Originally written by Alice Feilden on Small Business
This week’s episode of Dragon’s Den featured some promising high-flyers, including a nervous Jack Nyber, who hid his sugar-free sweetener packaging among a bountiful display of luscious watermelons, grapes and pears in desperate hope the judges wouldn’t notice his half-baked branding. Nyber seemed underwhelmed as he relayed impressive sales, bringing in a cool £28,000 a week and on track to turnover almost £1.5m this year. Squirming with nerves, Nyber walked away with a £75,000 investment after some rigorous squabbling between the Dragons.
There was plenty more where that came from. The bickering ramped up a notch when Tim Keaveney and Matt Aubrey, owners of eco-friendly refillable cleaning products company, Homethings, stole the show. All five of the Dragons made an offer to the squeaky-clean duo, and the sharp elbows came out.
Deborah Meaden pulled faces when Sara Davies pronounced infomercials as ‘the key way to recruiting customers’. Davies shouted about Touker Suleyman’s ‘oversight’ when suggesting Homethings go for a deal split three ways between himself, Tej Lalvani and longest-standing Dragon, Peter Jones. Jones himself positively begged to be let in on a deal with Meaden. ‘I’m riding on Deborah’s shirt tails right now,’ said Jones,