Happy New Year! I thought I’d start with a great and recent example of the power of story.
On the first Dragons’ Den of 2024, two brothers, Joe and Ben Gallagher and friend Oliver Millar pitched for investment in their second-hand luxury retail business, Luxe Collective. Steven Bartlett ended up investing £100k for a 3% stake – he’d initially asked for 5%, was prepared to settle on 4%, yet the entrepreneurs held firm at 3%. It’s unheard of on the Den for a Dragon to drop their demands like that. Why this time? Simple…story.
First, their story of how the idea for their business came about. Ben told the judges that his sister had wanted a pair of £400 trainers for Christmas, and he was impressed when his mum found a second-hand pair online for £100. He explained that he became ‘obsessed’ with the website his mother had bought them on. Using savings and part of a car loan, the 23-year-old and his brother started buying up items from eBay and DePop, and now they have over half a million followers on Instgram, 1.6million on Tiktok and over £8m in revenue.
But what I really loved, and what arguably swung it with Steven Bartlett, was Ben telling Steven when he was working as a trolley pusher, he had felt unemployable with few prospects, and how Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast was the inspiration and catalyst to be courageous and believe he could do so much more with his life.
🌟And there’s the classic narrative arc:
👉 Context (pushing trolleys in a supermarket)
👉 Conflict (feeling unemployable, lacking belief)
👉 Resolution (inspired by the “wise sage” Steven Barlett, and embarking on a journey which culminates in the set up and success of Luxe Collective.
Steven Barlett ultimately invested in these guys because they had a great story underpinned by a great business. It came down to emotion at the end, and Ben was a genius to hold that story back about the impact of Diary of a CEO until the very end in the negotiations. He went for the heart there not the head, and it worked brilliantly. Well done Luxe Collective! 👏🍾👏
