Dragons’ Den’s ‘top brand’ labelled ‘ridiculous’ in pitch now sells worldwide

As the newest season of Dragons’ Den has come to a detailed, it’s fascinating to look over earlier years to discover essentially the most profitable investments to return from the present.

Husband and spouse duo, Neil and Laura Westwood, entered into the Den in 2008 searching for funding for £100,000 for a 15 % fairness stake within the firm, Magic Whiteboard.

Magic Whiteboard, which the couple first created in 2006, is a roll of A1 whiteboard sheets that may stick on something somebody desires, all because of static.

Marketing platform specialists at Affise ranked different profitable Dragons’ Den merchandise and named Magic Whiteboard a “top ever brand to come out of the Den” because it “instantly grabbed the attention of the Dragons with its fool-proof simplicity”.

Despite receiving such success through the years, the product was initially riddaculed by some Dragons’.

The Westwoods shared that whereas that they had been promoting round 50 rolls of Magic Whiteboard each week, that they had acquired certainly one of their largest worldwide orders of 472 rolls to Norway.

They anticipated turnover of £150,000 for that 12 months, and seemed to revenue £1.4million of their third 12 months of enterprise.

After what appeared to be an extremely well-thought out and informative pitch, the couple was shortly ripped into by Dragon Peter Jones.

“This is almost ridiculous, why would I use this?” he requested.

Mr Westwood tried to elucidate that trainers and other people in control of group work may benefit from the product, and Mr Jones rebutted: “They would use a whiteboard.”

Despite Peter Jones pondering their concept was “ridiculous”, the pair secured a £100,000 funding with Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden.

They might see the pair’s imaginative and prescient and supplied them an funding of £50,000 every. They gave the Dragons’ 40 % of their enterprise in return for the funding.

In 2014, Neil and Laura regained full possession of their Magic Whiteboard firm. They went on to spice up their gross sales from £45,000 to £1.2million a 12 months by 2014, later shopping for again their shares from Ms Meaden and Mr Paphitis.

The buyers acquired a £800,000 return on their £100,000 funding.

‌Mr Paphitis was capable of put the product into 237 of his Ryman workplace stationery shops.

‌By 2016 that they had offered a million copies and their product continues to develop.

‌The product is now a classroom and workplace staple and is offered globally. The board is now stocked in all Ryman shops, Sainsbury’s, Viking Direct, and on-line retailers.

‌Episodes of Dragons’ Den can be found on BBC iPlayer.