Archive for March, 2010
In the case of TanOrganic I was able to tell the assembled experts that the branding would be brilliant on the show and that Noelle would come across as a really savvy business woman.
Noelle was asked to make the pitch she had already done in the Den to my audience of about twenty experts - my own kitchen cabinet of product development and marketing experts. Just like in the Den, Noelle was questioned extensively.
On the day of the pitch we had some industry experts present also. Graham Quinn is a veteran of the cosmetics industry and owner of Graham Anthony, the cosmetics distributors. Graham has brought countless beauty products to the market. Also attending was Graham’s partner, the legendary business woman Sharon O’Buachalla, MD of Leaseplan, Ireland’s leading car fleet suppliers. We were also delighted to have Kieran Flynn of Gosh Cosmetics and Niall Keelaghan a PR and marketing expert.
Noelle was a little concerned when she heard who was to attend her pitch, particularly regarding Graham Quinn who she really looks up to in the business. I assured her Graham is one of those very successful people who doesn’t mind sharing his expertise with others.
My own experts are key to me. If they don’t like a product then I am very concerned. I rely heavily on people like Nicola Byrne of 11890. She is fantastic at marketing and is a real doer. If she told me to jump off a cliff I probably would! I love having enthusiastic people around me and Nicola has endless energy. We held the pitching session in our home and Nicola brought her daughter Emma with her to play with my daughter Aislinn. Long after everyone had left at 7pm Nicola was still talking about TanOrganic and how it could be a world beater. She didn’t go home until late, after she had told her hubby several times on the phone “this is going to revolutionise sunless tanning”.
Darren Hughes is formerly a very successful newspaper editor and now a suit in Independent Newspapers. He is wonderful ideas man. I would not hold one of these events if he was unavailable.
Neil McGeown of KMR accountants in Dundalk is my number cruncher. Tara McMahon is my Intellectual Property Lawyer and Solicitor James Allen completes the Share Purchase Agreements.
I always like to have a few wacky people at these sessions. To say Phil Codd is wacky is very unfair as he is simply one of the funniest men I know and he is always able to think way outside the box. He is also of course a top salesperson.
Brian Coleman of Pictures In Motion, produces TV commercials and corporate films. I always have him on board so we can start planning infomercials or TV advertising.
Paula McMahon has been there to advise on the Web presence for these products but now I tend to use Kate Hyde of Henparty.ie. I have been saying it publicly now for a long time she is the country’s leading SEO expert. She eats Google analytics for breakfast dinner and tea.
And of course my business partner and wife Orlaith is always in attendance.
So we spent a day pulling TanOrganic apart and then putting it together again. A number of things emerged from our day with Noelle that were very impressive. The industry experts were agog at her product and industry knowledge. She was a capable business woman. Her production capacity was well advanced. And the most pleasant surprise of all was that she did not need money for stock. This meant my time and money could be spent promoting and advertising the product.
Sometimes you have to ignore the advice of friends and experts
The general view that day was that TanOrganic should be in the shops the day it airs on television. I have a very different view. I believe a product should be seen on DD but should then enjoy a further separate launch when it goes nationwide. This is what I did with Takker and Animatazz and it proved hugely successful.
Also I like to test a product so I wanted TanOrganic to be available for three months as a spray-on in beauty salons so that it would build by word of mouth. This gives us time to get everything right as regards the branding and packaging.
The great thing about Noelle O’Connor is that she is a real entrepreneur. She is totally dedicated to her partner Mark and her two boys but she is also passionate about her businesses. So I haven’t had to hold her hand. In fact I have only been to her place a couple of times and we have done a number of meetings with buyers and distributors.
But she is very hard on herself. If part of your job is kicking people in the backside now and then, it is made difficult if the person never stops kicking themselves. And that is our Noelle. This week I had to listen to her moaning about her hair being too straight on DD. What could I say? So I just said, “Yes it was awful and I thought your ass looked very big as well.” (Joke!) Now she has gone on a diet.
Finally, doing Dragons’ Den is a great experience. Here we are in the middle of a god damn awful recession, but I am fortunate enough to be involved in a number of start ups that I believe are all going to be very successful. On Sunday, I got a lovely email from Herbie Porsche about all that has happened since he appeared on the show, which made me feel great. On Thursday last, although I had had a long day, I drove to the Curragh to Noelle’s house where she was having a party to celebrate her appearance on the show. I just felt so lucky to be a part of all this.
I am trying to respond to all your emails, queries and comments. This Blog has become a very hungry animal but the feedback I get is invaluable so please keep it coming.
My next blog is Thursday 11:15pm right after the show. I will give you the inside story of all that happens on the show. Bye for now.
What Actually Happened in the Den
Model Fainted in the middle of my Dragons’ Den Pitch
By Noelle O’Connor Creator, TanOrganic
From today’s Sunday Independent.
This is what actually happened when I was in the Den making my successful pitch for TanOrganic, a 100% natural, organic and anti-aging fake sun tan. I hold the record for having been before the Dragons for almost two and half hours. The truth is the beautiful model demonstrating how wonderful this tan looks on your body fainted.
It was January and there were heavy snows in Rathfarnham where the show is recorded. Poor Jessica was in her bikini freezing as we hung around waiting to go into the Den. Then she went into its searing heat under the TV lights. She stood as the bronzed goddess that she is. Whereas I could move around as I answered questions from the Dragons, poor Jessica had to be still and statuesque.
There was all the banter and Sean Gallagher joking he wanted to try applying the tan to her himself. But about an hour into the questions Jessica keeled over. I kid you not. Obviously the recording had to stop and time had to be allowed for her to recover. The Producers then decided that Sarah Newman would say thank you to Jessica and excuse her from the remainder of the pitch.
Over two hours of grilling from the Dragons is tough but TanOrganic is a world beater. I hope that doesn’t come across as arrogant but I have created a fake tan that will appeal to women because it has zero chemicals and it will certainly appeal to their men because there is no awful smell.
Fake tan is probably the greatest contraceptive on the market. That burnt biscuit smell is horrible. But women never stop to think why do fake tans have that smell for about three hours after it has been applied? Here’s the shocking news. The smell is the chemicals reacting with your skin. Putting chemicals on your skin to change its colour is not good for you. Admittedly it is better than damaging your skin on an UV sun bed. Irish women are the biggest users of fake tan per capita in the world. So putting all those chemicals on your body is aging and damaging your skin.
It has taken me years to come up with the solution, a natural fake tan. Yes I know that’s a classic oxymoron but that is what I have created, a natural fake tan. Here’s the secret. The breakthrough was an organic extract of sugar beet that naturally tans your skin over a period of seven hours.
But that breakthrough alone wasn’t enough. It took another couple of years and a fortune of money to get the world’s leading cosmetic research lab’ based in the US to develop my formula. My two businesses, a chain of salons called Ealu and my cosmetic distribution business Skinlogic were flying in the boom so I just kept spending money looking for the breakthrough.
But as soon as we got the 100% natural, organic tan working we realised we had to add a natural colouring agent so women could see it going on as they applied it. Eventually Caramel was the breakthrough.
The next big hurdle was the packaging. Women keep the same container of fake tan in their bathrooms often for over a year. All fake tans up to now come in plastic containers but a 100% natural, organic tan lotion would be contaminated if it was in plastic for more than fourteen weeks. It now had to be in an in-earth container such as a glass bottle. It also had to have a 100% natural cork stopper with a natural wooden top.
When I eventually showed the prototype to industry experts they loved the glass bottle and cork stopper because it stood out spectacularly from the competitors. But as soon as I did that “Paris” was calling. One of the Cosmetic majors was interested in buying my formula outright. The Celtic Tiger was roaring and foolishly I thought I didn’t need their money. But I also wanted to do it for myself. Women will understand what I mean. I am not saying I am a Coco Chanel or an Yves St. Laurent but they must have had to make the same decision as I did early in their careers.
Then the economy crashed. All my salons are still open and trading surprisingly well but nothing like they were during the boom. But worse I couldn’t raise finance anywhere to launch the product. I am not the showbiz type but I had no choice but to try Dragons’ Den. Watching the programme last year I was intrigued by one of the Dragons, Gavin Duffy. He seemed to be always on the lookout for mass market products. I planned to get him on board. But I never, ever planned to give away 45% of TanOrganic. However on Thursday night, Gavin Duffy clearly wanted TanOrganic as well. So when he made the offer I said yes.
All I can say is, since that day in the Den I have since been convinced it has been one of my best business decisions ever. I thought I was thinking big but I have met my match in Gavin. Also he has great contacts in the Cosmetics Industry so doors at the highest level have been opened for me. After that the product sells itself.
The product is going to have a major launch in May when it will go on sale in all pharmacies nationwide. But straight away it is available in all salons as a spray on. You can get all the information about it on TanOrganic.com. We will also be sampling it at the Spring Ideal Homes Expo in the RDS in mid April. So ladies, it is here at last, a world first, a 100% natural, organic sunless tan lotion and it was developed in Ireland. So I know we all think our little country is going down the toilet but I still believe Ireland can take on the world.
Programme 4
I seem to have featured a lot in tonight’s show and obviously I am thrilled I got TanOrganic.
It is going to be huge.
It could be the Irish Dragons’ Den’s first big global success. Yes, I know Michael Connolly and I have sold a global license for Animatazz from Series 1 and it is going be a great international success. However the sunless tanning market is ginormous. So Animatazz will be an international bestseller craft toy but TanOrganic is mass market. It is a real breakthrough. But before I talk about that, let me run through the other items featured in tonight’s show.
I Apologise To Wizz Mill
I have to explain myself here and what actually happened during the recording. Both Colm O’Meara and Ollie McLoughlin came in with what I believed was a great idea, the Wizz Mill. It uses wind energy from a wind mill erected on your property to heat your domestic tap water. The energy goes directly from the turbine to your hot water tank via an attachment with three heating elements - hey presto hot water for nothing.
In a recession these are the type of cost saving devices that can garner a market. But whatever happened to the two lads on the day, it seems rigor mortis set in. Most the dragons took a pop at them for being lifeless and unenthusiastic. But I persisted and persisted. I did everything to help them, but all the Dragons dropped out.
Now in the cross examination in the Den, Colm confirmed that they had tried for SEI Grant aid approval and it had been turned down flatly. I made an offer, and here is the key thing, it was a non-negotiable offer of €75,000 for 49% equity, conditional on my helping them to secure the grant aid and if we did I would invest on that basis.
Now I didn’t know that there is a type of unwritten rule in the Den that non negotiable offers are prohibited. But this was the first time such an offer was made in our Den. As was explained to me by Eugenia Cooney and Larry Bass, the producers, as soon as we stopped recording, non negotiable offers are discouraged because they cut out the bit of TV drama producers like as the promoter(s) walk down to the back of the Den to consider their options and come back and negotiate.
But I also have to apologise to Colm & Ollie and say sorry because the truth is I got thick. I had dragged the story out of them. Remember they were in there for about 90 minutes, but we see only about seven minutes on the broadcast version tonight. As you saw on TV they would have never mentioned their system also heats the radiators if it was not for me dragging it out of them.
Everyone knows I love inventors, so I stayed in as all the other Dragons dropped out frustrated. Fair dues to Niall for saying, “Guys I feel like taking the electrodes and hooking them up to both of you to get some life into you.” It wasn’t a harsh criticism and Niall delivered it as always with a sense of fun, but he was right. With everyone out, I made a genuine offer conditional on me working first with the guys to secure SEI Grant approval.
When the guys came back and looked to lower my percentage I got thick and said good bye to Colm & Ollie, two aircraft engineers. They had failed to get it grant aided. So their project was dead. I said I would use my skills, contacts and expertise to assist them to try to get it grant aided and only after that would I then invest €75,000 for 49%. Apologies again to the production crew. They are making a TV programme and want entertainment. I am making investments. It is the real world for me and my fellow dragons.