Dragons’ Den Season 2 episode 5 review

(Cross posted at Kempton with possible additional readers’ comments)

The following are my brief reviews and comments of the Dragons’ Den Season 2 episode 5 pitches/business ideas.

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Where’s My Stylist

I saw this determined young entrepreneur pitched his business in Calgary twice and then his pitch on TV tonight. Even the entrepreneur was very personable and was quite nice, unfortunately the business and revenue models still need some further development. Plus the valuation of the business was probably a bit too much for most investors.

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Power Zoom Rifle Scope

True, manufacturing the scopes might make more money per unit compare to the revenue from licensing the patent (?) to someone else to make the thing. But there are also so much more risk in all the associated cost. Plus patent litigation is not a fun thing to be part of.

Incidentally, I feel the same as some of the dragons as I have serious problem with the idea of making money from weaponry system. There are simply things that I would rather not make money from. For me, anything to do with guns is a no go for me.

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Cutless Trimming Razor

The multi-billion dollar razor business is a truly cut-throat one. Unfortunately the idea presented by the entrepreneur is simply not a good one in my humble opinion.

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Volila Masala

I think most viewers saw the passion of the entrepreneur during her pitch. But at the same time, passion alone doesn’t make good business. And the matter of fact is that a mostly different set of skills and expertises are required to create a successful TV show as oppose to a spice business. Just my 2 cents.

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Electric Gym Network

Sorry, I simply don’t see much real use of the system. Plus it didn’t help that the demo unit failed during the entrepreneur’s pitch.

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Lucid Air Pack

Thinking a little more about the product. I hope well placed and sensitive smoke detectors will eliminate most of the need for this product. I don’t know, I probably won’t buy one.

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Pony Shoes

I admire the entrepreneurs of trying. But unfortunately, the game doesn’t seem to be much fun when the dragons played it.

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Lit Cosmetics Inc.

Based on Jodie’s sales number, looks like she has a nice business for her. But I agree with the dragons that cosmetics is a capital intensive business and the marketing budget to promote a new brand can easily be much more than the $200,000 being asked for. I guess to get the business to a large scale that will interest the Dragons as an investment, much more money than $200K will be needed.

FYI: Here is an Oct. 26 article about Lit Cosmetics in Calgary Herald.

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Naturpack

It was truly disappointing that the entrepreneurs did not choose to reveal openly that the patent is owned by someone or some company in Germany and not by the entrepreneurs. That was a truly unfortunate 30 minutes of mis-communicating a crucial piece of information.

More details of the current legal arrangement between the inventor and these entrepreneurs will need to be known first before any further analysis can be done.

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Kinclomat

Sorry, I simply can’t get pass the idea of paying anywhere near $3,400 for 9 (?) exercise mats. It will definitely take Arlene some marketing and advertising magic to help the entrepreneurs to get the right niche customers to part with that kind money — $3,400. Wow. OK, professional sports team, specialized private hospital in US, may be. Home users? I am not sure. Arlene probably know something that I don’t.

Now, the other issues include whether the patent application is strong enough? Will the patent likely be granted? Are there existing prior art on this that the US patent office may have missed? These and many other questions will really depend on the patent application and I don’t have any information on that at the moment.

Congrats to JobLoft for being acquired by onTargetjobs

(Cross posted at Kempton with possible additional readers’ comments)

I like to congratulate JobLoft.com, last year’s Dragons’ Den sensation, for being acquired by onTargetjobs (terms of deal undisclosed (all cash? all shares? Or a combination?)). Here is an excerpt from their press release (emphasis mine),

Vancouver, Canada, October 29, 2007 – Hcareers, the leading online job board for the hospitality industry worldwide, announced today that its parent company, onTargetjobs, has acquired the assets of JobLoft.com, a cutting edge hospitality and retail job board located in Toronto, Canada. The combined companies now hold the number one spot as the dominant provider of online recruitment solutions for the hospitality industry.

The addition of JobLoft.com into the onTargetjobs family of job boards reaffirms onTargetjobs’ commitment to hospitality recruitment professionals and jobseekers worldwide, both in the hourly and managerial markets. JobLoft.com’s concentration on the hourly jobseeker looking for local jobs coupled with Hcareers’ worldwide reach and industry presence enables Hcareers to provide a more holistic solution to its hospitality, restaurant and foodservice clients.

I first noticed the guys in the orange ties (Chris Nguyen, Lee Lieu, et. al.) in July 2006 and then I reviewed their deal and pitch in Oct 2006 after their episode was aired. I then blogged about their deal that got away, and some more here, here (with video of the cheque tearing), and here.

So I have been following the JobLoft guys on-and-off for over 15 months. Setting aside the harsh words that I used in talking about how the guys broke up the agreed deal (my focus was never on the terms of the deal itself), I am really happy for Chris Nguyen, Lee Lieu, et. al. and truly hope the terms of their deal were great for them. I bet Chris, Lee and others had worked so hard after the Dragons’ Den deal felt apart on air.

To the JobLoft gang — Congrats and hope we will hear more from you. We have lots to learn from your experience.

[via Sean Wise]

Dragons’ Den news to share

Found some Dragons’ Den news to share with you.

Vancouver entrepreneur Dean Lane of Add-vanced Bottle System talks about his square bottle business in Vancouver Sun. Here is an excerpt (emphasis mine),

Lane said he found the experience on the CBC show intimidating at first and then frustrating as he tried to explain that his idea truly works.

“A lot of people look at my product and think it’s just so simple and too good to be true,” he said. “I had to explain there were engineering reasons why this bottle hadn’t been produced before. The hardest part was getting the recess in the bottom of the bottle.“

Lane also said his appearance on the show wasn’t just about the money.

“It’s not always just about selling your shares — it’s who you sell your shares to and what they can do for the company,” he said. “When [Treliving] told me he had restaurants all across the U.S. and Canada, that made me think because that could be a good fit.”

The $350,000-deal hasn’t taken place yet as both sides are in a due diligence phase to examine all aspects of the potential arrangement.

Check out this collection of Dragons’ Den updates, Q&A, etc. at Canadian Business. A really good read.

Here is an excerpt from a Hollywood Reporter piece,

The second-season opener for “Dragon’s Den,” an “Apprentice”-style reality TV series, drew 389,000 viewers — up from 219,000 for its debut episode in fall 2006 — before rising last week to 461,000.

CBC executive director of network programming Kirstine Layfield said Monday that the sophomore series initially grew their ratings last year, and she predicted they will continue to do so this season with positive word-of-mouth.

“Take ‘Dragon’s Den.’ People needed to know what it was,” she said. “Word-of-mouth and reviews helps tell them.”

Well, blog about Dragons’ Den, tell our friends and colleagues about Dragons’ Den, lets do what we can to spread the words of Dragons’ Den. (big smile)

One last piece of news from London Free Press,

Dragon Jim Treliving was real nice to do CBC a favour by using his private plane to fly “a group of Los Angeles-based actors [K: including Howie Mandel] — some of them Gemini nominees and some of them presenters — to the Saskatchewan capital because there’s no direct flight between L.A. and Regina.“

Note: I actually got to like Howie Mandel from watching him in a series of Boston Pizza ads before he got famous again in Deal or No Deal. May be it is time to bring back Howie’s Boston Pizza ads? (smile)

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Oct 29 update: Arlene Dickinson was named #13 in top Canadian women entrepreneur list by Profit magazine. [via Sean Wise]

Dragons’ Den Season 2 episode 4 review

(Cross posted at Kempton with possible additional readers’ comments)

The following are my brief reviews and comments on the Dragons’ Den Season 2 episode 4 pitches/ideas.

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Add-vanced Bottle System - by Dean Lane

I think I am warming up to the potential of this business (especially for licensing the patent to big water companies like Coke or Pepsi). Check out the pictures Dean has at his site here and here. Water is a big business these days (even though I am against drinking bottled water in Canadian cities for environmental reason). And the patent doesn’t limit the application to water/liquid, the bottles can be for anything.

Dean’s idea of manufacturing the bottles himself is misguided and I am sure Jim will be able to guide Dean to the right direction of seeing the benefits of licensing the patent and avoided all the related manufacturing headaches.

I will try to take a look of Dean’s US patent application 20070114200 when I find sometime. I welcome other Dragons’ Den patent geeks out there to take a look of the application and add your insight to the forum or email me.

Now, I am not a lawyer. And I don’t even play a patent lawyer on TV. But a word of advice for those that are reading patent/patent app for the first time. The Claims are the ones with true legal power. The “DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE BEST MODE AND PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION” section is a great read for the fact that patent regulations required the inventor to disclose the best mode (i.e. the best known way to make that thingy). One can learn a lot from this section. Plus if the inventor chose not to tell you the best mode, there are some nasty consequence for the inventor. The idea of a patent is the inventor disclose their “magic”, in exchange of having exclusive patent protections for X number of years.

Oct 29th update: Here is a Vancouver Sun article about Dean’s business.

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Anivac -

I had the pleasure to watch this couple pitched live in June in Toronto. And many of their family members (including their son and daughter) were right outside the Dragons’ Den set supporting them.

Now, I am no expert in the horses or dogs/pets market, but I sure hope they take the advices from the Dragons and expand to include dog care, etc.

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Coretection

I don’t know much about the potential market for sports wear so I don’t have much to say. But I think it was a really bad idea for the entrepreneur to strip to show his product. If there is a real need, then hire a model for a day.

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Baby Kaede Clothing Company - (note: for some reason, this website crashed my Firefox browser)

The baby clothing looks cute but it is probably a niche market, not ready for investment given the existing business.

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Home Safe Environmental Testing

Laurence has it right on. We live in a world of technologies and will have to accept some level of risk to function normally. Excessive worry is not a good idea and unfortunately, this product counts on our fears (legitimate or not).

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The Stair Walker

I have to agree with the dragons that there is indeed potential risk if the system fails to work properly. There is an issue of potential product liability here.

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Obbi, Leisure Skates, Cold Buddy

These business pitches were ok to watch in a montage but not quite ready for business investment.

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Finally, I understand the “Purolator Lesson from The Den” makes CBC some good money. But these so-called “lessons” are getting to be rather weak and not fun to watch at all. Any chance to seriously improve them? I started to flip channel the moment I saw these “lessons”. CBC, please help.

New chat with Atomic Tea’s Jessica & Russell Bohrson (Post-Dragons’ Den)

(note: This post is cross-posted at Kempton with potential additional comments.)

I’ve planned for months to do a post-Dragons’ Den interview with the Jessica and Russell and I am glad I waited for four more days after they pitched *atomic on national TV on Monday. (See my chat with them four months ago here.) I am glad because I was able to get a sense of how people feel after they watched the *atomic pitch. And I ended up asking the Jessica and Russell some of the questions raised by a few Dragons’ Den forum commentators.

For example, I asked how do they feel about the controversies about their deal being drastically changed by one of the dragon? To me, their answers showed great maturity and the ability to look at the big piture.

I also asked them about people saying stuff like “bubble tea is nothing new“. Again, they gave a very insightful answer. Watch how they explain in their own words. [Hint: Will you say the multi-billion Starbucks is copying the business of coffee?]

Here are some tidbits of information and observation that you might find interesting (well, I certainly did),

1. 2-atomic — Do you know that their store phone number in Calgary 228-6642 actually spells out 2-atomic ? Isn’t that cool? (Just match it to your telephone keypad and you will see.) And they got this number for free because the previous owner of this number was using it as an infrequently used smart ring and was really kind. Incidentally, as a return favour (and a karma thing), Jessica bought them a small gift to say thank.
2. Arlene — Arlene has visited their store, tried the drinks, and she loves it. Jessica and Russell have also visited Arlene’s Calgary office and really admire the hard working and nice Dragon.
3. Kiosk — To get a kiosk for *atomic, they actually went to get help from some industrial design students at University of Calgary to make the kiosk easier to use and more ergonomic. On the big scheme of things, this may be a small thing. At the same time, this is paying attention to details (like the phone number 2-atomic). Attention to details is something that is integral with what I call “Relentless Pursuit of Excellence“.

Finally, I hope you will enjoy the video chat (click to view in larger window) as much as I in talking to the wonderful and hard working Jessica and Russell. (Join their Facebook group here.)

(note: Jessica and Russell will appreciate very much if any Dragons’ Den or *atomic fans can post *atomic’s Dragons’ Den pitch on YouTube.)

What’s Atomic Tea taste like?

Today, while I was waiting to chat with Jessica and Russell (video to be posted later), I decided to interview some *atomic customers and let them tell you their choices of *atomic tea and may be address one common CBC Dragons’ Den forum question from outside of Calgary — What’s Atomic Tea taste like?

These interviews are uncut and unedited, and the customers were free to say how they feel. Overall, they quite like the taste of *atomic tea.

Nadine and Flora were my first interview subjects, and they were nice to agree to the interview and let me walk from outside of the store to interview them to add a bit of cinema and context. (smile)

And then I chatted with Calgarians Tony, Jenny, Angel, and Richard.

Next I chatted with some visiting guests from Northern Ontario John, Marty, and their son (I missed his name due to some background noise).

Finally, I chatted with one of the biggest fan of *atomic Tina (she has been a loyal customers for 21.5 months). Her story is especially interesting as, I think, it illustrates part of the operating philosophy of *atomic.

Season 2 Episode 3 pitches on YouTube

Some hardcore CBC Dragons’ Den lovers have decided to upload some of the Season 2 Episode 3 pitches onto YouTube so those missed the pitches (and the re-runs) can watch them. “wickedmonkey”, a Dragons’ Den forum member, was kind enough to find these videos and share the results with us.

Oct 23 update: I found the *atomic pitch and I’ve added it here.

*atomic Tea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-oHUWN7Lac

Fanware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpO2Yla8Kmc

Reality Check: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isNjr6OFbyc

Ralph Clipalski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eVEVPO5Y_o

Interviews with Atomic Tea’s Jessica & Russell Bohrson

Oct 17 Update: Here is my review of Atomic and other businesses/pitches in episode 3.

Oct 20 Update: Here is my post-CBC Dragons’ Den airing Oct 19th interview with Jessica and Russell.

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Here is my chat with Atomic Tea’s Jessica & Russell Bohrson after they finished pitching their business and talking to Dianne Buckner.

The following two chats were filmed about two weeks after they came back to Calgary after the Atomic Tea DD pitch.

Here is my chat with Jessica (click to view in a larger window),

Here is my chat with Russell (click to view in a larger window),

Here is something I wrote after the Calgary interviews with a non-descriptive on-location video as to not give away the secrets of what business I was referring to. Notice the fact that their store was steps away from Calgary’s C-Train line (see video). The three most important thing for a retail store? Location, Location, and Location. See for yourself. (smile)

Here is what I wrote about my experience after talking to them and my gut feeling of them as good entrepreneurs.

Dragons’ Den Season 2 episode 3 review

(Cross posted at Kempton with possible additional readers’ comments)

The following are my brief reviews and comments on the Dragons’ Den Season 2 episode 3 pitches/ideas.

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ATOMIC TEA by Calgary entrepreneurs Jessica & Russell Bohrson (Atomic Tea Facebook group) (see video pitch on YouTube)

(note: I’ve now posted some video interviews with Jessica & Russell. Feel free to check them out. Hope you enjoy them as much as I in talking to them.)

I first saw Jessica & Russell pitching in the Calgary audition round. They had a solid pitch, seemed very focus and professional. They knew their business.

So it was not surprising and I was very happy to see them pitching live to the Dragons in June when DD taped in Toronto.

Now, let me defer an important discussion of how the final deal was struck a little and in particular, Kevin’s deal changing proposal as I will write a lot more next.

Focusing on the final outcome alone first

I think Jessica & Russell will get most of the useful expertise from Jim (Food, marketing), Arlene (marketing & advertising), and Laurence (marketing, sales) to advance the Atomic Tea business. And $120,000 is still a nice sum of money.

About how the final deal was struck

And now since we all have seen how Kevin turned the originally favourable deal for the entrepreneurs around, I am free to talk about how I feel at the time and now.

First of all, I am not a lawyer, but I know until an offer has been officially accepted, the offer can be changed at any time and changed it did.

In some sense, it was rather shocking and sad to see Kevin openly disregarded the ideal of fair play and openly colluded or “cooperated” with other dragons (which, again, didn’t appeal to a sense of fair play) to force a lower offer onto entrepreneurs.

Of course, one can always argue Jessica and Russell were free to walk away from the deal. But to these two young entrepreneurs, $120,000 was a lot of money and can help fulfill part of their dream.

So was what Kevin did ethical?

To me, it was as if during a seemingly fair open-outcry auction, one bidder suggested to the other bidders to stop the auction and then collectively agreed to go back to the baseline price and colluded as a team to bid for an equal share. Fair? To many people, it will seem not. Again, the reserved price has been achieved and exceeded already.

Justice Stewart of the US Supreme court once said “I Know It When I See It” in a 1964 USSC ruling about “what is hard-core pornography?”

I don’t want to say if what I saw tonight qualified as collusion or not since I am not particularly interested in getting myself into legal trouble. But at least, I can say I think I saw some hard-core pornography tonight in the tradition of “I Know It When I See It“.

Best of luck to Jessica and Russell.

With a great product (I love your bubble tea, your cool store, etc.), and your hard working mindset, I am sure you will do well.

Notes to CBC

As an aside, I know CBC currently have no contractual or legal control of what the Dragons were allowed to do during pitches. But I think this episode may have provided a good reason to set some new ground rules to avoid any remote resemblance of collusion during Dragons Den pitches. I know it is tough to separate collusion from simple cooperation but I know CBC have lots of smart people and shall be able to set some new rules. Plus, we can always apply the good old “I Know It When I See It” rule.

Final Note: I am not naive enough to think that what we saw openly tonight don’t happen in many regular business dealings behind closed doors. But I do hope ethical businesses will pass what I call the “front page story test” which I learned from Warren Buffett after reading Buffett: The Making of An American Capitalist about ten years ago. I will quote Warren here, [K: emphasis mine]

“I want employees to ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear on the front page of their local paper the next day, be read by their spouses, children, and friends … If they follow this test, they will not fear my other message to them: Lose money for my firm and I will be understanding; lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.“

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ALTITUDETECH by Ka–Yu Law

Three words: Potential medical liabilities.

Since this product actively reduce oxygen to the users, the potential medical liabilities are just so unappetizing to have to face. It will be challenging to find knowledgeable investors who are going to take the potential risks. Just image this, if one customer suffer a health problem while using the product (possibly no fault of the product), the potential lawsuit and bad publicity can easily finish the product.

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DR. RASAM by The Patil Family: Vikram, Krutika and Priyanka

It is cute to see the kids pitch and it is good TV. While I also think it is a bit too cute (may be “manipulative” is too strong a word) that the parents are outside.

Now, I wonder if the dragons would still invest $25,000 for 75% of a company that consist of a soup receipt (no sales, no stores), if the soup has not been pitched on national TV? Which is of course the key. For $25,000, getting a product with free national TV exposure already advertised by cute kids, I think there is some good business potential there.

Just my 2 cents and I might have been harsher than normal, I suppose to compensate for the over-dose of cuteness from the kids.

Now, few more words on the kids pitch. I think they were very professional and presentable. Great for them and I am happy for the Patil Family.

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BCP PET CARRIER by Kevin Spirak & Malcolm Jefferson

Sorry, just a bad idea.

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THE DOOR DEFENDER by Kirk Hochrein

Hmmm, some people may like the product. Kevin does have a point that hot cars won’t want it because it does make a car looks funny. Mind you, if millions of owners of normal cars want the product, that will be quite all right by my book. But I am not sure.

Hopefully Kirk’s sales will at least be helped by DD’s national TV exposure. Good luck.

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SAP WORLD by The Lewis Family

I will take the Dragons’ word for the funny taste of the wine. Too bad.

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EXOTIC DANCER TV by Jan Mitchell

I was there on location in Toronto watching Jan pitch live in June. The CBC edit has not distorted Jan much and she did seem rough and confrontational. And I don’t know the advertising space for the exotic dancing TV market (the late night) enough but I suspect Kevin’s observation might be close — 80% traditional ad revenue source won’t be interested.

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SYNCROHEARTS by Bobby O’Neal

Sales track record (1,500 units sold in 16 months, 1,000 units left) is not too attractive a business. Plus the name can be reworked a little, I suppose.

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PLETHORA OF PRODUCTS by Ralph Chlipalski

I was there the day Ralph pitched his two big bags of different products. I have to say he got my attention and I felt I wanted to say something positive to him. And in my naive way, may be even pointed him in the right direction.

To some people, they may simply want to laugh at Ralph’s pitches or even his life. But that would be very wrong.

Reusing and rewriting words from my previous blog entry,

I thought hard about Ralph Chlipalski’s approach in pitching so many ideas and simply hopping one will stick. And then the image of James Dyson keeps coming up in my head since James took the total opposite approach.

It took James 4.5 years and 5,127 prototypes until he got his Dyson vacuum cleaner right. James is not only a first class designer and inventor, he is also a good businessman (owning a multi-billion dollars empire) who can execute his vision and strategy.

For the aspiring Dragons’ Den inventors/entrepreneurs out there, I highly recommend James’ insightful autography “Against the Odds: An Autobiography”.

I wish Ralph all the best and I hope he will get back on his feet and get a good job while putting his focus on one great idea and really really work hard on it. The key is 5,127 prototypes that lead to one great product!

Good luck Ralph.

s2e2 PeerFX “patent”?

Quoting a PeerFX 10/9/2007 7:27 PM EDT discussion page comment (emphasis mine),

Intellectual Property: PeerFX has a patent on several peer-to-peer currency services (not mentioned in the show), so there is a barrier to entry for other companies. Additionally, a single bank is not able to perform the same service as PeerFX due to the patent, but also do to the fact that they would be restricted to members of their own bank. This restriction would limit the pool of peers and eliminate the ability to properly match USD-CAD conversions.

I would love to read and look at PeerFX’s patent, assuming it is an issued patent, to see the claims and what the patent actually covers. But unfortunately/unluckily I was unable to find PeerFX’s patent in the US Patent Database nor the Canadian Patent Database (data current through October 9, 2007) using keywords like peer to peer, currency exchange, etc. I’ve also looked at the US Patent application database which also returns no related patent results.

I wonder will someone from PeerFX shine some light on the patent? For example, is the patent issued or is it in the application stage? If it is not issued, there is still a risk that it may not be granted and as such, probably not a good idea to say “PeerFX has a patent“. Also, patent is not a fool-proof thing as sometimes patents can be invalidated. For example, Google happens to have a patent granted by the USPTO today and from the looks of it, there is a chance that it may be invalidated and I am sure Sun is not going to let Google by easily on this one. Will see.

By the way, the name PeerFX is not trademarked yet. For that, I suppose some legal criteria must be met first.

Life after no - Dragons’ Den season one

Saw an interesting October Profit magazine article about Dragons’ Den season one entrepreneurs’ “Life after no“. And “Dragon Attack” - a Q&A with the five dragons of season two. [via Facebook group topic]

Dragons’ Den s2e2 review

(Cross posted at Kempton with additional readers’ comments)

The following are my brief reviews and comments on the Dragons’ Den Season 2 episode 2 pitches/ideas.

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Reality Check — IMHO, pure talk and no products don’t make a good business. And the 10+ Reality Check men and women seemed to me were just there for show and wasn’t really part of the business at all. Not a good way to pitch, IMHO.

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3D Fanware — Since they were fanware to wear at live games or at home, I suppose we don’t need to worry as much about safety. (I was picturing kids wearing these hamlets to play street hockey!) I forgot was it Jim or Arlene or someone else, the sports promotional business is a tough business and the novelty of the product may wear off quickly.

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PeerFx (their Facebook group) — I am the most interested in this business and will spend most of my time researching and writing about it in this review.

The team of Florence Leung, Robert Dunlop, Grant Ringham, Parham Yaghoobi and Lewis Zimmerman have done a great job developing PeerFx. And Florence and her teammate (sorry, I forgot his name) did a nice job presenting their ideas.

With a lack of precise details of the working of PeerFx provided on the show, I will post some of my questions and make some comments based on assumptions that are potentially wrong . But thats half of the fun, right? (big smile)

Questions & Comments

1. If the users want to exchange Canadian $ and US$, do they need to have bank accounts in both currencies? Will the users need to provide their account numbers to PeerFx? The question is how does the users get their hands on the physical US$ or C$? And how long will this process takes?
2. I am *not* a lawyer and I am definitely not a Canadian or US banking law expert. But PeerFx may need to find lawyers that know the area. When I was thinking about this area, PayPal came into mind. And the “The Legal Relationship between You and PayPal” section in the PayPal User agreement may be a good place to familiarize some issues, including “(i) PayPal is not a bank and the Service is a payment processing service rather than a banking service“.
3. The issue of float. As an aside, float is an important and interesting topic discussed by Warren Buffett many times, for example see the title “The Power of float” in this link or search for float in the official 2004 annual report (a great read)).
4. Now, since we are talking about float. Then PeerFx must be temporary hold users’ money. (issues in — trust, rules and regulations, etc.) I think it is important for the business to use the float wisely because if the amount of money being dealt with is sizable then there can be good extra income generated. (As a side note, the float of *only* a few days are how some payroll processing companies make their money processing companies’ paychecks to employees.)
5. The barriers to entry is quite low in this business. But then the barriers to entry for Craiglist was and still is quite low too.

PeerFx definitely has a good business idea here and I am interested in how the team and the dragons execute it. Best of luck to them.

Oct 9th Update: Here are some further research and discussions on PeerFX’s patent.

By the way, I think PeerFX got $200K and gave up 51% of the company to three dragons.

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Forever Chelsey — Watching the dragons analyze the market and the product, I agree with their judgment.

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Sincerity Inc. — The products are just not good. But the web name sincerity.ca may worth something. (Note: sincerity.com looks unused and ready to be sold?)

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Urban Inukshuk — Sorry, just a bad idea. The art DYI “art” look quite cheap.

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Heartland International English School -- Like Robert pointed out, I think web based interactive language instruction is better than a simple phone based one.

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Island Sports Entertainment — (Thanks to Shaun for reminding me I missed this company.) — Although the wrestling match and commentary were entertaining but I will trust Jim and Arlene’s instinct on the limited potential of the business. The potential sales may be worldwide but how to generate paying interest around the world is a totally different story.

The ability to generate interests of the wrestlers outside of the immediate surrounding geographical area is a big challenge that these entrepreneurs have to face. And the valuation of over $600K just make the decisions to say no that much easier. Just my 2 cents.

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Vent Kit — I am really happy the lady got her $10,000 and a licensing agreement with the Dragons Jim and Laurence. Sometimes we all need a break and I am so glad that this lady got her break tonight. Hopefully with Laurence’s contacts and Jim’s help, this lady will make good on her words and create a nice viable business for herself and the dragons.

DD s2e2 companies links

(Oct 8th evening note: Here is the link to my review which has new updated info.)

Did a quick google and found the following links to Dragons’ Den Season 2 episode 2 companies to help my review later tonight. And I have added a quick impression.

I thought some readers may find them an interesting read.

• 3D Fanware — Hmm, cardboard toys? safety? why no videos on the site?
• Forever Chelsey — Hmm, I don’t have pets so I will see what the dragons will have to say.
• Heartland International English School — Pitching a school?
• Island Sports Entertainment. — (Not on Google top 10 results. Why not? Name too generic? website not created?)
• Vent Kit. — (Not on Google top 10 results. Why not? Name too generic? website not created?)
• PeerFx — Hmm, I am interested to see this team explains their business. why no videos on the site? how they handle the issue of trust? counterfeit money?
• Sincerity Inc. — I’m not sure about the products. But the web name sincerity.ca may worth something. (Note: sincerity.com looks unused and ready to be sold?)
• Urban Inukshuk — (Not on Google top 10 results. Why not? Name too generic? website not created?)

Advance look of Dragons’ Den s2e2

The above screen capture (click to view bigger picture) is a list of unconfirmed Dragons’ Den Season 2 episode 2 pitches from the official site captured just now. Looks like we are going to have another exciting show coming up. Watch it Monday Oct 8th, 2007, 8pm.

The Many Facebooks of Dragons’ Den

I will keep this discussion short as it may seem a bit philosophical (read: boring) and may also get me into trouble.

I blogged about a wonderful fan created Facebook group a few months back and was happy that this fan (who I still don’t know) took the time to create the group.

And now, we also have nice Facebook official CBC Dragons’ Den event promoting Dragons’ Den which I think is a great thing. (I don’t think we can over-promote DD!)

What I think will be great is to also shine a spotlight officially on this wonderful fan created Facebook group. I think it is very important to get fans involvement and put trust into fans, even it means giving up some control. I got that insight from researching on the massive web phenomenon known as LG15 and interviewing Greg Goodfried, the lawyer turned co-creator/executive producer of LG15.

So please sign up for the wonderful fan created Facebook group, the official CBC DD episode 1 event, and episode 2 event.

Dragons’ Den season 2 episode 1 (s2-e1) review

(Cross posted at Kempton with additional comments)

Five months have passed since the two wonderful days of Calgary auditions in late April, and four months since my Toronto trip to watch actual season two Dragons’ Den taping sessions (real pitches in front of the dragons), I can finally shared with you more of what I felt then and now. Plus my review of episode one.

Before I review the business ideas/pitches and the show, I want to say I have the deepest respect for ALL of the entrepreneurs who came to Dragons’ Den to pitch. Creating businesses with good product ideas are not easy to start with, and pitching in front of many cameras with bright TV lights and being grilled by the Dragons made the pitching many times harder. So I tip my hat to all the participating entrepreneurs.

Now, on to my reviews.

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Mastermoves Core Training
The entrepreneur Oswaldo Koch seemed very charismatic on TV during his pitch and the product seems effect and easy to use. But I think I’ve seen variations of this idea 20 years ago already! The QVC’s requirement of having a stock of 5,000 units ultimately made the QVC idea limited risk for QVC and the entrepreneur/investors taking all the risk.

I have to say I am surprised that Dragon Robert Herjavec expressed interest in investing $300K for 100% of the company. Oswaldo should have rushed to take the offer. To me, I have the impression that Oswaldo thought that there are still opportunities to make lots of money on this product (as a result of Robert’s interest). If that was the case, I think Robert might have ultimately done Oswaldo a disservice. Mind you, Robert did have his own money on the table so he must have seen something that I have not seen or not willing to risk.

Bikini Zero
Like some of the dragons, I was bored by Taylor Moore’s business idea (even the girls in bikini are cute). Putting aside the idea of having a business that objectifies women, there is not much new here. The similar and more radical idea like “Naked News” (dealing with general news as oppose to tech) have been around for years (since 2000).

Ultimate Sports Puzzles
This enthusiastic husband and wife entrepreneurial team (John and Peggy Milito) has their business since 1996 for 11 years already. The main problem is that John and Peggy haven’t been able to generate interest/sales for the last 11 years and I am afraid they will unlikely be able to turn the business into a profitable one.

In life, successful business people need determination to go through hard times. But I suspect they also have the ability to recognize when is it time to fold a money losing and time consuming business.

I feel really sorry for John and Peggy and wish them all the best.

Banana Guard
The fact that the entrepreneurs (Amin Sajan, Sunil Mangal & David Agulni) have successfully sold 700,000 units made the product really interesting to me. And it must be serving some market segment that I am not aware of nor understand (e.g. cycling).

The final offer of 400K for 25% may still seem a bit aggressive but then I don’t have full access to the financial data and business plan, etc.

What interested me the most here is the US Patent they have. US Patent 6612440 is a one-page patent that has one and only one claim for “a banana protective device“. I am not a patent lawyer and I don’t even play one on TV. But I suspect it shouldn’t have been too difficult to generalize the original patent to have its claims cover “fruits” (or even vegetables, or some general terms) and then use banana as an example.

Incidentally, the way the entrepreneur started the pitch with a joke was a really bad idea, IMHO.

Now, for entrepreneurs who are thinking of applying for a patent, I highly recommend viewing this video on how to review a patent application, getting some help and hiring a knowledgeable patent lawyer. The Wikipedia entry “Continuing patent application” is also a good read with some interesting info.

Adult/Baby Toilet Seat
I have the pleasure to meet the entrepreneur Marten Rhead twice (in the Calgary audition and in Toronto). He seems like a nice person. If I remember right, he owns a patent on this idea. What I couldn’t say until the show has been aired is the red flag of the product being in existence for many years and there weren’t the sales figures to prove that it is a viable product.

Automatic Closing Fastener
I don’t know these young entrepreneurs (Emily Choi, Sean Bekeschus & Benjamin Cairns) but I felt sorry for them as I think the product idea isn’t a good one.

Goatee Guide
I met Paul Bertucci (the entrepreneur) in Calgary during audition and Toronto during his pitch. Paul seems like a nice man when I met him. The problem, as I see it, with the goatee guide is that the market size (people who have goatee) is rather small which makes it difficult to sale and distribute it (for a reasonable retail price).

Rockpower – The Solar Powered Rock
I had a small laugh watching Roland Hofer pitched this.

Rhinobag
This seems like a lucrative business with really good margins. One major weakness is that there isn’t much intellectual property protection (I don’t think the idea is patentable or defendable in court) at all.

Now, it is nice to see Rhinobag already being sold in Canadian Tire stores (based on their web info). But I don’t see why someone else can’t come up with a competing product and same or better service to take some shares of this nice and lucrative market.

Who said watching TV can’t give you idea to make money?! I actually see some good profit potential and reasonably low barriers to entry.

Hmmm, may be I should buy a Rhinobag myself and try to reverse engineer the business and may be partner with someone! Thats an idea!

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My comments & 2 cents on the show itself.

• First of all, I love the show and it is really enjoyable to watch.
• Use of Montage - Nice and compact way of showing us more pitches. The length on them is about right. Of course, some of the entrepreneurs would like to have more time to explain things but I would rather four unsuccessful attempts than one long bad business pitch/idea.
• Use of Music - The music sounds better and less intrusive than last year. Good.
• New website - The new website layout looks nice. Although I kinda miss the old way of commenting right under each business pitches as oppose to have all comments appear in one big long list.

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Update: Check out my interviews with the five dragons and the host of Dragons’ Den to get to know them a bit better on a more personal level.

Dragons’ Den season two episode one review

Watched Dragons’ Den season two episode one last night at the same time as everyone else. I am half way through my review of the new episode and will post my review of it in the next day or two. Stay tune.