The seventh entrepreneur, Ms. Alsu Odemwingie, was confident, brutally honest, and very relaxed in the presence of the dragons. She had a strong personality that seemed to be on the cocky side. She was looking for 3 million naira (for 10%) to invest in a business she called “Start-Up Sity”, a company that would guide and mentor start-up businesses, and start-up professionals through the challenges of starting a business. She presented impressive statistics on the number of start-up businesses that fail within their first year of operation; statistics that Ibukun Awosika noted were almost accurate. Ibukun Awosika also identified the need for what she was trying to do, but failed to see the business sense in it, Alexander Amosu seconded Ibukun Awosika’s point-of-view, opining that it was going to be difficult to get someone who was starting up a business to part with 80, 000 naira in order to receive guidance. At this point, after Alexander Amosu, Ibukun Awosika, and Femi Tejuoso had opted out, this entrepreneur went into an emotional overdrive in a subtle manner, where she revealed that part of the reason why she was in the den was to experience first- hand what start-up companies and entrepreneurs go through when they go in search of investments, and secondly, she confessed that she was in the den for the publicity her appearance would give her business. This revelation did not settle well with Alex Amosu who opined that this entrepreneur was manipulative, and expressed his disapproval to being used as an experiment. But Ms. Odemwingie stood her grounds, and this character trait must have impressed the duo of John Momoh and Chris Parkes who invested 1 million naira for 10% equity, and 2 million naira for 20% equity respectively.

She got a deal, shook hands with two new successful business partners. And she went down in the history of Dragons Den Nigeria as the first lady to slay the dragons.

Obv: What do you think was responsible for her ability to win John Momoh and Chris Parkes over? Her eloquence, confidence, or cockiness; was it her audacity or brutal honesty to confess to the dragons that she had come to the den for an experiment with the dragons, and as a publicity gimmick?

**Alexander Amosu disapproved of her ploy to conduct her ‘start-up’ experiment on the dragons, and felt strongly that she should have given way to other entrepreneurs more deserving of some ‘dragons-attention’ and not merely appearing in the den as a publicity gimmick.

The sixth entrepreneur had the most interesting idea in this episode, but had the most bizarre and ridiculous motive for being in the den. He presented the idea for his product EIPMS- Electronic Intelligent Power Management System, and the dragons seemed impressed, but when he was prodded to present the prototype, he revealed to the dragons that the idea was a research-in-progress…no, a research-yet-to-begin. He had come to the den to get money off the dragons to research this idea, and afterwards look for other investors who will invest in the product after the research had been done.

Chris Parkes quoted him, “to begin a scientific research a without reliable capital base may be likened to attempting space travel on foot…” and after that quote, Chris Parkes summarized, “Investing in your idea may take more time than it took to get a man to the moon before an investor can make a profit…”

That said…he lost all the dragons. But he received very good advice: he was encouraged to seek organizations that give out research grants and not business men and women who were looking to make an investment to make a profit.

The fourth entrepreneur, Sanusi Adekunle had a brilliant idea, and needed 7.5 million naira to start-up a sophisticated taxi operation he called Metro-Cabs, a cab company that will provide comfortable and convenient cabs for its clients. He described his unique selling points as his company’s intent to service customers with an organized price structure, eliminating unnecessary haggling with the taxi drivers; call-ups and pick-ups from airports, hotels, offices, homes etc for customers. To make his presentation a bit juicier, he offered the dragons 65% equity stake in this business. However, his business plan exposed the speculative nature of his business, and his unsuitability as a competent manager of the business,as it was discovered that he had miscalculated the amount of money required to lease the 30 cars with which he was hoping to commence operations. Sadly, this entrepreneur was convinced that 20% of 1,050, 000 naira amounted to 52, 000 naira as opposed to 210, 000 naira. Having based his entire plan on the amount required to lease the 30 vehicles, it was shocking for him to learn after being schooled by the dragons how erroneous his mistakes were. He lost all the dragons based on his incompetent presentation of figures, and his lack of experience in the transport sector.

The fifth entrepreneur faced the dragons asking for 15 million naira to invest in an idea he had tagged “Creative Legend Academy of Design” where he would charge students an average of about 190, 000 naira to teach them graphics design, and multimedia. He had no accreditation from the government, or any affiliation with any professional organization relevant to the courses he wanted to teach. He was not going to be able to issue the students any certificate after graduation. And the dragons felt that even if he could find students dumb enough to pay 190, 000 naira tuition, that their money would have been wasted because they were coming out with no certificate to show that they have acquired any education. The business seemed ill-cooked, and the dragons detest the taste of half-baked business plans. They all opted out.

The second entrepreneur, Bello Bisama was in the den hoping to secure a 7 million naira investment for a special-interest magazine “Fone Book”, which according to him would be a phone review magazine that will give Nigerians information about cell phones, phone accessories, product specifications, phone software etc. He was offering 20% equity to the dragons. During the usual Q&A, he posited that he intends to commence production and circulation with 20, 000 copies. Alexander Amosu observed that most of his content had been lifted off the internet, and that such a magazine served a very niche market. The entrepreneur and Alexander Amosu had a brief spar on the differences between the UK market and the Nigerian market, with the entrepreneur stating that there were more than 60 million cell phone users in Nigeria. Chris Parkes made an interesting rhetorical comment that examined what would be first on an average mobile phone user’s scale of preference in Nigeria: to spend money on recharge cards or to spend money on a magazine to read about, and ogle at diamond encrusted phones that the user cannot afford? More flaws in his business plan came to the fore, when it was discovered that he was expecting to generate 80% of his revenue from sales of the magazine, and 20% from advertising; to this effect Femi Tejuoso educated him that he stood to make more money from adverts, than sales, and the other dragons informed him that majority of the papers in Nigeria earn more revenue from the advert sales. On a concluding note for Femi Tejuoso, he stated, “I think more people are more interested in gossip (magazines) than something like this”.

The dragons kept their money firmly in the pockets this time.

The third entrepreneur, Nwogbo Michaels came in search of a 7 million naira investment in his company, North Pacific Ltd, to enable him foster his business of palm fruit processing, extraction of edible fat from palm, etc in exchange for 25% equity in his company. After his presentation, Ibukun Awosika asked, “assuming we give you the 7 million naira now, what next?” and Nwogbo declared to the dragons that they are guaranteed of 100% return on their investment, but probing further, Chris Parkes asked the entrepreneur how much salary he was willing to pay himself to run the business, and Nwogbo declared he was going to pay himself 40, 000 naira, meaning that with an initial investment of 500, 000, he was going to recover almost all the money he put into the business within one year while he had no structure in place to guarantee the dragons that they were going to recoup their investment any time soon.

This prompted the dragons to opt out, for lack of confidence in Nwogbo’s business structure.

Obv: Mr. ‘Fone Book’ had a good idea, but why did the dragons reject it?

Episode 4 of Dragons’ Den Nigeria progressed like a ricochet from the previous episodes, with the dragons as gallant as the veteran entrepreneurs that they are, mentoring young and ambitious entrepreneurs – schooling them in the art of business presentations. In this episode, the dragons succeeded in throwing more light on the concepts of creativity, imagination, personality, and the role they play in enhancing the viability of a business idea.  Let’s not forget that history was made  again today in the den? But at the same time, we’ll  have to judge  who crossed the borderline of confidence to the island of being cocky. Let’s traverse through the rejected business ideas to the idea that made  two dragons swoon-figuratively of course.

The first entrepreneur to face the dragons was Thomas Okoye, a calm and almost taciturn young farmer from Benin City who came in search of a 3 million naira investment in exchange for 60% equity in his farm business. He was hoping to expand his animal farm to include the production of organic manure, cat fish farming etc. He informed the dragons that he’d been in the business for about 4-5 years already, and that he’d made a turn-over of 1.8 million naira, and 2.2 million naira in the first and second years of operation respectively. Further explaining that in the first year he made a profit of about 800, 000 naira and in the second he made a profit of 900, 000 naira after a little plough-back.

However, during the course of his presentation, he stated that the business was owned by his mother, but controlled by him- this revelation was a bit unsettling for the dragons, “if we make this investment today, we’re investing in your mother, and not you?” Ibukun Awosika had pointed out. However, his power conservation mechanism sounded impressive to Femi Tejuoso, but Alexander Amosu decided to opt out early because he had no confidence in the business. Ibukun Awosika opted out because she felt that Thomas wasn’t 100% in charge of the business, coupled with the fact that she had no strong interest in the business he was proposing. The rest of the dragons soon opted out on the basis that the entrepreneur did not exhume the right amount of confidence required to attract an investment in his business.