Dragons’ Den Theo Paphitis Talks about Enterprise Ideas
Thursday, September 30th, 2010Theo Paphitis is an investor on Dragons’ Den and also on the board of Smarta. So we asked him to discuss his views on last night’s episode, and what it has been like to be a Dragon throughout this series.
As the last episode of season eight of the Dragons’ Den pitches comes to a close, there is only one question left. where exactly did the final 10 weeks go? Could someone please tell me?
Given the feedback from people on the street, this series has been much more lively and entertaining than they have expected. Yes, Dragons’ Den is about businesses but businesses should be fun as well.
The frostiness between Duncan and James at the beginning of the series mellowed as time went on. Our extremely personal Mr Whippy, Duncan, or should I say ‘Doucan’ (thank you washing line inventor John Jackson) became highly animated. This was amusing for us and for viewers. Never have so many strident exclamations of incredulity been delivered by someone with such a smooth forehead. Duncan truly is made for HD TV.
I love sitting next to Deborah for the five weeks of filming. She is brighter, funnier and more caring than all of the rest of us Dragons put together, however she is edited extremely harshly. The fantastic thing is that she is confident and bold enough to take it in her stride. She’s some lady!
Tonight saw Adam Philips pitching his company My Baby Limited. The word ‘fabulous’ spelled out my first impression of the pitch, but that quickly gave way to ‘confusion’ because of the huge number of misunderstandings that came to the surface.
JP and Selina Edwards had a mobile text tracking device that seemed interesting but had a business model that had no worth of its own as Peter Jones explained that other networks would adopt the initiative as standard. I’m with the tall fella on anything telephone techie. What that man doesn’t know about telecoms could fit on a mini sim card.
The funny factor about the Den is that we are all very competitive. So in tonight’s programme Duncan ignored a hot gloves invention because he had tried them in Canada, so they weren’t brand new. Peter couldn’t let slip that he’d tried them in Switzerland. We all thought it was St Moritz but didn’t ask.
Two of my favourite investments this year have been the fashion footwear business WedgeWelly and the antiques valuation site, ValueMyStuffNow. Both are exceptional enterprise suggestions, however it is the individuals with the brains behind the enterprises that make the propositions so exciting.
If Dragons’ Den teaches us something, it’s that patents are essential however it is the power of personality that usually wins the day.
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