What was it really like featuring on Dragons Den (Shark Tank) to an audience of over 4 Million People?

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Transcript:

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hey guys Darren’s to see me here hope

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you are doing well it is gonna be an

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amazing day daily dad’s I’ve just

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started so my comments thoughts tips and

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advice just stuff I’ve learned over the

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last 24 years of successfully helping

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businesses grow I’m gonna share with you

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so today I’m gonna talk to you about

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what it was like to be on Dragons Den

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and an audience of over 4 million for

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anyone watching in Europe or in the

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States Canada or anywhere else there and

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you might not have heard of Dragons day

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and you may have heard of shark tank

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it’s basically the UK equivalent so what

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was it like being on Dragon’s Den

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overall the experience was absolutely

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incredible absolutely loved every minute

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of it and here’s how it all happened so

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seven years ago now Holly and I decided

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to apply to be on the program we passed

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a series of around 4 interviews that

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consisted of phone interviews and then

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they wanted us to submit a load of stuff

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to make sure that we were legit and then

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they invited us up to BBC Center in the

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centre of London to go and pitch to them

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as if we were on the show so we had to

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prepare a pitch that I believe was 2 to

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3 minutes long so Holly and I wrote

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really good pitch and we practiced and

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practiced and practiced till the cows

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came home and we’re really excited took

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us an hour to get up to BBC London

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centre and the DC television Center and

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we walked in we said hi and he said

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right stand on that spot we’re gonna

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film you and we said okay cool so we did

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it literally three minutes of our pitch

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now did it first time

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about five people in the room and they

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went well Wow we’re going what was that

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okay yeah but no one ever no one ever

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does it like that good no one ever does

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it first time either that that’s kind of

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it I don’t want to waste your time but

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that’s all you needed to do and it’s

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like okay well which avold in an hour

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you want us to do it again what might

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not be as good but might be happy to do

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it another two three times while we’re

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here yeah well meds are so we did that

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and essentially those tapes got sent off

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to the executive producers of the show

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and that led to us being on the program

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so what was it like being on the program

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well funnily enough just before we got

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on the program we had to write down how

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much money we wanted to ask for now we

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wanted quarter of a million pounds

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because we worked out specifically that

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was exactly what we needed we were early

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stage business that’s what we needed to

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grow our team a little to get some

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systems and processes in place but most

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of that money was going to be spent on

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marketing and customer acquisition

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because a year prior to that we’d spend

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that year doing all the research doing

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all the due diligence getting the

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foundations of our business so that we

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were in place so that we were fully

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ready to launch so we said yeah we need

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250,000 and they came back to us and

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they said look really want you on the

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show but no one ever gets 250,000 no one

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never really asked for it would you mind

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asking for less so we had our business

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plan we had a financial forecast we said

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okay well how much do you want us to ask

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for since they read you might ask him

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for less like I don’t know seventy grand

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something like that

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so when okay but that’s not in line with

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all our business forecasts and

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everything else yeah but you know we

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want to get you on the show so we wanted

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to be on the show as well so we said

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okay yep let’s do it so it was quite

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weird because we knew deep down we

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needed 250k anyway but we went along

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with that so what was it like

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being on the sheriff and filming it so

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the film really the show is filmed up in

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Manchester media city and we went up the

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night before and stayed in a hotel about

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five minutes from media city now on the

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program was Holly myself and my dad my

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dad was working he’s got other projects

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are the businesses that he runs

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successfully so Holly and I went up on

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our own and we practiced that practiced

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and practiced and practiced and

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practiced some more and we wrote out a

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list of questions that we might be asked

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and we wrote our answers accordingly and

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then my dad came up in the evening and

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we didn’t get very much sleep the

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adrenaline was running very high and I

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think eventually we got sleep at about

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two o’clock and the next day at half

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past four in the morning they came to

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pick us up to take us to meteor city so

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we went along and we got assigned a

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chaperone someone was in charge of us

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someone that would make sure that we

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didn’t go wandering off so I would make

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sure that we didn’t go talking to the

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Dragons if we saw them you know on a

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toilet mission or anything like that and

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try and give them some invite inside

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information so they didn’t want any of

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that so we got put into a green room

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with all the other participants quite

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funny actually we shared a taxi taxi

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with a guy that was on it and he you

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know we’re discussing how did you get

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here what you up to that and he said I

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was in the pub one night with my friends

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and we got absolutely plastered we got

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so drunk and we thought it would be

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funny to fill out a form for Dragon’s

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Den while we were sitting in the pub

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together he said we didn’t have an idea

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we didn’t know what we’d do didn’t have

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anything and Here I am so I thought that

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was quite amusing

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and anyway so we’re in this green room

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and it all gets explained to us and they

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say look we’re gonna go out and we’re

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going to film the lift shots first

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everyone together so the lift is a set

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sorry to disappoint anyone

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you essentially walk into a set and you

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know you’re kind of looking around like

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this pretending you’re in a lift

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pretending it’s moving but it’s not

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really

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and then everybody goes back to the

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green room and you spend a bit of time

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with the producers talking about your

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setup and then you essentially get

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called on at any time so they can just

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come and grab you you don’t know when

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you’re on you don’t have any kind of

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schedule

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so very very early start and depending

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on how good or not you are you will get

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twenty minutes to two hours in the den

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so I found it’ll really interesting

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my background is of work for the world’s

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leading corporate video production

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company so there are built teams one

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hundred and fifty people have traveled

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the world to eighteen countries

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producing films so the cameras and the

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equipment and everything is very very

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familiar with me not so much Holly so

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she was a bit bit more nervous kick into

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the toilet quite a lot and so yeah we’re

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in the green room and we’re seeing you

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know every so often they come in the

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gate right you come with me and you’re

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on so that moment finally happened for

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us and we walked onto the set and the

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dragons are there they’re pretty close

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to us at that time it was Peter Jones

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Deborah Medan kelly Hoppen piers Linney

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Duncan Bannatyne and quite funny you’re

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not allowed to talk for the first minute

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or so while they’re setting everything

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up you’ve got a bunch of people watching

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you’ve got all the crew and then you’ve

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got people in another room who are in

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the gallery where they’re watching you

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is up so pitch starts we get into it

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literally standing there beforehand cuts

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an earth into Dragons just looking at

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each other a little bit awkward waiting

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for the sound everything to be ready

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producer says action and you go you’re

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into it if you mess up your pitch you

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mess it up tough luck so remember I said

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you got 20 minutes to two hours

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depending on how the thing goes and

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evolves

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we spent an hour in there and it was a

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bunch of fun but a real laugh with

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Duncan Bannatyne and some of the others

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but what happened was by the end of it

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Deborah me didn’t turn around and said

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look I think you guys are absolutely

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brilliant I think we’re onto something

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really smart here you know what you’re

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doing in marketing you’ve got good

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business knowledge my only reason for

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not investing is because I think you

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need two hundred and fifty thousand

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pounds for customer acquisition and

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marketing and I want to keep this under

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ten minutes there’s a lot more to tell

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but I will leave it there