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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