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Name | Patrick van der Vorst |
Pitching | Value My Stuff Now |
Investment Required | £100,000 |
Equity Offered | 20% |
Brief Description | An online antique valuation service. |
Patrick is looking for investment to expand his antique valuation website, will any of the multi-millionaire investors be willing to put in an offer?
James Caan opens the questioning and is impressed by the novel idea but needs to understand how the business model works. Through some determined questioning he discovers that each valuation might take 5-10 minutes and would earn the expert £1.80.
Duncan Bannatyne joins this line of questioning and wonders what these experts do for a day job given that they are willing to work for what seems such a small amount of money. The plucky entrepreneur responds well and advises that most valuations can be given very quickly as it's second nature and concerns that items that could be copies could be easily cleared up by requesting a second photograph.
Deborah looks to move fast
Deborah Meaden looks into the revenue and site traffic and how much he spends on advertising which immediately rings alarm bells with Peter Jones.
He can't see how on present conversion rates and unique users the business works with the amount spent on advertising.
Patrick rebuts this attack confidently by telling Peter that 25% of sales are though repeat customers.
But Duncan has heard enough, he'll use the site but won't invest. James also doesn't see the business model as sustainable and Peter thinks the entrepreneur would need much more capital to make the business work. Patrick is now down to two Dragons.
But in an exciting turn of events Theo Paphitis sees that in a time of austerity people will be looking to sell things. He makes an offer of half of the money for 20%.
All eyes turn to Deborah who agrees with Theo that the website is at the right time, she thinks Patrick will need to spend more on his advertising but matches Theo's offer.
Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis: £100,000 for a 40% share.
Last updated: 30th August 2010
Other entrepreneurs from this episode:
'What is so astonishing about their pitch is that they didn't even state their USP'
A glimpse behind the scenes with investment reactions.
Dom tests this week's products with the public.
Missed any action? Catch up and find out more about the Online Dragons.
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