Dragons’ Den – Series 7 – Episode 1
I’ve been meaning to write my analysis of the 1st Dragons Den episode of series 7 for the last week but time has stopped me from doing so. So here I sit at 2am in the morning having just watched the 2nd episode and thought I’d better get around to doing so before they remove it from iPlayer and I forget what was featured!
First up on the series was inventor Rupert Sweet-Escott who entered the den looking like he’d just invented the first ever aeroplane, strapped to his back no less. It turned out to be a pedal-powered hang gliding accessory and was one of a handful a number of aviation inventions Rupert Had Invented.
Rupert made a huge mistake by trying to demonstrate his product by having a friend in the harness hang underneath a stepladder, if your trying to make people laugh this is acceptable, but if your looking for £80,000 investment, this might not have been the best idea.
Rupert’s inventions included the pedal-powered hang gliding accessory (the airbike), A wind turbine that looks like a chimney pot, some kind of folding beam mechanism (which wasn’t explained very well so I don’t quite understand what it did) and a further aircraft with short takeoff and landing which he hoped would go into military or search and rescue.
Rupert received one offer for 49% of his business which he accepted from James Caan who decided one of his inventions would probably come off one day and he as a person was worth a punt.
I’m somewhat surprised that the star product here was missed by the dragons and they were distracted by the aviation products. A wind turbine that looks like a chimney pot, simple, yet completely in line with today’s energy conscious consumers.
Add to that the planning restrictions councils instill on properties stopping them from having such energy saving devices in built up residential areas due to the “aesthetics” of the area, and quite frankly this is a winner that is going to go a long way.
James may well have stumbled into something of a great deal without realizing it, or he may have been keeping it quiet to get a good deal, either way a canny investment.
Katie Olver came into the den with a range of saucy / romantic novels which substituted the names of the main characters and other details for your own. Katie didn’t receive any investment from the dragons but I’ve since seen her products featured on Firebox.com, so she didn’t do too bad from the experience:
http://www.firebox.com/product/2319/You-Star-Novel
Probably the best invention on the first episode was the environmentally friendly patio heaters from Eddie Middleton, delivering 50% less carbon emissions that regular patio heaters.
Eddie initially refused to give his wholesale price to the dragons on the grounds of it being “sensitive information”, which truly riled the dragons. Understandably so, how can anybody expect people to give £255,000 when your not prepared to give a 2 year old wholesale price?
He finally relented but by this time had lost the majority of the dragons.
Eddie was offered the money he asked for in return for 48% of the business in a combined bid from Peter and James, but turned down the offer on the grounds that the equity stake was too high.
I’m somewhat surprised Peter and James didn’t negotiate more with the deal given that this will be the future of patio heaters and is already a huge market in the USA. Yet another example where Ego’s stand in the way of business being done and profits being made.
Next was Apocalypse, a scary theater show, for want of a better description. Apocalypse wanted £200k in return for 20% of the business to launch their new show “The Sickness”.
I’ll cut this short with a sigh, no sales, no bookings, no theater, just an idea. A business value of £1million for a theatrical idea? I’m sure you’ll be able to judge yourselves whether they got the money or not … no, they didn’t.
The final investment we’ll look at for this episode is Steve Smith who was looking for £100k investment in his business Truecall, for 7.5% equity.
In a nutshell, Truecall checks every call you receive before letting the telephone ring and identifies whether or not you know the caller. If their not on your preferred list they are asked to leave their name and you can then accept or deny the call.
Interestingly, until Steve revealed his past business history which showed he was successful in selling previous businesses, there didn’t appear to be much interest. Success breeds success, the dragons know this.
This is nice and I do like it, yet I don’t think it’s a a complete product yet and needs some rethinking. Peter Jones walked away with the deal and given his history in the telecoms market, I’m sure he’ll do the product justice by working it into an initial handset so there is no further fee after buying your phone.
That’s all peeps, a great kick off to the series, i’ll get around to giving my thoughts on episode two shortly.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Yeh the last product should come as a telephone set with an option of enabling the service. Personally I wouldn’t buy that product separately for nearly £100.