Now ye're talking - to someone who's been on Dragon's Den UK

Boards.ie: Niamh

Our next guest has invented a useful household item (ShowerGem) that has seen him be a guest on the Late Late Show, Dragons Den UK and soon to be Nationwide on RTE. He met with all three Dragons in London and received offers of investment from Tej Lalvani, Touker Suleyman and Sara Davies of the Dragons on the show.

The Dragon's Den UK episode was filmed in March 2019 but it wasn't aired until August and he had to keep the outcome quiet all that time.

He's an inventor, dragons have invested in his business, ask him anything!

irish_goat

Are you really charging €50 for a plastic shelf?

dobman88

Saw this episode of Dragons Den and went to the website to buy one. Just laughed when I saw it was 50 quid for the basic 2 pack one. Far too much to charge imo. It looks more like a 20 quid product

Are they selling as well as you expected and do you feel 50 is a fair price?

Captcha

Its a bit steep in price but they claim it is 100% Irish made... so as long as its not importing anything from China then it is worth the price

ncmc

Really interesting AMA, thanks for doing it.

How long did the whole Dragons Den take? Was it all done in one take, or did you have to go through the whole pitch again if it wasn't right the first take? Did they genuinely just give you the money there and then or is there further due dilligence done? Is the procedure very intimidating? So often you see people fluff their presentation or forget figures so it must be very nerve wracking. Haven't seen your pitch so must try and find it on Youtube tonight.

joejoggs

How are they in real life? I find some episodes there smug and rude while others there fine.
I remember one episode Peter saying he'd only invest if the husband and wife gave up their jobs even though they had a mortgage to pay with kids.

I heard rumours that after the show when the dragon invests the money its given as a loan and has to be paid back in full to the dragon which is not shown on the show while keeping the equity in the company.


Did the dragon actually help you with launching the product? If so did they help you increase sales?

ednwireland

how long were you in the den for ? i assume that its fairly long and then edited down to how the producers want you to be seen on screen.

do you have any say on the edits ?

d8491prj5boyvg

where does the shampoo go?

Did the Dragons tell you to increase the price by 25%? The price was €40 in February this year.

I did buy a set and find them excellent so fair play but the price is steep.

Miike

Creator of this product is a boardsie, I remember the product launch. It stuck out in my mind how they took time out to answer peoples direct queries and/or problems on the forum all while being extremely transparent. I don't have a question but it's something that really stuck out to me as good customer relations!

Price is expensive for a plastic shelf, is a recurring comment here, but has anyone here actually bought any shelves for their bathroom/shower recently?

My girlfriend doesn't like the look of the showergem, although I personally do like it. So instead of that, we've spent about the same amount of money, if not more, on various steel suction cup shelves that retail at between €15-25 each, and all seem to just collapse off the wall after a week or so.

This isn't something i've heard people complaining about in relation to the ShowerGem. That said, I do still have a tough time justifying the purchase for some reason. Would happily buy one in a 'New Years Sale' or such if it were reduced, but ultimately I can see why it's expensive - it's marketed as, and acts as, a premium product.


Do you have a link to the Dragon's Den pitch by the way? I can't seem to find it on Youtube?

I'm an inventor, AMA

Hi Everyone! I will try to answer at least once per day and will be as upfront as I can possibly be. Obviously there is some stuff that I will have to hold back on but hopefully there won't be too much of that. For topics that are repetitive I will just reply to one person but it is in response to everyone with a similar question

dobman88 wrote: »

Saw this episode of Dragons Den and went to the website to buy one. Just laughed when I saw it was 50 quid for the basic 2 pack one. Far too much to charge imo. It looks more like a 20 quid product

Are they selling as well as you expected and do you feel 50 is a fair price?

The elephant in the room- the price! Are we expensive- yes. Is it worth it- definitely. I would love you to stand with me at a trade show like the Ideal Home Show and listen to the amount of people that bought in October 2018 that said they thought it was pricey at the time but gave it a chance as it's Irish and now they can see that it is more then justified. You can see this in our reviews however.

Sales have massively surpassed expectations. This is year one of trading and we are already one of the best selling shower caddies in Ireland. Ireland is pretty small and everyone talks so whoever has a ShowerGem convinces other people that it is worth the price tag. Even in the UK we are pretty big at this stage.

We have had a small number of returns mainly due to people saying it doesn't suit their style of bathroom but never have had anyone return it due to price despite us offering a full money back guarantee where we even pay for return postage (we are now stopping this however as we are selling internationally so have to charge for postage back to us).

You can buy your metal baskets that use suction cups for between €25-40. You can buy your Decor Walther for over €100 and then you can buy your ShowerGem for about €50. We never ever came in to this business to be the cheapest but instead our aim was to be the best and I am very confident that we are up there at the top in terms of product functionality, user-friendliness and longevity despite charging much less than the high end shower organisers.

Some people feel that because it's plastic it should be cheap to purchase but why? We can make the exact same product out of an expensive glass which undoubtedly people would pay more for however it's a much lesser product as glass will break and shatter. Likewise, we could make it out of high end metals but no matter what, they will always end up becoming rusty. Plastic surpasses all of the characteristics of other materials yet for some reason people feel it should cost much less. We said we are not going to base our product on the perceived value of plastic but instead on how brilliantly it works and the vast majority of our reviews support that it is worth every cent paid. On top of all of the above, the glue is a huge part of what you are paying for. It is so expensive to source, design and test a glue to meet all of our requirements and then get it into small bespoke tubes. Genuinely it is an astronomical price. Finally it is so expensive to run a business. Between wages, P30's, tooling, insurance, vat, marketing, corp tax and everything in between, even at our current price you have to sell an awful lot of shower organisers to break even let alone make enough money to make it all worthwhile. People also don't realise that there was a period of 3 years of design and testing where I was on the dole for 9 months and then a sh*^e wage for over 2 years until we finally started to sell product. I definitely could have brought a lesser product to market quicker but we never rushed things to make sure we created one of the best organisers on the market, hence the price tag.

ncmc wrote: »

Really interesting AMA, thanks for doing it.

How long did the whole Dragons Den take? Was it all done in one take, or did you have to go through the whole pitch again if it wasn't right the first take? Did they genuinely just give you the money there and then or is there further due dilligence done? Is the procedure very intimidating? So often you see people fluff their presentation or forget figures so it must be very nerve wracking. Haven't seen your pitch so must try and find it on Youtube tonight.

The BBC picked me and 3 other entrepreneurs up at our hotel in Manchester at 6am in a black minibus. We arrived at the shooting location, a run down warehouse, where I was the second entrepreneur to pitch, and didn't leave the place till 2pm. Some entrepreneurs don't get out till 8 in the evening so it can be a long day sitting in the green room. My pitch lasted close to two hours. It's all done in one take so if you mess up, then too bad, nobody is going to step in and help you. In fact the producers would love that to happen as they genuinely do not care about you but instead only the entertainment value that you can bring to the show. What people don't realise is that to the left of the Dragons there are over 50 staff and 16 big television cameras. It's pretty crazy.

In terms of 'is the procedure intimidating', yes it certainly is. When you arrive at the warehouse the first thing you do is set up your stand outside the Den. This was at about 6.30am. Once mine was good to go, a possy of 30 people just arrived over, the head producer shook my hand and said pitch right now. I got through 40 seconds of my pitch and she said stop, you're good to go so next time you pitch will be infront of the Dragons. This real pitch didn't happen till about 12pm. While you are waiting for the real deal, three main things happen:

1) you do a pre-den interview where they ask you what Dragon you want, do you think the Dragons will like the product etc.
2) they film the famous elevator scene where they literally leave you standing at the elevator doors for a full 5 minutes. They have 8 cameras on you just staring into thin air but they leave you long enough so that you forget about the cameras and start talking to yourself, start tapping your foot or something similar. Then they will edit this 5 minutes of footage down to about 5 seconds in a way that makes you look nervous!
3) the BBC has lead negotiators who go around to each entrepreneur. These negotiators tell you how they think you're a great person and don't want to see you embarrassed on national tv as it's such a great opportunity for you and your business. They then ask you to lower your business valuation in order to get an offer from a Dragon.

After the real pitch in the Den you do another interview where they ask you about your experience with the Dragons. Here they really try to stoke the fire. Me and Peter had a few words during my pitch and afterwards the producers were trying to get me to give out about him by saying to me this is your chance to respond to Peter Jones who was insulting to you, what do you want to say to him.

joejoggs wrote: »

How are they in real life? I find some episodes there smug and rude while others there fine.
I remember one episode Peter saying he'd only invest if the husband and wife gave up their jobs even though they had a mortgage to pay with kids.

I heard rumours that after the show when the dragon invests the money its given as a loan and has to be paid back in full to the dragon which is not shown on the show while keeping the equity in the company.

Did the dragon actually help you with launching the product? If so did they help you increase sales?

Okay, so Tej, Sara and Touker invested in me. They are three top class people who are so down to Earth and are really easy to get on with. No ego's exist whatsoever. During the Den, me and Deborah got on like a house on fire. The producers edited this out but Deborah said I was exactly the type of person they love to see walk into the Den and the it must be my Irish charm but if I opened my mouth again she would invest. Before I could get a word out she then said 'that's why right now before you talk I'm saying I am out as the product simply isn't for me'. Pretty fair comment and I was delighted she liked me haha. I think by the end of the pitch Peter thought I was okay but he definitely did not like me at the start. He went after me with a very antagonistic line of questioning where you could see he wanted to get a fight going with some good tv moments. He also said some borderline insults about being Irish and drink.

Regarding the investment, on tv you shake hands but afterwards you go through a very in-depth and lengthy due diligence process. I mean there is a solid two to three weeks work getting all of the required information together. I met the three Dragons in Toukers' London office 4 weeks after the show and I said to them that I am not doing the due diligence as I simply don't have the time. Touker immediately said no problem, we will cut the list down to accounts, intellectual property and two or three other legal files and that will do.

In terms of the investment format, it depends on the business, the Dragons and the entrepreneur. Sometimes they try and do it as a loan but in our case it was a normal investment with money in return for equity.

With a product launch it depends on what is negotiated after the den. The Dragons actually offered to takeover the business completely but I said I would prefer to be in control. The main way the Dragons help you is by making intros to people that can be hard get to and companies that they have built relationships with so that you know they are good. This just speeds up the normal business development process.

ednwireland wrote: »

do you have any say on the edits ?

I cannot explain to you how highly edited the show is. For example, the entire thing is shot in a 1 story warehouse, yet there is an 'elevator'. In reality this translates to a room made out of plywood that has doors that open and close. It looks exactly like an elevator but I can assure you it certainly does not bring you to the second floor! At the start of my tv slot, the producers made me look pretty cocky saying that I know the Dragons will love my product, but they give you the start of the sentence 'I know the Dragons will love my product because...' and then you have to finish it. This isn't edited but the producers certainly led me down a path of sounding cocky. I have heard of people that had the Dragon's ask them a question about financials which they would answer well however on tv it would have been edited to make it look like they didn't know their numbers.

This wasn't shown on tv but during the Den I also received a €3 million line of credit at 4% interest, unsecured, and free access to all of the Dragon's staff. After the show the valuation was also renegotiated.

downtheroad wrote: »

Did the Dragons tell you to increase the price by 25%? The price was €40 in February this year.

I did buy a set and find them excellent so fair play but the price is steep.

No, that was me. €40 was The Late Late Show Special. Since then we have had a load of repeat customers even with the price of €50 (our website gives me all of the statistics). In future when we are doing over 100k units I hope to bring the price down but we need to be hitting serious sales volumes to make it feasible.

Miike wrote: »

Creator of this product is a boardsie, I remember the product launch. It stuck out in my mind how they took time out to answer peoples direct queries and/or problems on the forum all while being extremely transparent. I don't have a question but it's something that really stuck out to me as good customer relations!

Thank you!

Deleted User wrote: »

Price is expensive for a plastic shelf, is a recurring comment here, but has anyone here actually bought any shelves for their bathroom/shower recently?

My girlfriend doesn't like the look of the showergem, although I personally do like it. So instead of that, we've spent about the same amount of money, if not more, on various steel suction cup shelves that retail at between €15-25 each, and all seem to just collapse off the wall after a week or so.

This isn't something i've heard people complaining about in relation to the ShowerGem. That said, I do still have a tough time justifying the purchase for some reason. Would happily buy one in a 'New Years Sale' or such if it were reduced, but ultimately I can see why it's expensive - it's marketed as, and acts as, a premium product.


Do you have a link to the Dragon's Den pitch by the way? I can't seem to find it on Youtube?

Most people like the look but some don't, Deborah Meaden for one and I can understand why it's not everyone's cup of tea. I also can see why you find it hard to justify the price and I'm pretty certain it's because it is plastic as I know if i showed you a nice version made out of glass or steel you would say €50 is great value- in reality it would be a lesser product however!

I don't have a link to the pitch as youtube blocked it however I will put it up on facebook during the week and put a link here

Berserker5

Captcha wrote: »

Its a bit steep in price but they claim it is 100% Irish made... so as long as its not importing anything from China then it is worth the price

Its waterproof too

FGR

Hi there !

Thank you for doing this ama. We’re fans of the shower gem as it does exactly as intended. Hopefully won’t have to worry about shower storage for a long time to come.

Do you feel you’ve already gained from the knowledge and experience of the dragons ? Hopefully so.

Could you see yourself sitting in one of the dragons chairs with a big pile of money in the coming years ?! :pac:

I'm an inventor, AMA

FGR wrote: »

Hi there !

Thank you for doing this ama. We’re fans of the shower gem as it does exactly as intended. Hopefully won’t have to worry about shower storage for a long time to come.

Do you feel you’ve already gained from the knowledge and experience of the dragons ? Hopefully so.

Could you see yourself sitting in one of those chairs with a big pile of money in the coming years ?! :pac:

Do you have one!? When did you get it? I still get a buzz when someone says it's up in their shower and they love it!

You gain somewhat but the Dragons leave you under no illusions that they take on more of a mentorship role so it is fully up to you to run the business with them there to help with big decisions. Certainly they do know there stuff but you more so deal with their staff rather then them directly.

Yes, I'd love to do a few days in the Dragons chair but definitely not be a long term Dragon as they film for 5 days per week for 8 weeks straight. The novelty would ware of pretty quickly.

No probs, it's good to do the ama's as it's pretty interesting for me too

ncmc

I don’t think €50 is *that* expensive, I think the people saying that are out of the loop of how expensive decent bathroom wear is. I’ve bought metal racks before that weren’t overly cheap and looked horrendous after a few weeks. We’ve had no bathroom storage since we did up our bathroom almost two years ago as I couldn’t find anything suitable that didn’t require drilling. I will definitely be buying one of these.

Really interesting to read how edited the show is. I often wondered how people could forget something as fundamental as sales figures.

So another question, how long was it from when you first had the idea until you had a product ready for market? Are the items fully sourced and made in Ireland?

enda1

Not a question per se, but the website appears to be down! https://showergem.ie/

My mam got her bathroom completely revamped back in March/April. She realised afterwards that she'd forgotten to have a shelf fitted and wasn't keen on letting my dad drill into the new tiles. She wanted something that wouldn't be too obtrusive looking so I pointed her in the direction of showergem. I had seen your thread on boards looking for people to check your website was user friendly. Anyway, my mum bought it and she loves it. She put them up herself and hasn't had any issues with it. And she can leave her shampoos etc upside down in it so the liquid is always easy to get out. Having redone my own bathroom too and all the associated costs I don't think the price is that steep really.

No questions but hope the business continues to grow and do well for you!

Gloomtastic!

Well done Sean, you're a demon for the publicity!

When you were in school, were you one of the gobby ones or one of the quiet ones?

Have you got a link to the Dragons Den proposal? Looked for ages yesterday but couldn't find it.

Since your appearance, what's the most mind-blowing call/email you've had?

I'm an inventor, AMA wrote: »

This wasn't shown on tv but during the Den I also received a €3 million line of credit at 4% interest, unsecured, and free access to all of the Dragon's staff. After the show the valuation was also renegotiated.

Where's the money coming from? The Dragons? The BBC? (:eek:) or a finance house?

Well done again, looking forward to seeing what your next product will be! How far away are you from launch?

I'm an inventor, AMA

Deleted User wrote: »

My mam got her bathroom completely revamped back in March/April. She realised afterwards that she'd forgotten to have a shelf fitted and wasn't keen on letting my dad drill into the new tiles. She wanted something that wouldn't be too obtrusive looking so I pointed her in the direction of showergem. I had seen your thread on boards looking for people to check your website was user friendly. Anyway, my mum bought it and she loves it. She put them up herself and hasn't had any issues with it. And she can leave her shampoos etc upside down in it so the liquid is always easy to get out. Having redone my own bathroom too and all the associated costs I don't think the price is that steep really.

No questions but hope the business continues to grow and do well for you!

Thanks a lot to you and everyone else that said it's worth the money and for the well wishes!

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Well done Sean, you're a demon for the publicity!

When you were in school, were you one of the gobby ones or one of the quiet ones?

Have you got a link to the Dragons Den proposal? Looked for ages yesterday but couldn't find it.

Since your appearance, what's the most mind-blowing call/email you've had?


Where's the money coming from? The Dragons? The BBC? (:eek:) or a finance house?

Well done again, looking forward to seeing what your next product will be! How far away are you from launch?

School, no I was one of the quiet ones in school. One of my friends said a couple of weeks ago 'genuinely who would have thought that out of all of our mates you would be the one on tv'. I was always making money somewhere during my time in school however.

It's not a call but the most mind blowing thing was when I flew over to the US for a 30 minute meeting then back to Ireland again. It resulted in a purchase order and a US tv appearance early next year!

I received private investment about 18 months ago. This man was unbelievable to get on board as he was such a decent person who over time I grew close to and he started to look out for me as a friend and not just his investment. He saw I was working hard so he made sure that I spent some time focusing on myself too and was taking a proper wage. Very lucky to get him but unfortunately he passed away unexpectedly three weeks ago. He certainly loved the journey as he had a few investments but none was as exciting as ours with the Late Late Show, Dragons Den, and many more huge things that I can't talk about here.

We have ideas for future products but snowed under with this so idea of a new product launch! Everything takes 3 times longer then you initially think!

I will get the DD video up on facebook this week and post a link here.

Ginger83

Good luck with it.

I leave 2 bottles on my shower unit

Tacitus Kilgore

Nothing to ask really - so I guess I'll just ask what made you come up with the idea for it?



Also just want to say - great product - there's 2 in my shower, 2 in the neighbors, and 2 in the next house down too. I wish you every success.

I'm an inventor, AMA

ncmc wrote: »

So another question, how long was it from when you first had the idea until you had a product ready for market? Are the items fully sourced and made in Ireland?

3.5 years from idea to until we began selling at the Ideal home Show in October 2018.

The first year I was in college so I don't count that too much,. Most of the second year we were doing things such as product design and testing on the cheap due to having no money. We also spent half of this year raising investment. Most of the third year we were finishing up with product design and testing, then ordering machinery and stock and waiting for it to arrive so we could do our product launch. Some components of our product have a lead time of close to six months so in the early days there was a period where we simply had to wait for things to fall into place... Luckily they all did come together so far.

Sabre0001

Interesting insights so far! Thanks for doing the AMA and best of luck with the product

Over the course of the 3.5 years, how nervous were you that someone with more resources would swoop in?

Did friends and family have to test various iterations? Any horror stories?

How often did you practice your Dragon's Den pitch and did it play out as you kind of expected? You mentioned that Peter was quite confrontational; had you had people argue with you when practicing to help you keep your cool?

Who did the harder interrogation, Dragons or Boardsies?

And finally.....any chance of a Boardsie discount?

I'm an inventor, AMA

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

Nothing to ask really - so I guess I'll just ask what made you come up with the idea for it?



Also just want to say - great product - there's 2 in my shower, 2 in the neighbors, and 2 in the next house down too. I wish you every success.

My father came up with the idea as he was sick and tired of cheap metal rusty shower caddies that never stick to your wall properly. He worked with plastic so the design came very naturally to him. He's brilliant with this sort of stuff.

His first design did the job perfectly however we had to make a lot of adjustments in order to make it fit to manufacture on a large scale. We also added some extra features to make it that bit more functional.

Great to hear! Everyone in the village has one so haha..

Thargor

Has it made you rich?

I'm an inventor, AMA

Sabre0001 wrote: »

Over the course of the 3.5 years, how nervous were you that someone with more resources would swoop in?

Did friends and family have to test various iterations? Any horror stories?

How often did you practice your Dragon's Den pitch and did it play out as you kind of expected? You mentioned that Peter was quite confrontational; had you had people argue with you when practicing to help you keep your cool?

Who did the harder interrogation, Dragons or Boardsies?

And finally.....any chance of a Boardsie discount?

Thargor wrote: »

Has it made you rich?

Boardsie Discount: SAVE10

The worry was always that some big company would come in and copy us but I've learnt that in reality copying someone is pretty hard. It's also very difficult to replicate good marketing and to open up new routes to market so it would probably just be easier for someone to buy us out. The day will still come when a competitor arrives but I'm not as worried as I used to be.

I can honestly say that I did about 5 hours of Dragons prep a week before my pitch. I was too busy to focus on it fully and I had done a lot of pitches and negotiations before so it wasn't something that I was overly phased by. The Late Late Show appearance certainly helped my confidence out a lot. Regarding confrontation, I just went in saying I would listen to what the Dragons had to say, not butt in when they were talking and if I didn't know something then admit it rather then try to bs them. At the same time if someone was being very unfair I would have no problem saying that they were out of order or wrong; business works two ways, I wanted money, but they certainly wanted to invest.

I'm an inventor, AMA

Thargor wrote: »

Has it made you rich?

No,. Maybe in a few years but who knows!

Thargor

Any Youtube link to the pitch? I would give my left arm to have done something like this tbh.

kirving

I'm an inventor, AMA wrote: »

We said we are not going to base our product on the perceived value of plastic but instead on how brilliantly it works and the vast majority of our reviews support that it is worth every cent paid.

No doubt about it being a better product (even camera lenses are even plastic these days), but you do have to work to peoples expectations.

There comes a point, that no matter how good a product it may be, people will draw a line at spending €50 on what they see as a piece of plastic.

I do similar all the time in work - I could probably justify the absolute best of the best tools and equipment, in that over their lifetime they'll save me time (and the company money). But I sometimes find it very hard to shake the feeling that I'm being ripped off, when it's genuinely just a case of diminishing returns.

That said, I really like the look of it and could do with one myself so will buy one soon.

I'm an inventor, AMA wrote: »

On top of all of the above, the glue is a huge part of what you are paying for. It is so expensive to source, design and test a glue to meet all of our requirements and then get it into small bespoke tubes. Genuinely it is an astronomical price.

I work for a company where glue is a critical part of the product that is subjected to harsh environmental testing, and so I have to back you up on this 110%.

You may, but most people wouldn't believe the lengths we go to source, trial and validated glue. The investment is staggering, really does beggar belief in every aspect.

Thank for your post, it's been an interesting read.

Also, well done on the targeted advertising, I just remembered to reply to this thread after seeing an Instagram advert for the ShowerGem, having read this earlier on today.

DavyD_83

Well, this ama had made you at least 1 sale. Well played; I'd be surprised if I'm the only one.
I remember the initial the looking for feedback and to be honest hadn't thought much about it since.
But as soon as I stated reading this, the fact I have bottles all over floor of slower is really annoying me and 45 (thanks for that) seems a decent price for a solution that actually works and stays on the wall.

The_B_Man

The missus made me buy one of these at the Ideal Home Show there last month, after I argued with her about the price. But she won, of course, and I bought one.

I actually haven't hung it up yet. I'll have the xmas decorations up before this!

But fair play on getting a product to market.

Whats your background? Did you go to college to do design, or marketing?

Muahahaha

Thanks for doing this AMA <snip>, have been following your story since the early days. Few questions

-Regarding going for plastic over metal- Id read before that stainless steel is 'supposed' to never rust, is this the case or was there another reason for not using it
- do you find that your market is mainly female? As a bloke I have 2 max 3 bottles in the shower whereas the fairer sex can easily double that and more
- You mentioned the US and I know that Americans are big into shopping tv channels, is this a route you might go down over there
-Lots of modern shower suites that you see on the continent or in good hotels now contain proper tiled shelves indented from the shower walls. Would you see this as potentially limiting your market in the future

LizT

I want to congratulate you on a great product. I bought it at Bloom this year, your stand was packed and seemed to be very popular. It's definitely worth the money, mine has been up since then and is still going strong!

Did you see a huge spike in orders after being on Dragons Den?

fritzelly

Which dragon do you like the most and which do you think has been the most helpful in furthering the business?
(maybe you don't wanna answer the question in case they are reading...)

ShamrockAir

I'm an inventor, AMA wrote: »

The elephant in the room- the price! Are we expensive- yes. Is it worth it- definitely. I would love you to stand with me at a trade show like the Ideal Home Show and listen to the amount of people that bought in October 2018 that said they thought it was pricey at the time but gave it a chance as it's Irish and now they can see that it is more then justified. You can see this in our reviews however.

Sales have massively surpassed expectations. This is year one of trading and we are already one of the best selling shower caddies in Ireland. Ireland is pretty small and everyone talks so whoever has a ShowerGem convinces other people that it is worth the price tag. Even in the UK we are pretty big at this stage.

We have had a small number of returns mainly due to people saying it doesn't suit their style of bathroom but never have had anyone return it due to price despite us offering a full money back guarantee where we even pay for return postage (we are now stopping this however as we are selling internationally so have to charge for postage back to us).

You can buy your metal baskets that use suction cups for between €25-40. You can buy your Decor Walther for over €100 and then you can buy your ShowerGem for about €50. We never ever came in to this business to be the cheapest but instead our aim was to be the best and I am very confident that we are up there at the top in terms of product functionality, user-friendliness and longevity despite charging much less than the high end shower organisers.

Some people feel that because it's plastic it should be cheap to purchase but why? We can make the exact same product out of an expensive glass which undoubtedly people would pay more for however it's a much lesser product as glass will break and shatter. Likewise, we could make it out of high end metals but no matter what, they will always end up becoming rusty. Plastic surpasses all of the characteristics of other materials yet for some reason people feel it should cost much less. We said we are not going to base our product on the perceived value of plastic but instead on how brilliantly it works and the vast majority of our reviews support that it is worth every cent paid. On top of all of the above, the glue is a huge part of what you are paying for. It is so expensive to source, design and test a glue to meet all of our requirements and then get it into small bespoke tubes. Genuinely it is an astronomical price. Finally it is so expensive to run a business. Between wages, P30's, tooling, insurance, vat, marketing, corp tax and everything in between, even at our current price you have to sell an awful lot of shower organisers to break even let alone make enough money to make it all worthwhile. People also don't realise that there was a period of 3 years of design and testing where I was on the dole for 9 months and then a sh*^e wage for over 2 years until we finally started to sell product. I definitely could have brought a lesser product to market quicker but we never rushed things to make sure we created one of the best organisers on the market, hence the price tag.

Ive got to be honest with you, I saw the product and liked it. Then I saw the price and thought it was expensive and the pricing was a bit Irish. I did not buy it. I just read your post and I never realised so much work went in to it. Il pick one up soon and wish you the best.

I'm an inventor, AMA

Thargor wrote: »

Any Youtube link to the pitch? I would give my left arm to have done something like this tbh.

Being totally honest I watched the DD since the age of 13/14 and I always had it down on my bucket list to appear on. I'm just lucky enough that the business that I went on it with was very strong! I can't describe how good/surreal it felt when the elevator doors opened and there right in front of my eye were 5 Dragons. Even a few days ago me and my sister watched the episode back and it was just such a crazy crazy experience...

Kevin Irving wrote: »

I work for a company where glue is a critical part of the product that is subjected to harsh environmental testing, and so I have to back you up on this 110%.

You may, but most people wouldn't believe the lengths we go to source, trial and validated glue. The investment is staggering, really does beggar belief in every aspect.

Exactly! I'm not making the price of the glue up. It looks deceiving as it comes in such a small tube. Thanks for the kind comments.

DavyD_83 wrote: »

Well, this ama had made you at least 1 sale. Well played; I'd be surprised if I'm the only one.
I remember the initial the looking for feedback and to be honest hadn't thought much about it since.
But as soon as I stated reading this, the fact I have bottles all over floor of slower is really annoying me and 45 (thanks for that) seems a decent price for a solution that actually works and stays on the wall.

Thanks Davy ! Hope you like it

The_B_Man wrote: »

The missus made me buy one of these at the Ideal Home Show there last month, after I argued with her about the price. But she won, of course, and I bought one.

I actually haven't hung it up yet. I'll have the xmas decorations up before this!

But fair play on getting a product to market.

Whats your background? Did you go to college to do design, or marketing?

Get it UP!! You paid good of money for it so get the most out of it. It will take 2 mins of your time to install and then you, and everyone else in your home, will use it every single day for years to come!! You will like it a lot and make sure to come up to me at the next Ideal Home Show, same stand!

Done physics in NUGalway but knew I was never going to pursue it once I left college. I was always going to have my own business regardless of what it was.

Muahahaha wrote: »

Thanks for doing this AMA <snip>, have been following your story since the early days. Few questions

-Regarding going for plastic over metal- Id read before that stainless steel is 'supposed' to never rust, is this the case or was there another reason for not using it
- do you find that your market is mainly female? As a bloke I have 2 max 3 bottles in the shower whereas the fairer sex can easily double that and more
- You mentioned the US and I know that Americans are big into shopping tv channels, is this a route you might go down over there
-Lots of modern shower suites that you see on the continent or in good hotels now contain proper tiled shelves indented from the shower walls. Would you see this as potentially limiting your market in the future

Very high grades of stainless steel (like marine grade) are properly rustproof but they are incredibly expensive. It is also a hard material to work with on a product like ours so it just isn't feasible.

The market is mainly female however men like the product just as much as women do due to its functionality and practicality. Definitely women are the main purchasers however.

A lot of people have suggested this but hotels are not a market that would we like to cater for. Each sale would require quite a lot of work whereas we want to focus on a form of marketing that involves less 'hands on' staff time e.g. no emails or calls needed to get a sale.

Thanks for the comment

LizT wrote: »

I want to congratulate you on a great product. I bought it at Bloom this year, your stand was packed and seemed to be very popular. It's definitely worth the money, mine has been up since then and is still going strong!

Did you see a huge spike in orders after being on Dragons Den?

Brill to hear! Everyone that has a ShowerGem loves it. Great Christmas presents for friends and family haha. There was a large spike in sales for us however I spoke to contestants in our serioues and despite them seeing a spike it was nothing worthwhile. For us on the other hand it helped to propel us to be consistently one of the top 8 best selling shower organisers on Amazon UK (currently number 4 out of 3000)!

fritzelly wrote: »

Which dragon do you like the most and which do you think has been the most helpful in furthering the business?
(maybe you don't wanna answer the question in case they are reading...)

They're all a great help in their own way. Each have different areas so it would be hard to just choose one. They don't further the business so to speak but more offer guidance. It's they could have being more involved but we opted to retain more control rather then them come in and takeover everything from manufacturing to sales to marketing.

ShamrockAir wrote: »

Ive got to be honest with you, I saw the product and liked it. Then I saw the price and thought it was expensive and the pricing was a bit Irish. I did not buy it. I just read your post and I never realised so much work went in to it. Il pick one up soon and wish you the best.

We are in quite a lot of independent bathroom retailers or Right Price Tiles if you ask at the counter but be under no pressure to buy it at all Yeah, it's amazing to thing for a shower organiser three years of work had to be put in to actually develop it fully. Its one of the disadvantages of being the first to market.

fritzelly

I'm an inventor, AMA wrote: »

They're all a great help in their own way. Each have different areas so it would be hard to just choose one. They don't further the business so to speak but more offer guidance.

Did they not open doors that you yourself could never open? Always liked Touker and thought he had fingers in a lot of pies

I'm an inventor, AMA

fritzelly wrote: »

Did they not open doors that you yourself could never open? Always liked Touker and thought he had fingers in a lot of pies

I actually had a huge amount of doors opened before appearing on the show so in the Dragons own words at this stage it comes down to price, marketing and product!

Tell me how

Very interesting read.

What was your chief motivation in applying to appear on the show?
Was it to get some marketing via the broadcast, secure funding or to specifically get access to Dragons contacts/expertise?

What occupies you mostly during your working week at the moment?
Is it managing of operations such as manufacturing supply/shipping, creating new sales channels, or considering additional products?

Finally, what sort of vibe was there amongst fellow participants in the green room? Did any of them come across as over confident/cocky or anything remarkable?

One more, did you come under pressure to move manufacturing abroad to reduce costs? I love the guaranteed Irish by the way, don't go all James Dyson on us!!

Gloomtastic!

Post the link to the show please......

I'm an inventor, AMA

LINK TO THE DRAGONS DEN CLIP

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=438939416798095

Tell me how wrote: »

Very interesting read.

What was your chief motivation in applying to appear on the show?
Was it to get some marketing via the broadcast, secure funding or to specifically get access to Dragons contacts/expertise?

What occupies you mostly during your working week at the moment?
Is it managing of operations such as manufacturing supply/shipping, creating new sales channels, or considering additional products?

Finally, what sort of vibe was there amongst fellow participants in the green room? Did any of them come across as over confident/cocky or anything remarkable?

One more, did you come under pressure to move manufacturing abroad to reduce costs? I love the guaranteed Irish by the way, don't go all James Dyson on us!!

Motivation was definitely door opening and marketing. When you apply for the show there is a 4 month wait before you actually get to pitch to the Dragons and during that time I opened a lot of doors myself so the need for this was reduced which mean marketing was now a very big factor (over 3 million viewers). I can say a lot more about this next April but there are a few NDA's in place at the moment.

Most of my time goes towards manufacturing and developing new routes to market + foreign markets. We have a big thing coming up in the US in Q1 next year which is really sucking up a lot of my time. We are also doing a big 100 store launch in Ireland over the next month and a half which meant a lot of time was spent on packaging and POS stands.

The contestants I was with were very sound. We had a bit of a laugh and enjoyed the experience. There was one company that I knew were going to get absolutely annihilated as they had a valuation of £2mill, £20k sales and were a few 100k in debt. They were pretty sure they were going to sail through the Den experience but I think they got a bit of a harsh reality check pretty quickly. This company wasn't on my episode FYI!

Yes, I came under significant pressure to go to China or else move it to the UK because of Brexit. Still manufactured in Ireland though

Tell me how

I'm an inventor, AMA wrote: »

Yes, I came under significant pressure to go to China or else move it to the UK because of Brexit. Still manufactured in Ireland though

Can you say more about this?

What was the argument for moving to UK in relation to Brexit?

Gloomtastic!

I'm an inventor, AMA wrote: »

LINK TO THE DRAGONS DEN CLIP

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=438939416798095

Brilliant! Well done, they can be quite intimidating but you faced them off perfectly.

Kersh

I'm an inventor, AMA wrote: »

For us on the other hand it helped to propel us to be consistently one of the top 8 best selling shower organisers on Amazon UK (currently number 4 out of 3000)!

Great success, wishing you all the best.

How do you find Amazon is going?
We used it for a while, but found they took far too much commission and monthly fees, and after tax and product cost there wasnt much in it for us.
Do you get more favourable rates off them for volume?

Gloomtastic!

No mention of the 'B' word yet? How do your dragon backers view Brexit?

Alpha_zero

Is Dragon the same thing as an investor in Narnia or Middle Earth

Black_Knight

Just bought one. Was all set to buy back when you were asking for help around your website, but the wife said no. There's about 8 shower bottles on the shower basin that I say overrule her.

Cheers for the boards code. Tis that I needed to prompt me to buy

Sleeper12

My business is shower repair. I stand in 5 to 8 showers and baths every day. It brings a smile to my face every time I see a Shower Gem. It's a 20 to 30 euro product when you look at it first. I comment on the product every time I see one. Every single person is happy with the product and feel that it is value for money. Its a once or twice in a lifetime purchase. I have yet to meet a client who felt ripped off by the price or let down by the product

It makes me proud every time I see one. 100 percent Irish invented & manifactured except the adhesive & a father & son team no less!

I saw dragons den and you were well able to stand your ground

steam iron

Where can i find the boards code ?

Leilak

BOARDSIE10