Steven Bartlett's Dragons' Den Deal That Almost Never Happened!

0:00We signed that deal the evening of the airing of Dragon's Den. He's very focused on brand. You'll know that about Steven. He's the most incredible brand and storyteller. And every time we kind of were getting close to a deal, something monumental would happen and all of a sudden you're managing someone else's money. Imagine that process then of navigating the deal and negotiating with Steven. That was probably a whole new world going from Holland to Barrett, Dragon's Den and then that. What can you tell us about that? Yeah, so we filmed in June and it aired the following March. Between June and March, we were negotiating with Stephen.

0:35We signed the deal with Stephen, actually the same deal that was on Dragons Den. So it didn't change. Many deals change. We signed that deal the evening of the airing of Dragons Den. Wow. That's how close it was. There was a matter of minutes. I actually remember getting the WhatsApp from Stephen's team saying dealer signed as the beginning segment of Dragon's Den was on TV. We were the final bit of the show. So that's how close it was. It took months and months to negotiate and we ended up doing it and it was the best thing we ever did. How does the dynamic change when an investor comes on board who's not necessarily passionate and maybe motivated by commercials and things like that?

1:17How does that change the dynamic? It creates more accountability. So we've never really reported to Stephen and the structure is very flat. He's been the greatest advocate of the brand. So much love for Stephen and his team. We speak to them every single day. We're in the same office as them. It's a genuine partnership, which can't be said for many investor-investee relationships. It changes the dynamic because all of a sudden you're managing someone else's money and you can't necessarily cut corners like you could at the beginning and you've got to do everything to the best of your abilities to make sure you're doing it within regulation, doing it properly.

1:58All of a sudden, your contracts have to be watertight. Everything has to be perfect. But what it does is it makes the business grow up. But Stephen as an investor is not the kind of investor who, especially at the beginning when the business is very, very small, he's not grilling every single number. He's very focused on brand. You'll know that about Stephen. He's the most incredible brand and storyteller. um and he really helped us with that but it was never it didn't really change anything commercially it just leveled up the opportunity from a brand perspective so when we were negotiating with steven it was very much like this is what we believe we believe this is gonna be a billion dollar business this is the valuation either get on board or not obviously that makes us sound a lot better than that she was there's probably more like stuttering out because we were nervous but we got there in the end this might sound like a really silly question why did it take a year it took a year.

2:52There were some changes on Stephen's end with a couple of deals he was working on and team changes on his end, which stood a couple of things. And on our end, it took a year because we were growing so quickly that it was hard to put a precise value on the business. When you think about the exponential growth of a fast growing startup, it's quite easy to see where the growth is here but you get to this point where you're doubling month of a month which technically means your valuation should be doubling month of a month and every time we kind of we're getting close to a deal something monumental would happen and either one of us would say okay well does this make sense a deal anymore and it just took a year for us all to get comfortable with a deal that put us all in the best position to maximize value wow so what was the difference between i suppose the deal i don't know if you can tell us but the deal at the start of the year to the end of it how much did it i don't remember how much how it changed or how much it changed but i remember steven proposed something and we went back and forth a bunch and eventually like anything like any relationship that's compromised we found the spot that worked for us and it just took time and also by the way anyone who thinks a fundraise takes five minutes is wrong there's legals there's like financial dd there's technical dd there's questions around supply chain it goes on and on and on until everyone's really comfortable and it takes a really long time so it's it's not like i think i'm still on track and stay we've got a deal and then like the next day yeah they're on company's house it's there's there's loads of work in the background it feels like two different situations like oh we've got steven bartlett that's helping us with the business and steven bartlett that we're negotiating with how did that affect the relationship over those 12 months yeah i had its ups and downs um for sure but steven like i have Honestly, I haven't got a bad word to say about Steven.

4:42And people, I think, often are looking for the negativity in some stories. But the three of us and the whole team have not a bad word to say about Steven and his team. They're phenomenal. And it was never really aggressive and tense. I mean, obviously, a negotiation is always going to be difficult because you're having hard conversations. But we have hard conversations with each other and with Steven every single day. That's what debate is. but along the way it was always we knew we all knew that we wanted a deal it was just working out how to get there and the different levers you could pull to make it work for everyone