As the latest season of Dragons’ Den has come to a close, it’s interesting to look over previous years to explore the most successful investments to come from the show.
Husband and wife duo, Neil and Laura Westwood, entered into the Den in 2008 seeking investment for £100,000 for a 15 percent equity stake in the company, Magic Whiteboard.
Magic Whiteboard, which the couple first created in 2006, is a roll of A1 whiteboard sheets that will stick on anything someone wants, all thanks to static.
Marketing platform experts at Affise ranked other successful Dragons’ Den products and named Magic Whiteboard a “top ever brand to come out of the Den” as it “instantly grabbed the attention of the Dragons with its fool-proof simplicity”.
Despite receiving such success over the years, the product was initially riddaculed by some Dragons’.
The Westwoods shared that while they had been selling around 50 rolls of Magic Whiteboard every week, they had received one of their largest international orders of 472 rolls to Norway.
They expected turnover of £150,000 for that year, and looked to profit £1.4million in their third year of business.
After what seemed to be an incredibly well-thought out and informative pitch, the couple was quickly ripped into by Dragon Peter Jones.
“This is almost ridiculous, why would I use this?” he asked.
Mr Westwood attempted to explain that trainers and people in charge of group work could benefit from the product, and Mr Jones rebutted: “They would use a whiteboard.”
Despite Peter Jones thinking their idea was “ridiculous”, the pair secured a £100,000 investment with Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden.
They could see the pair’s vision and offered them an investment of £50,000 each. They gave the Dragons’ 40 percent of their business in return for the investment.
In 2014, Neil and Laura regained full ownership of their Magic Whiteboard company. They went on to boost their sales from £45,000 to £1.2million a year by 2014, later buying back their shares from Ms Meaden and Mr Paphitis.
The investors got a £800,000 return on their £100,000 investment.
Mr Paphitis was able to put the product into 237 of his Ryman office stationery stores.
By 2016 they had sold one million copies and their product continues to grow.
The product is now a classroom and office staple and is sold globally. The board is now stocked in all Ryman stores, Sainsbury’s, Viking Direct, and online retailers.
Episodes of Dragons’ Den are available on BBC iPlayer.
