Derry Green: I had no idea Dragons' Den would do this

0:00Derry Green:Well, welcome everyone to the Naked Founder podcast on location and we really are on location today. This is the podcast where nothing is hidden. Thanks to our sponsors, Financial, the home of money for women and our producer Dan Brown of Renowned. Our guest today is the king of glamping, whose life was transformed by a throwaway social media post and an appearance on Dragon's Den. Derry Green is a founder of the secret garden, Glamping, and we are here in his first sight near Scalmersdale. At the start of COVID, he was facing financial wipeout when he decided to make a den for his two children, which resulted in a multi-million pound business and a lot more besides.

0:36Derry Green:A massive Naked founder, welcome to you, Derry Green. Thank you. I've interviewed you countless times, and you've spoken about this. I've seen the stuff on social media. I'm here for the first time. It's blown my socks off. You like it? It's amazing. It's amazing. Unfortunately, I think you're booked up for the next 50 years, so I can't actually bring my wife here as well. Derry, we always ask the same question at the start of every episode of the Naked Founder podcast, which is what do you wish you'd known at the start of founding a business that you didn't know? So what I wish I'd knew before starting this was probably what I actually wanted to achieve from it.

1:10I've thought about this before and I've gone through lots of different stages in this business. When I started out, I wasn't starting a business, so I never even thought about it, never even come across my mind. Some people want to start a business to earn money or to get freedom or whatever it might be. But understanding what you want to do the business for rather than just, if you want to make money and buy a Ferrari, go for it. Great. If that's your plan, that's your plan. But focusing on what I actually want to achieve, that's what I wish I'd known at the start because that's changed over time.

1:42And funnily enough, I've gone full circle. I started because I wanted to spend more time with the kids. This business allows me to spend more time with the kids. That is ultimately what my goal is. So if I said to you, what is your goal now?

1:55Derry Green:Is your goal now to create a business that allows you to spend more time with your children? Yeah, well, it's to create a business that I enjoy doing. So if I look back and speak to my 10-year-old self, what did I enjoy doing? It was building dens in the woods with my brother. That's what I loved then. And I still love it now. I didn't set out to create a business. And I really don't want to end up doing a job I don't want. If I'm sat in an office all day, I'd hate it. If I had to sit in front of a computer and do spreadsheets, I haven't achieved my goal. Now, the business can achieve its goal, which is separate from my own personal goals.

2:29So the business can kind of go in one direction, driven by me and bringing in the right people to do the stuff I don't want to do. So I can still play down here every day.

2:38Derry Green:Yeah. I mean, Simon Sinek's got that book, you know, it starts with why it's it's all about having a why. Yeah. Your why is, you know, you see, you know what your why is now. Yeah. You didn't know what it was when you started the business. Well, it's funny because it's evolved over time. So when I started, because it wasn't a business, I was just doing what I loved. I like building things. I like spending time with the kids. It was great. It ended up becoming a business and I started treating it like a business. So then it was about making money. As soon as I started doing that, I didn't enjoy doing it.

3:06So I've kind of come full circle and I'm now going back to what I enjoyed doing, which was doing stuff in the woods, being outside all day. So it took a long time and I've gone through, over the past six years, different stages in the business. And I've really focused on now what I want to achieve over the next, whatever, five years, 10 years, 100 years if I get to live it, but we'll see.

3:28Derry Green:Yeah, and it's interesting, actually. I would say that I've known you for probably five of those years. And I would probably say that you've always been a really nice guy, but I think you've got a certain drive now and a focus where at the beginning you probably were, oh, you know, and that happened, oh, and that happened, oh, and that happened. But now you've got a real focus. Yeah, there was no structure to it. It was this happened and then it was like trying to keep up with the speeding train. It was all going, so you had to kind of just do whatever was needed to be done. Now, after six years, it's matured into a different thing.

4:04And like we were speaking about earlier on, having the right people there to do the stuff that needs to be done from a business point of view is really important. And that frees me up to actually do what I enjoy, which inevitably makes the business better. It's what made the business in the first place was my passion to do this.

4:21Derry Green:And I need to keep that to keep the business going. When that passion comes through, okay. We mentioned before that this all began because of something that happened during COVID when you needed to keep your kids entertained. Let's take it one step further back, okay, because not everyone realises you had a haulage company. Yeah. Okay, and you had a haulage company at the start of COVID, but it was really small. Before then, 2013, you had a big haulage company. I think you had 150 vehicles on the road. And then overnight, boom, you lost pretty much all of it. What happened? So that was, so 2013, Christmas Day, I was down in Cornwall, and my partner at the time, her sister came in and said, don't you work for CityLink?

4:59At the time, we wanted a big service provider for CityLink. And I said, yeah, yeah, we do. And they said, they've gone bust, it's on the news. And I walked in, and it was on Sky News, and that was the first I knew about it. So I had to get back in the car Christmas Day morning, drive back up here to find out what the hell had gone on. And yeah, CityLink went bust on us, owing us about half a million at the time. That annihilated all of the service partners in the industry. There was a big inquest into it in Parliament, how it had all happened. They knew they were going bust in October and so on and so on.

5:31And it was really, really hard to take because the business fundamentally was great. Made you angry? Made you angry? Oh, yeah. It was horrible. And it wasn't just me. It was everybody else that was involved as well. We were very, very lucky at the time. When I look back at it now, because at Christmas, what traditional service partners did, every Christmas you doubled up. So because it was so busy, you'd take on an extra 50 vans, you'd just put a personal guarantee down, get another 50 vans, another 50 drivers, you'd run that until Boxing Day, and then you'd scale back for the rest of the year, and you'd make a big bubble at Christmas.

6:05That year was the only year for six years in a row that we hadn't done it, because we had loads of other stuff going on. We started doing European transport, we'd done a few other bits.

6:14Derry Green:So in terms of that part of the story, because I want to talk about the glamping, You were stung in a big way, and that really sits there at the back of your mind. Yeah, it's horrible. So then get to 2020. Now, your haulage company then is really phased back. It's scaled back in a big way. COVID happens. Your vehicles are off the road. Okay. Just to paint a picture, you've got two young children. You're separated from your partner. You're here in Scalmersdale. Okay. You've got 1 ,500 quid in your skyrocket. You seek mortgage relief. Okay. You can't get furlough. So that's a pretty desperate situation to be in, isn't it?

6:48Derry Green:Yeah. How bad was it? It was literally, like you just said, I had the money. I came back on a trip. It was about the 22nd of March. I had 1 ,500 quid from that trip. And that was the last money I got in until later, well, towards summer. I signed on for universal credit, got that approved. But it was literally living day to day. All I had was that. Now, luckily, we had the mortgage payment breaks and I just stopped everything. But I don't really say about it. and I say I did this to play with the kids and everything else. I'll be honest, it was to distract me as much as it was them. Because if I didn't think about it, if I buried my head in the sand like an ostrich, it didn't matter.

7:25It was like the world had stopped. It hadn't, and I knew it hadn't, because every time I stopped doing something, I'd sit and think about it and go, what the hell am I going to do? So it was to as much distract me as it was to entertain the kids.

7:37Derry Green:But the benefit you've got, you've got some woods at the back of your house. Yeah. So you built a den, right? OK, it's not your typical den. it was not a den i could make the first six dens the glamping dens the pods that you made you made yourself yeah okay so you create this den okay you bring the it was that warm weather gorgeous brought the tables and chairs out brought a tv out okay what did this then have in it so at first it was literally started as a deck chair in a fire pit and then each day i built a bit more so i built a deck about the size of what we are here put the tent on there then built a bit more of a deck and then some seats and then the tent turned into a pod like a really rudimentary kind of pod like you'd see anywhere else but again it got more and more elaborate each day because we just kept adding to it and by the end of it it was a bit of pod with a bed and a sofa and a toilet and an outdoor decking area and a hot tub and all sorts of bits yeah um and everybody compared it to love island yeah that's what it you know dad builds love island style glamping pod in his garden that was the big thing you mentioned the headlines what happens is you put a piece on social media got picked up the lab bible they ran it and tell us what happened next so yeah when lad bible did the story on it it went ballistic that got like 10 million views and because my name's quite unusual yeah people started messaging me on facebook saying can we book it for a holiday and i was like why the hell do you want to come and stay in my garden in skam that's ridiculous yeah but it was about about two or three weeks later and i was sat there one night actually thinking what the hell am I going to do and I thought about that and I thought you know what if I list it on Airbnb if I can get a side hustle going until I go because I always thought I was going back to work genuinely thought I was going yeah I thought I was going to go back to work at some point and I thought if I can get a little side hustle going in the meantime that'll work and I put it on Airbnb went to bed woke up the next morning had 150 bookings by the second day it was booked for two and a half years in advance because Airbnb had took it and put it on their home page because of the story that was going around.

9:33Derry Green:So suddenly you think to yourself, hang on a minute, I've got financial salvation. Okay, so you start doing that. You grow the business. You apply for planning permission. I think you wanted three. You put a planning application in for 10. You got six. You built those six. You then got a really viable business. You make the decision to go on Dragon's Den. Now, if you've not Googled it on Dragon's Den, Google it. Okay, it might still be on iPlayer for all I know as well. Oh, yeah, yeah. Now, you were filmed what? When was the filming? So the filming was May of 2023. Yeah. Yeah, we're in 26 now.

10:06Derry Green:Yeah, so May of 23, and then it aired in the January of 24. And you got offers from four dragons. Okay, was Stephen the only one who didn't invest? So Stephen, he actually said, I'm taking my dragon's hat off. He didn't want to make money. He just wanted me to do really well, so he said I should take Deborah's offer. Yeah. So that's why he said that's the reason why he was doing it, was to not make money. You got four offers. I think what people loved was the story. The story was, you know, dad, desperate dad, you know, does something for his kids and now he's got a business on the back of it.

10:36Derry Green:One of the things that I remember most, and I think most people probably do, is that they said, why don't you increase prices during peak times, like school holidays? And you said, I don't want to. And then they looked at you like you just landed off the moon. Do you remember that? Yeah. To be honest, that was like a little throwaway two minutes when we was filming for like two and a half hours. And I probably shouldn't have said to them, I want to make less money. That's not a good pitch to an investor. But actually, it came back around and they were fully on board with it. Because it is, you know, I hate getting, I'm a dad, I hate getting ripped off in the school holidays.

11:09I know I'm getting ripped off. So I can choose not to do it. There's no reason that I have to do it, so I'm not going to. And that was it. And what I didn't realise is that was the kind of main storyline through the episode of Dragon's Den. And the response was phenomenal.

11:24Derry Green:Did you anticipate the response you were going to get from Dragon's Den before you went on? No, no, not at all. Even the day it aired, I watched it. I knew it was going to be good because I knew the ending, but I didn't know how we got there. Like I say, it was two and a half hours. They could have took any eight minutes out of that two and a half hours to make the story. And I forgot that I even said about what I charge. So when it came across as that, the response from the general public was just phenomenal. And I really understood. I thought it would just be me on my phone for maybe one or two days before the next episode's on and it calms down.

11:56it was six months before it calmed down and even then it still never stopped and when you went on

12:02Derry Green:the show was it still just this one site yeah yeah okay and then sort of turnover for that one site so when i went on the show was half a million half a million okay so deborah meadon comes on board the interesting thing of the dragon you're closest to isara davis who incidentally is my favorite dragon she's awesome she's amazing she's been to this site yeah yeah yeah she's been a few time And what difference has Deborah Meaden and Sarah Davis' continuous input? What difference has that had to your business? To be honest, it's the recognition. That's what I went on the show for. If I'm totally honest, I didn't go on for money because we didn't need it.

12:42And I didn't go on for advertising because we didn't really need it. What I wanted was somebody else to tell me that I was doing the right thing, basically. And the support from both of them has been awesome. And from that point of view, if I've got like a random question, because at this point, there's stuff I've never done before. There's decisions I'm making that I have no idea about. And just being able to ask somebody, is this the right thing to do? Is there another option? Like we were doing before this interview, how can we look at that? That's where the main impact has been. It's not been from the day-to-day running of the business.

13:15None of that's changed. Fundamentally, that's still all me. It's been that main kind of having somebody to lean on, to ask the question to, and be pointed in the right direction. So the business today, you've got five sites.

13:28Derry Green:Can I see if I can remember them? Go on. You've got Scammersdale that we know about. Okay, you've got Devon. You've got Cornwall. International. You've got Ireland as well. And you've got the one in Southport, which is known as? La Mancha Hall. La Mancha Hall. So you've got five sites. How many units have you got in total now? 24. And how many people do you employ? uh 47 okay and turnover now would be uh it's just under two million just under two million and you've got plans in for another six sites as well so the vision for you know the secret garden glamping company is what so i want it to be the go-to brand for glamping in the uk yeah and abroad abroad okay so in terms of you putting a number on that you're putting 10 million 20 million 30 million 40 million or not so the only one i could compare it to if you look at the u.s market you've got people like under canvas postcard cabins those sorts of ones which are being bought up by the big hotel change they got you know 100 200 million dollar valuations yeah that's where i want to go to okay i think one of the things about this business and you've always been really clear on this as well is you don't think of it as a glamping business you think of it as a social media business so everywhere and We've just done a tour now.

14:38Derry Green:Everywhere you go, there's those Instagram moments, there's the swing, you know, with the name of the business next to it. Just explain what you mean by it being a social media business. So at the very start, I worked out quite quickly, because of Ladbible, what a difference can be made to a business by being able to be seen by your customers. And these days, you know, social media has changed. Over the past six years, it's been a real fundamental change. We've never really been competing with other glamping sites. We're competing with everybody who's making content. Because when you watch content, it's not just car videos or just videos on shoes.

15:14It's everything. So getting our product to the people is the most important part fundamentally. Because I also am the chairman of GITA, the Glamping Industry Trade Association. I know of 100 other phenomenal glamping sites that are amazing. Nobody's doing bad sites. The problem is nobody knows about them. And that was the key at the start. It was getting everybody to know you compared to somebody else. And that's why I've always treated it as a social media business. And how do we do that? And how do we make everybody want to share what happens here?

15:47Derry Green:But your social media performance is not down to luck. I mean, it's, you know, you post at certain times. There's certain things will not go on your site. You want it to be aspirational, experiential. Okay. Lots of lights, the hot tub, glass of wine, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So in terms of social media, your approach to social media is what? Because you don't advertise, do you? No. No, we've never spent a... Well, I say we've never spent a penny on marketing. So we don't use Facebook ads, Google ads, anything like that. What we do is take our marketing budget and spend it on things like this, where we're sat now.

16:20We've done really, really well off user-generated content. It's all well and good, me sitting here and saying, we are the best thing since sliced bread. These days with AI, I could make anything look like anything. So it's not believable to the general public. But if Debbie, your friend from next door, has put a video on Facebook of her having a great time at a zoo, you will take that as she's having a great time. That zoo must be good. So that's what we fundamentally always try to do from a business is user generated content. And from my side, it's been about storytelling, about what we do and why we do it, because people do buy into brands if they align with their political, aspirational, whatever goal they've got.

17:00So actually explaining to people why we're not the Hilton Hotel is really, really important to us. And people knowing that it's me.

17:08Derry Green:I think that's such an important word, storytelling. Because it's about bringing products and bringing businesses to life. Yeah. And if people get on board that storytelling, then you don't have to advertise. I never thought I'd say this before, Derry, but we're going to have a walk around the site to see it, some of the things that we've spoken about. And if it's okay with you, we're going to continue this interview in the bedroom. Let's go for it. Okay. Cheers, mate.

17:33Derry Green:Where are we walking now? Where are you taking me to? So this is the main path through the woodland. So it's basically in a big, long, straight line. You can see all the way behind us. That's where the units start down there. And we head further up the site. We've got our Tiki Bar, which is new for this year. That's on the left-hand side. Yeah, that's awesome. At night, we have the fire pit going. Everybody sits around, has the drinks. We do loads of different cocktails. But the main thing that everybody really wants to come and see here is the tree house so the tree house was supposed to be the last unit I was ever going to build ever it ended up being in the middle of this site now and then we've got more sites from there okay so in terms of where we are how many we've got 13 units here haven't we yeah okay and then we're gonna go to the tree house now in terms of the costs as well the costs are quite interesting because you know it's not prohibitive is it I think the cost vary from about 250 to 350 and obviously the treetops will be at the top end yeah so we try and make it the only difference in price in any of the units is how many it sleeps so the treetops sleeps six people so it basically works out it's 55 quid each that's what you whenever we look at the amount of guests that come because we always found it difficult especially with like the treetops the reason i built this it was the first one that slept six people the issue with me and chelsea so we are now a blended family there's five of us if we want to go and stay in any hotel in the uk it's either really difficult because they all are two plus two or it's really expensive because we have to buy the suite or the whatever to have five of us in it it's really difficult for blended families anybody above two and two kids to find accommodation so that's why we took almost every unit is exactly the same it works out as 55 quid each one of the things about this place as well is that i don't feel that every unit's on top of each other there's a lot of green space as well you could build a lot more units down here as well but but i haven't seen anyone i mean i don't think there's anyone here i think it's just me and you yeah no it is there's 47 guests on site and you haven't seen a single one yet um we have got loads of space here but like you just said if we had the same amount again and we had 120 guests on site it'd feel like that and it'd feel like you're at a campsite or a center parks or a whatever where this genuinely feels like you've got your own little bit of the woodland and it's just you here.

19:49Off to the bedroom. Let's go.

19:54Derry Green:So, Derry, we've just had a look around the site and you dragged me back into the bedroom. You know, so no, actually, I've just had a look at the site and very few things surprise me these days. And I looked at that site and we're hearing, this particular unit's called the retreat, okay, I'm going to describe it it was a tent. It's probably a technical name for what we're in. It's like a posh tent. I've never been to Glastonbury, but this is what I imagine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. You know, you've got, and just for the benefit of our audience and for the benefit of our listeners as well, you know, you've got a hot tub outside, you've got seating, you know, you've got a fantastic bed, you've got a settee, you've got a deep, you've got a deep bath just out of shot, you've got the TV, you've got, what's the idea that we're trying to create here?

20:40So this is the ultimate, I think this is the ultimate level of glamping which is glamorous camping it's just a really fancy tent now we want to try and make the spaces indoors as comfortable as possible but realistically there's not much more you can do as long as you've got a nice bed sofa your tv that's it you don't really need too much in here everything is focused on the outdoor areas what are you going to do so we've got a mini golf course the hot tub seating areas outdoor tvs it's all about spending time outdoors reconnecting with nature that's where people are going to create memories and ultimately for me share content they're not sharing content on the bed they're sharing content in the hot tub let's hope they're not sharing exactly yeah so it always baffled me when i came to glamping is why everybody focused on what is a really fancy tent because it's pointless nobody's getting content of that particularly just where you sleep exactly it's outside you know if you're in a travel lodge you're never going to take a that's where hotels in general do really badly you're not taking a selfie sat in the travel lodge watching Netflix.

21:39It's a boring post for anybody. But if you're sat outside roasting some marshmallows with the kids, that is a really good post. Yeah, it's fascinating.

21:47Derry Green:It's like a continuous circle, isn't it? Okay, and continue to generate content. Now, I'm not going to give any trade secrets away, but I went into the bar area. So you create a bar area. Okay, it's open between 5 and 10 every night. The thing about that is I saw all this, like, I don't know, I don't know if it's described as art deco, but all the props. Brick of Brack. Crick and break, yeah. And you said to me, you know, me and my son went to boot markets, boot fairs. We bought all this for two quid each. Yeah. You know, it's that. Some people think you've got to spend an absolute fortune on a makeover.