Dragons Den

So finally, the Den is back, after what seems like an eternity, stoked by the excitement of meeting a former Den participant Rob Law, of Trunki fame over the summer. It really shows that I don’t watch too much of the crap that the BBC churn out these days, as I haven’t seen one single trailer for the new series, ad had to scour the sky planner to find out it had shifted to Monday nights (I’m sure Den time is Wednesday at 9?).

It seems they can’t help tinkering with the lineup of the dragons themselves, and this time it is Richard Farleigh who has been dropped, in favour of James Caan, a former Entrepreneur of the year, enterprise of the Year winner, and head of a Private Equity firm. Strong credentials indeed! It’s a shame that Richard has been axed, because his run-ins with Peter Jones last year made for brilliant television, and after the Tycoon fiasco, I personally think they got rid of the wrong dragon. but hey, Peter Jones is “Mr Business Mentor” when it comes to TV now, so they were never going to let him go.

My first impressions of the new Dragon are that he has a very similar style to Richard Farleigh – He’s very much a numbers man, but invests based on the people too. He did come across as a little too “nice” last night, but that’s probably because he’s a proper investor, rather than playing to a character to boost his own media profile, unlike several of the others.

I sometimes wonder what the point of having Duncan Bannatyne in the Den is – He very rarely invests, and seems to exist solely in the role of mocking the participants and delivering “funny” one-liners as they leave the den empty-handed. He did seem to be taking things a little more serious last night, until he was shown up a little and threw his toys out of the pram.

As this is my first blog post about Dragons Den, you won’t have heard this before, but you’re bound to hear it a lot in the future – I can’t stand that bloody Deborah Meaden woman. How she manages to constantly look so miserable is beyond me – The only thing she seems to enjoy is vindictively shooting someone’s dreams down, and she still manages to do that looking like a bulldog chewing a lemon-flavoured wasp.

Theo Paphitis is the complete opposite – He’s the kind of person who realises that he is dealing with real people here when dishing out the rejections, but also really seems to enjoy what he does, and that comes across very well in the Den. He’s the sort of person I’d love to work with (in case you’re reading this Theo, just send the cash to…) and I’m sure that his investments have always been very shrewd, but also very well-handled.

So, my opinions on the Dragons out of the way, what of the entrepreneurs who ventured into the den last night? well, it was clear that the production team had made sure there was a decent mix of genuine opportunities, together with the “weirdos and freaks” to keep us all entertained.

The fifth series started off with David Beckham pitching to the Dragons (after his latest idea to invest in a plane ticket to LA for £128m, he’s used to good returns).. ok it wasn’t really David Beckham, but a look-a-likey, who runs a look-a-like agency.

He did a wonderful impression of Becks too, being completely unable to string a sentence together for a couple of minutes, and instead wheeled out Will smith and Johnny Depp to help him out.

I couldn’t see anything unique in the business myself, and as Duncan pointed out to “David”, his “exclusive” contracts mean nothing at all, and he managed to poach Will Smith on the spot to prove his point.

Peter Jones offered the look-a-likes a truck-load of encouragement, said how he thought they were fantastic, and had loads of potential, and all the other dragons were wrong to mock them. There was only one way this was going – yup, Peter pulled out too. He never had any intention of investing, but took the opportunity to play into his media persona as a “mentor”. The looks that Beckham gave him on the way out were priceless – real daggers, and who can blame him? I thought it was a lame investment opportunity, but to string them along like that is unacceptable in my opinion.

Next up were a couple who delivered an excellent pitch for their idea of a festival based around the “Spring Break” in Cornwall. The first “Beach Break Live” festival was held this year, with 2,000 people attending. Their forecasts for the future were ambitious, yet realistic. They had a few problems with the figures, though – They stated turnover of £120,000 this year, as a results of selling 1,000 tickets at £65 (1,000 were given away to staff) – Now I can do the simple maths and see that doesn’t add up!

Duncan Bannatyne jumped down their throats and said they were breaking the law by not paying their staff, but giving them free tickets. The entrepreneurs fielded this brilliantly, pointing out that this is exactly how pretty much every other UK festival does it. They were also backed up on this point by Peter Jones and Debroah Meaden. It was at this point that Duncan’s toys came flying out of the pram,and he declared himself out.

The remaining four dragon’s then fought amongst themselves to offer the pair a deal. They had three offers on the table, from Peter Jones, James Caan, and a joint bid from Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis. They managed to negotiate well to reduce all the equity stakes of the offers, and then asked for a moment to consider their positions.

Now in my opinion, there’s only one possible deal they should have taken, and that’s to accept Deborah and Theo’s offer. Putting my own feelings about Deborah aside, you have to look at the fact that she owns a number of Holiday Parks in Cornwall, which probably pull in well over half a million tourists every year. She knows the region, she knows about entertainment (though she obviously doesn’t see much comedy) and she’s got the potential customers – captive in her parks! Plus you’ve got Theo on board to make it all workable.

But they made their first (and major) mistake in my opinion – they went with Peter Jones, purely because he only wanted a 25% stake, rather than the 30% stake Deborah and Theo wanted. Chasing lower stakes like this is madness – you have to take the Dragon(s) that is right for your business. I’m sure Peter will make their festivals a success, but I feel Deborah’s experience in this area would have been invaluable, and I’d rather have 70% of a £10m business than 75% of a £1m business.

A bald man with a mohican

They were peddling some sort of Beef Jerky, and their question “Would anyone like to try some” was met with silence and a lot of shaking of heads. The head-shaking continued as they tried to get their head around their figures. Turnover of just £18,000 a year, with three members of staff did not inspire confidence, so to “help out, they brought in their advocate.

Duncan Bannatyne had great fun leading their advocate one way, and then the other, exposing very easily that he did not have a clue about the figures. Following a heated debate about their choice of attire and appearance, they were very quickly sent on their way.

The final entrepreneur up the stairs was Laben Roomes, who wanted £60,000 for his gold-plating business. Laben had a pretty good pitch, but soon faltered under the dragon’s questioning. By his own admission, his products were not unique, and he did not seem to have a grasp of his figures. His future plans hinged on rolling out a franchise platform for the business, which was soon picked apart – He would need a lot more than £60,000 to do that.

One by one, the dragons declared themselves out, until only new dragon James Caan remained. Just as James was starting to wrap up his “I’m out” spiel, Laben delivered the kind of passionate, impromptu speech that David Cameron would be proud of, and he managed to convince James Caan to do a 180, and give him the money, subject to agreeing where it would be spent (i.e. not on franchises)

Without a doubt it was Laben’s passion and entrepreneurial spirit that won him the investment – His business is not a great one, but with someone that passionate at the helm, it’s got a much better chance of being successful.

So, a fairly successful start to the new series – No huge invesments (they always get saved for the end of the series), and plenty of people who clearly have never seen the format of the show (If you want to win investment, dress smartly, know your figures, show passion.. that’s it!). I’m really looking forward to next week’s show for another important lesson – don’t forget the question!

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