Dragons' Den winner has £100,000 funding withdrawn | Hacker News Reader

Dragons' Den winner has £100,000 funding withdrawn

bbc.co.uk

24 pointsnazwa44 comments

What's so special about that specific deal/product? Did I miss something?

Because it's not that special that those deals fall through. I don't know about Dragons Den, but afaik Shark Tank US as well as the german version "Die Höhle der Löwen" had seasons with 60% of the "deals made on air" not happening.

Quite a few of the entrepreneurs I worked with at a UK based equity crowdfunding platform had been on Dragon's Den and the deal had since fallen through. Normally due to the terms being unreasonable compared to the other investment options they had through other angel investors.

It normally worked well for the start-up though as they used to get a lot of publicity/sales directly from appearing on the show and had found investment through other means.

"THE DEAL'S NOT DONE UNTIL THE CHECK CLEARS."

This bit of advice has served me quite well over the years. At a celebration party for a new investment in a company I'd previously co-founded but was only a stockholder at the time, the CFO excitedly told me that I was 'worth millions', and asked 'how did it feel?'. I told him that "I'll tell you when we get an exit" and changed nothing about my life. Good thing, because while the check had cleared on that investment, the exit several years later wound up with the stock amount value down in the five figures.

One guy I know had co-founded a company, was doing OK. I noticed some impressive new equipment that showed up on his website and we chatted about doing some projects together and how he's got a major deal coming in and had invested well into six figures. The next thing I knew, his company had vanished and he was working for a small shop several states over. They didn't get the project after all, and were immediately bankrupt.

Worse yet, was a story from an attny friend I'd worked with; he told me about a guy (client?) he knew who 'got' a VC investment, divorced his wife, bought a big new house, car, etc. .... and the deal fell through.... not sure what happened to that guy, but I'm sure it wasn't pretty.

Repeat: "The deal is not done until the check clears"...

[edit: typos, clarity]

> Did I miss something?

Probably not. I just assumed it was BBC news giving a bit of publicity to a BBC programme by regurgitating a public tweet.

It wasn't exactly top draw investigative journalism though looks like the journo did at least spark up the My Lupo website and add a couple of stock BBC photos. So that's nice.

I saw their product on Dragons' Den yesterday.

I found it rather surprising as I've bought similar bluetooth key fobs, from Aliexpress for around $1.40 each and they mentioned they where planning on selling them for around £20.

Probably why they pulled out. The show is a bit misleading. You can only go by what the people are saying. For instance, I'm sure at some point the dragon asked "are there any products like this cheaper on the market that do the same thing", at which point you can only believe their answer there and then.

I'm not surprised that he pulled out. Just wish my dad did the same.

One of the dragons (Duncan, I think) pointed out how old this fob technology was. This triggered what appeared to be the turning point in the pitch where Deborah(?) realized they weren't buying into the physical hardware but the software behind the company.

Sarah Willingham pointed out quite early on how useless it was "the instructions say 'make sure the phone is not muted'? What use is this if I've lost it?". Google's existing solution beats this, being able to bypass audio restrictions. I assume Apple has similar capabilities?

Yes there's still the other half... using your phone to find your keys... but pfft.

Aside... Sarah's contribution reminded me of how technology savvy the dragons are. There was a great moment in a previous series where Hilary Devey teased out of an applicant that they didn't own the source code for their own website. I've often slipped into thinking of them as "business people" but she very clearly understood software and licensing.

> There was a great moment in a previous series where Hilary Devey teased out of an applicant that they didn't own the source code for their own website.

(I applied to present on Dragons Den for a robotics project I worked on as an extracurricular at uni - I pulled out when my research supervisor advised that we'd have no chance of having a demo in time)

I understand the Dragons are briefed on the pitches beforehand, and I wouldn't be surprised if they sent their own legal team on the projects - who would dutifully tell them what questions they should ask to the 'contestants' on the show.

...not to say they couldn't possibly have thought of a question like that on-the-spot, on the contrary; but given how fake reality TV is in general (and the BBC is no exception) I'm not betting that what we see on screen is exactly, and only, what happens.

Good points, it is entertainment afterall.

I want to believe in Hilary though!

Perhaps that was the issue that arose during due diligence - sorry, looks like these already exist, the idea isn't worth pursuing after all.

Apparently he did his own due diligence and discovered that these fobs already exist. However I'm not entirely convinced, because there is no marketing for Aliexpress goods and a fancy British startup could just sell and distribute these fobs with a nice markup. It's still a viable business I think.

Probably decided he would do it himself.

The dragons really are some of the worst people.

>>>Apparently he did his own due diligence and discovered that these fobs already exist.

My conclusion too. It would have been useful if the story actually provided any information but it seems the 'journalist' was either asked to, or decided to see if he could stretch a tweet out to a full page article.

Sanity check... Let's say I'm particularly careless and so locating my keys costs me 2 hours per year more than it would without this device. (Assuming I can find my phone, which seems unlikely at this point). Also assume this product has a lifetime of 2 years. So it might save me 5-ish hours over the product lifetime. If I value my spare time at, say, $100 per hour, I should be willing to pay several hundred dollars for this product. There must be other factors I've ignored, but it seems plausibly worth $20 or more if it is actually good at what it claims to do.

It's frustrating to lose your keys. Enough of an annoyance that you might pay for a fix. Then there are those who chronically have this problem, that's another market. People with memory problems, etc.

Well, your spare time is by definition worth $0. Nobody would otherwise be working during the time they're looking for keys. I think it's important to do this type of calculation for things at work or for side projects but you know how you can not lose your keys and not pay several hundred dollars for a fob? Put them in the same place every time.

Also the fact that you can buy something nearly identical for $1.40 pretty quickly rules out paying several hundred dollars for it.

If spare time is worth nothing why do people purchase additional holiday?

Also, the time spent looking for keys is often spent just before going to work, which makes you later for work than you would have otherwise been.

My wife is especially terrible with keys. This would save her way, way more than 2 hours per year.

I wouldn't need one myself but trust me, there are folks out there who would really benefit from it.

Lots of companies offer this functionality.

One that is very successful (4.5 million sold) is https://thetrackr.com. I have no affiliation--I just hear their ads over and over on lots of podcasts. They sell them for about $30 each, so they are similarly more expensive than AliExpress type ones.

I'm not trying to defend such a high price point, but there is plenty of scope for adding value on top of the raw product from Aliexpress. Writing good documentation for it, branding it be more appealing to a specific market, writing apps to work with it, releasing library code to build other apps on top of it, etc. The fact something can be bought very cheaply isn't automatically a reason why someone else shouldn't sell the same product at a higher price.

Well there's already tile who seem to be doing OK selling tags for £25 each. They have a remarkable burn rate for selling something so simple! $34M in 2 Rounds

One of the things I learned over the years is that a deal (particularly an investment) hasn't happened until it actually closes.

Kind of tough lesson to learn, especially if you've had to parade yourself on a TV program.

Kind of tough lesson to learn, especially if you've had to parade yourself on a TV program.

Sounds like a weird way to put it. Aren't these programs pretty much cheap national advertising for the participants, even to those who don't get a deal?

Yeah - that was a bad way for me to phrase it.

What I meant was that I can imagine preparing and appearing on a TV program would be incredibly distracting (getting normal VC investment is bad enough).

Funnily I met those two guys at the Glasgow Tech-Scene Christmas Party at 'The Raven'. Seemed like really nice guys with a cool product. Wonder what went wrong with the DD.

Nokia used to make these. They were called "Treasure Tags".

Too bad it didn't say why he pulled funding

The article seems to have been written based on nothing more than the tweet.

Welcome to journalism 2015 onwards...

I think it's pretty shady to air the episodes before the deal is finalized (imo, other people I know strongly disagree). They essentially get free reality TV candidates without any obligation. You can always back out if you want to.

[I'd also never take any of theses TV show deals for a software company as they seem pretty bad to me. For something you sell on home shopping networks etc. it seems better because you get the distribution expertise. I have doubts you get anything besides the money and probably lots of hassle for software.]

It's a show, everyone gets what they agreed to. You the viewer get entertainment, it's sort of like the Antique Roadshow. People come in, have their wares appraised, no real sale has to occur, and you are entertained to watch. Honesty in advertising is a marketing catch phrase.

The candidate also gets mass publicity for their product/service though whether they succeed in getting funding or not. For some, I'm guessing, this is the main motivation for going on the show?

Not sure about Dragons' Den but on Shark Tank they usually get called out on this and eviscerated, especially by Cuban. Obviously they're still getting a bump but at least the Sharks don't generally play along with it.

Unfortunately that's the nature of the entertainment business. As long as it makes for a good story, the details don't matter.

The article didn't really clarify. Did they lose the funding mainly because the laptop was lost at Heathrow?? Was it because of fear their IP was compromised by the theft?

"The idea was born when one of the founders lost his travel bag" - this has nothing to do with the funding.

And the article STILL doesn't give specifics about what exactly was found lacking in the company. Poor reporting will generally lead to people trying to squeeze anything out of the information given, misreadings don't help.

I think what it means that they got the idea for the tracker after losing the laptop, they didn't lose it after securing their funding

Gotcha - I missed one word in that sentence... It's late here...

Mate, it's too early to be drunk...

11pm here... Not all HN users live in your neighbourhood... ;)

Ah, then it's the right time to be drunk. My apologies, and enjoy it! :-)

I also misread the article at first that this was the reason for losing the funding, but actually it's the reason for starting the startup.

Yep - It's been a long day of programming here, and it is late evening and I am tired, which is probably why I misread the article and asked for clarification. But the downvote police are seemingly merciless... :-)

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