Who caught last night’s episode of the Den?
If you didn’t it’s definitely well worth a watch! It was great because we had Emma Grede back in for a few pitches and she brings such a great, different perspective – it was wonderful to have her back!
Did you see my investment in Flinty Bane and Ben Barter and their new skincare price comparison app SKIN? This is one of those times when from the second they started the pitch, it was just immediately obvious that I was absolutely the target consumer for this product.
(If you didn’t see the pitch, let me explain. Basically you download the app, create a ‘shelf’ for all of your favourite beauty products. Then, when you need to reorder something you just click on it and it gives you a price comparison everywhere it’s available in the market. You can also set up notifications for when things go on offer. And you can have a bit of a nosy on your friends’ shelves and see what products they are using. The whole thing is just genius!)
Because I could see first hand how customers would use this app, I could personally see myself using this on a weekly basis, so the penny just dropped for me straight away.
The other Dragons felt that Ben and Flinty needed ten times the money they were looking to raise in order to ramp up their business. But I disagreed.
I could see that these two had a vision for the next stage of their business. They had already raised the money to get the app built and off the ground, this was part of a 250,000 raise to really get it to market and they could see that the next stage of growth would need another fundraise to really go big with it.
And, I’m so excited to be getting involved with the business at such an early stage and to be able to coach and support these guys on their exciting journey.
Bear in mind that what you’re seeing on air now was recorded last summer, so I’ve actually been working with Flinty and Ben for almost nine months now and they are just so brilliant to work with. They’ve come up and spent time with me and my team in our office, looked round our warehouse and have been working with my investment director, Mark.
They’ve already had a new version of their app updated really recently and are poised and ready to take on this next exciting chapter of their business – along with a Dragon!