong start with his pitch for a hundred thousand pounds for a 10 share in his magmatic business specializing in trunking ride-on luggage for jet setting toddlers okay rob thanks very much that was uh quite entertaining and and this looks fun and you know i have six children so i know what it's like traveling with them so so let me just go into the business aspect with you you sold 20 000 all through your website no we've sold 200 through our website uh we sold 260 at the baby show in birmingham and we've sold 566 to wholesalers so far and today we sold 19 000 to one customer in saudi arabia so they bought nineteen thousand dollars they bought nineteen thousand so what price are you selling them up uh in the uk that everyone has to retail at 24.99 no that's not a question i oh sorry what price am i selling them you sold 566 to wholesalers what price did you ten pounds ten pounds you make thirty percent profit so they cost you seven pounds to make they're going out the door about seven quid cost to us of course you're seven quid duncan banertine seems impressed both by rob sales and his thorough handle on his figures deborah meaden wants to take a closer look at the luggage itself [Music] i think they're great they look great they're very funky i actually want to have a look at one eye are there any stability i'll show you this one then what happens when a small bearing in mind you're putting small children on this i mean i saw you wheel it in a straight line what happens if it okay yeah trick tricks you there will pretty much follow you around wherever you go okay so have you had any feedback cause we haven't seen one or two turns from the ones that you've sold we have had some returns but that's due to the fact the new factory that's manufacturing them they've got the catches slightly wrong so some of the catches are popping open the turning point in the den from a good pitch to things tumbling downhill out of my control was when theo got a little bit too aggressive with my pink trixie suitcase i did not expect the strap to break so easily i've got to be honest that got my attention what did you do there it'd get my kids attention as well is this a faulty catch one no that's you've pulled the hook off there yeah i shouldn't have done that should i rob's suitcase isn't the only product that's been tested to the limit per fetus style there is now the theo test like we'll hand it over to theo and see whether or not it survives it but you know and if it does it's it's clearly a robust product are you trying to break it field will die there was several products that i know if i sold in my stores would come back the last thing you want as a retailer is products to come back while deborah meaden has been grilling rob theo perfitus has been testing trixie the trunky himself and seems to have found a flaw can rob get his pitch back on track after this setback there is one one slight issue with the case is the hooks that the only thing i actually did not design the factory got those in this case sorry that's not the only slight issue and the catch this one is this one's a rubbish yeah i didn't design that i'm afraid no but they are rubbish yeah and in addition to being rubbish when i pulled it that happened so why did that happen not entirely sure rob's in real trouble the dragons now have serious concerns about the reliability of his colorful ride-on luggage the moment theo pulled that handle off the whole integrity of the quality of that product was compromised so i think you've done really well congratulations to get this far but i just don't think it's a business opportunity okay so i'm afraid i'm out rob let me tell you where i am you've got problems with the product you've got problems that can be solved yeah but you shouldn't come here with problems that can be solved without either identifying them or sorting them out first and it drives me mad that we actually waste our time with these things i too am out [Music] rob's been blasted by a furious theopha fetus and he's lost two dragons in as many minutes now peter jones wants to know more about rob's bid for a hundred thousand pounds in return for 10 slice of trunky hi um why is your company worth a million pounds i have a uk uh trademark for trunky and i'm in the pro halfway through the process of applying for european trademark for trunky yeah so you're trademarking registering the name so you've got a brand name what else have you got i have a european-wide design registration on the product but design registration means nothing doesn't it because i can copy that just maybe change a couple of things and i'm away this product this type of product is not patentable no it's not and that's why i'm really concerned because i don't understand why then you would have valued a business that's worthless now a million pounds i beg to differ that you think it's worthless um well what have you got i've got talking about in china that's making this product one of the reasons why rob rob let me understand what you've got because this is where it gets and we i see hundreds of people like you and this is what where there is a big issue here the big issue is that you have nothing you think you have something i tell you you don't i tell you why you don't within seven days i could do a better job than that make sure the clips are working make sure the arm doesn't clip off i could get tooling done in china within three two to three weeks i could have this in production by the end of next month your company is currently worthless i'm out rob's been torn apart by peter jones now will either richard farley or duncan valentine throw rob the lifeline he so badly needs and rescue his bid for investment when did you form this company back in february 2003. what's this balance sheet like is that of debt sir yes how much debt does it mean um looking at the balance sheet last night about 55 000 pounds have been invested through myself and my family that's debt that the company owes equity that's director's loans and uh investment yeah so you're willing to put a 55 000 pound back yes the dragon's confidence in rob's business acumen has been further dented with the revelation that he expects money he's invested into the business to be paid back to him richard farley is ready to reveal his position you're charging twice because you own the company and you've got the company for the effort and money you've put in and then you want us to invest in the company and the company to pay you back that that was your investment in the business to get it to where it is so if i was ever going to consider an investment i want that debt completely written off i don't want to invest in businesses which don't owe any money not not to the not to the people who set them up and own the company you've got shares for all that effort and money that you put in you've got the shares consequently without even making your firm a firm offer but just to know if it's worth continuing the conversation would you be prepared to move to something like half the company for a hundred grand the biggest reason that uh you should still believe in the value no no i just i don't want to be convinced i just want your answer of whether you're whether you would negotiate right up to around about fifty percent on on i can go up to fifty percent no nowhere near it i can go to fifty percent now okay well i'm out i wish you the best of luck thank you very much rob's stubbornness has driven richard farley away from any further discussion only duncan bannaty now stands between rob and expulsion from the den i want to say i've got to think about this and quite often we get products here and look at the product i think i would buy that product but i wouldn't invest in the company okay this is actually different because i wouldn't buy it okay why is that okay because my children would want to be told about all the time and pulled along this and i'd have more in trolley pools i'd be pulling two trolleys so i would actually lose out by it if i bought one so i wouldn't buy it i wouldn't invest in the company so i have no interest in this at all so i'm going to declare myself out but thank you very much indeed thanks for your time guys cheers cheers [Music] after a great start rob plummeted in the dragon's estimation and leaves the dead empty handed does everybody think we're fools a million pounds for a business that doesn't exist i think i think he really thought it was worth that i think he thought his little trunk logo and everything was worth it in their right mind would think that was worth a million quid rob how did how did you feel it went it wasn't it wasn't all bad was it no i thought it was pretty bad uh they completely took me to pieces well let's talk a bit about the valuation first because obviously they just thought you were on the wrong planet yeah your company is currently worthless i mean for a hundred thousand quid they could have a whole company for themselves doing that kind of thing trying to question pete jones's product design skills now the other big moment theo pulled the hook off what were you thinking at that stage i was wondering why he was tugging a lot so hard it's designed for three to six year olds who don't have the kind of muscle power that theo has on his in his arms okay well done okay thanks evan cheers now for the first time rob will come face to face with the dragon who destroyed his high hopes of investment in the dead theopa fetus last time i met theo we had a bit of a run in the den that was over three years ago now so really looking forward to meeting him today just so that i can show him how much i've managed to grow the business on my own [Applause] hello rob hi theo how you doing good you yeah very good so this is it this is the empire yeah this is trunky towers fabulous everywhere look trunkies have you seen any or broken any trunkies since i last not recently i have seen absolute loads in fact every time i go to an airport there's a trunk here i've got two little girls and holly that trunky shut up okay dad dad chunky and i have to make a look at the trunking so they've never let me forget it [Music] [Applause] over here sam's been working on this new concept called the booster pack so it's essentially a backpack right that doubles for the school run and on holidays as a booster seat car booster seat oh excellent so every time product from trunky down i mean one of the biggest problems you get when you've got small kids and you go to another country and hire a car you have to hire a booster seat or take your own yeah so problem solved how many products have you got now we've got the range of trunkies themselves we've now developed this little saddlebag so when they're out and about we've got a little day bag joe over here is actually working on our mark three so uh the one i took into the dems the mark one we then that wasn't gonna that was a mark one with a dodgy clip well somebody say dodgy rectified very very quickly indeed so this is a trunky hercules actually imagine any bolt cutters for this one do i very nice tour complete theo's keen to discuss the company finances and to find out whether he was right not to invest in the den so what was your turnover for 2009. it was 1.14 million and the previous year was about 700 000. looking to significantly increase that this is what you did 741.14 and what do you reckon about 2010. over two million right six million dollar question if you do two million what will that profit be it wouldn't be massive uh probably about a hundred thousand um a lot of the excess on top of that has been reinvested in the business right and then and the year that finished in february 2009 what did you show as a net profit on that one no profit was about 36 000 right that's great growth but that's top line growth the bottom line isn't quite as impressive yeah a lack of profit is like a cancer it'll kill you off very slowly so it really is imperative for you at this stage if you're growing this business and expanding this business that you find make sure that you have got the cash to go forward lack of cash flow is that a heart attack bang you're dead you can't pay the bills you can't pay the pay you and you can't pay the v80 you can't pay the rent yeah that's it's over and all that can say is i wish you the very best of luck great thanks a lot for you it was great to come back and see rob and see how he's gone and he has done well i mean he's got his turnover to a million pounds profitability not quite as good as i'd hoped but he's got to concentrate on that and i'm worried about his cash flow and that's the problem a lot small businesses are facing the banks are not lending at the moment it's one of the extra challenges we've got at the moment with the recession despite what you hear about the current economic climate and it's all doom and gloom it's actually a fantastic opportunity for smallish businesses like mine to really grow and to fund his expansion plans rob has managed to secure a much-needed cash injection with a private equity investor james stevens we've managed to secure an equity investment of 200 000 pounds for 10 of the business which values the business at two million um after three years of trading which i'm very pleased about thank you very much you

Channel: Dragons' Den

Views: 2,235,582

Rating: 4.872344 out of 5

Keywords: dragon's den uk, deborah meaden, peter jones, touker suleyman, business pitching, Dragons’ Den Rejects prove Investors wrong by Making Millions, dragons den, dragons den rejects, dragons den successful rejects, dragons den failures, dragons den best pitch, dragons den fight, dragons den trunki, dragons den tangle teezer, dragons den biggest investment, dragons den trunki pitch, dragons den tangle teezer pitch, dragons den latest, shark tank rejects that became successful, 2021

Id: s2O0SvrlFKA

Length: 45min 13sec (2713 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 02 2021