Page 349 - James Caan - The Real Deal

33 · Into the Den

proper product range and I could sell them in Harrods, then I will
think I have arrived.’
It took seven weeks, not seven years. We approached Harrods
pretty much straight away and there’s now a whole section selling
GoldGenie products. Laban’s gold-plated roses sold out on Valen-
tine’s Day and Mother’s Day, but that was just the start. We’ve
also helped Laban get GoldGenie into Selfridges, we’ve signed a
contract with Apple to gold-plate iPods and we’ve also done a deal
with Carphone Warehouse. There’s a GoldGenie poster in their
shops, and if people want to upgrade to a gold-plated model,
Laban will take care of it.
When people walk away from a deal in the Den because they
think the Dragon is asking for too much equity, they’re not
thinking about what a Dragon can really do for them: we offer
so much more than cash, and Peter Moule was the one entrepre-
neur who came in to see us who really understood what we can
offer. He wasn’t really looking for our cash, he wanted our
expertise.
Peter had invented a device called the ChocBox that makes
connecting electrical cables a doddle. He had been running his
business for ten years and he was doing really well, so well in fact
that he was selling a million units a year and making a £300k a
year profit. No wonder we were all confused as to why he had
come into the Den and was asking for £150k for 10 per cent of
the business. Peter Jones thought he was only there to get some
publicity, but he had watched the show enough to know that
Dragons can make a difference.
He told us he’d taken this business as far as he knew how to and
he needed one of us to help him grow the business. He knew there
was potentially a lot of growth as fourteen million connectors are
sold each year to join cables: that meant there were another
thirteen million chances to sell a ChocBox.
Peter Moule confused the panel so much that their questions

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