Roasted by the Dragons
Joel Primus and Travis McLaren on the set of CBC’s Dragons’ Den.
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Updated: October 02, 2009 4:36 PM
It might have looked like Abbotsford underwear entrepreneur Joel Primus took a roasting from potential investors on the CBC TV show Dragons’ Den, but he said it was worth the national exposure.
Primus and business partner Travis McLaren have had calls from several people interested in investing in their company Naked: The Next Boxer Brief since the show aired Wednesday night.
They are also in talks for their line of women’s and men’s seamless underwear to be sold in the upscale department store, Holt Renfrew.
As well, hits on their website (nakedboxerbrief.com) have gone up by 2,000 per cent, Primus said.
“There’s a lot of excitement ... from a lot of different players and companies that are now well aware of a product that 1.3 million people saw.”
Primus and McLaren were the first aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch their product on the Dragons’ Den season premiere. The episode depicted the panel of five potential investors – called the “Dragons” – grilling the pair about their request for $150,000 for a 33 per cent share of their company.
They were criticized for evaluating their business at more than $450,000.
Primus and McLaren were also attacked for their projections of securing 0.5 per cent of the underwear market in their first year and two per cent by year three.
“You’re delusional. You have no clue,” said panelist Brett Wilson.
The main offer shown on the episode came from Arlene Dickinson, who proposed $75,000 in marketing services for 100 per cent of the company. This meant the other $75,000 in cash was required from one of the other Dragons, but nobody agreed to it, and Primus and McLaren left without a deal.
Primus said yesterday that much of what went on during the actual 30-minute pitch was edited to appear more dramatic than it really was.
“The Dragons are all good people, and they’re fun and they joke around a lot. It was a lot of fun during those 30 minutes,” he said.
He defended the request for a $150,000 investment, saying that is the amount needed to successfully launch this kind of company in terms of marketing and product development.
“Anything less would make the investment riskier, in our opinion.”
