Contestant worth one billion completes biggest comeback ever after being rejected on US Dragons' Den
A contestant on the US version of Dragon's Den, which is titled Shark Tank, ended up walking away with no investment and going on to be worth a billion dollars.
As nice as it is to see people pitching their ideas and getting the funding they really need to make their inventions a success, perhaps even sweeter is when someone gets thoroughly rejected and then goes on to make a big success of it anyway.
On this side of the pond, there are plenty enough cases where someone went on Dragon's Den looking for investment but did fine without it.
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That may be in part because just going on the show can provide a huge financial boost to a company as it's one of the best adverts you can have.
The guy behind the Tangle Teezer brand went on Dragon's Den in 2007, was told he 'won't make any money' and went on to be worth £70 million.
Then there's the lady who created the sustainable packaging business Tiny Box Company and got called 'ridiculous' by Duncan Bannatyne, then went on to make £10 million a year from it.
One of the biggest success stories with this format has got to be Jamie Siminoff, who went onto Shark Tank to promote his company Doorbot.
He'd already raised plenty of money for his creation via crowdfunding but went onto the TV show in 2013 seeking $700,000 investment for 10 percent of his company.
One by one, the investors said they wouldn't be investing in his idea, which was a doorbell with a camera and microphone on it (you might be starting to guess where this is going).
In the end, he did get one offer, but decided that the stake he'd be giving away wouldn't be worth the investment and walked away with nothing.
Jamie said his appearance on Shark Tank had spurred about $5 million worth of extra sales for his company, and a year after he appeared on the show, he rebranded his company from Doorbot to Ring.
You might have heard of it.
Anyhow, from there, Jamie's meteoric rise began as he secured a massive amount in investments, including from Shaquille O'Neal, before being bought by Amazon in 2018 for about $839 million.
Jamie stayed on as CEO until last year, where he stepped down to become 'chief inventor'.
Back when he appeared on Shark Tank, he'd valued his business at around $7 million, now it's worth far more than that.
Maybe the sharks ought to have taken a bite of what Jamie was offering.
Topics: Business, Technology, Dragons Den, TV and Film, Money
Joe Harker