Bobby Kerr is off to Zambia on behalf of Habitat for Humanity with a team of 10 on Wednesday! The team will work on a local house building scheme and have set a target of €50k for their fundraising endeavours.

Bobby and the team will be working on a house building project for a local family caring for AIDS orphans. They will be helping some of the most impoverished people in the world, in a spirit of partnership, empowerment and dignity.

The link below contains more information and also allows anyone to donate to the campaign. http://www.mycharity.ie/event/bobbykerr

Best of luck Bobby and team from everyone at All About Business!

The penultimate episode of Dragons’ Den’ like the rest of series so far, didn’t fail to provide entertainment! Series three will soon be drawing to a close but there is still plenty of time for the Dragons to invest their hard earned cash.

In week seven Mike Kelleher was the first entrepreneur up to brave the Den. While the Dragons didn’t really take to Mike’s product – Flood Barrier they most definitely took to Mike! The entrepreneur gave a confident and passionate pitch with a clear demonstration of how his product would work. Unfortunately Norah Casey couldn’t recreate a real life flood in the Den so the Dragons had to use their imagination for that! He regaled the Dragons with stories from his past and it was obvious they all took a shine to the Kerry man. However, this wasn’t enough to secure him an investment and he left with nothing. To see our exclusive footage of Mike and Sean Gallagher singing ‘The Gallant John Joe’ visit the behind the scenes section.

A metal fabricator by trade, Tom Ivess was hoping the Dragons would unlock the key to his success with an investment of €50,000 for a 25% stake in his business. Tom believes he has solved the problem of patio sliding door security with his device the Ivess Lock. Unluckily for Tom, the Dragons didn’t share this belief! They thought his lock was too expensive and customers wouldn’t be willing to pay his price.  When Tom couldn’t answer how much the industry was worth things went from bad to worse for the entrepreneur and one by one the Dragons bowed out.
 

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Five weeks in and you would think the Dragons have parted with enough of their cash. Each week the Dragons are presented with products ranging from the straightforward to the decidedly bizarre and this week was certainly no different! 

Our first entrepreneurs up Darren Rudden and Colin O’Brien delivered a pitch none of the Dragons seemed particularly excited by. Their idea – The Clever CloseLine is a rotary clothesline with an automatic rain sensitive cover which automatically deploys over your clothes when it starts to rain and automatically retracts when the rain stops. Norah Casey was the first Dragon to declare herself out saying that she while she thought the product was very clever, she wasn’t convinced that the two guys were! Straight away Gavin Duffy decided to lay his cards on the table and told Colin and Darren that he was in. Gavin was particularly interested in the second product, the Clever CloseHorse. 

After hearing some more about the two products Gavin made his offer – the full €55,000 but for 49% of the business. Sean Gallagher obviously wanted a slice of the action and offered half the money for 22.5% of the business. Niall then said that he was going to offer the full amount but was more than happy to join forces with Sean on the investment. While waiting for Bobby Kerr to make his intentions clear the other Dragons had a bit of a go at each other, clearly they all really wanted to be the ones making the investment! Bobby decided to go in with Gavin on the investment and they clearly thought they had it in the bag! The guys thought that the equity was too high and asked Bobby and Gavin to come down to 42.5%. Bobby and Gavin met the guys half way at 45% and Colin and Darren accepted!

For most people one trip to the Den is enough! In the first series of Dragons’ Den Gerry and Bernie Hanly couldn’t convince the Dragons to invest in Gerry’s invention the Hanno Strapwinder. Undeterred, they returned with the Hanno Heatmaster and were looking for €50,000 for only 10% of their business. Gerry’s latest invention was to suffer the same faith, after a brief interrogation all the Dragons declaring themselves out.

Alison Cummins and Tara Lane were the second pairing to enter the Den, would they also be second to gain an investment in week 5? They gave a very confident pitch with a realistic valuation of their business – Aliara. Aliara is a direct selling company that uses network marketing to sell a variety of products including jewellery, handbags, makeup, etc. The Dragons were quick to ask questions about the financial model of the business. Bobby was the first Dragon to mention the dreaded words ‘Pyramid Selling’ but the girls quickly explained that their business was in fact ‘Networked Marketing’.

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This week saw Norah Casey pull even further ahead of the other Dragons with ANOTHER investment! So far she has invested a whopping €107,500 in just four episodes. With the nearest Dragon, Gavin Duffy, a full €70,000 behind her it seems unlikely that anyone will catch up with her at this stage!

First into the Den this week was Thomas Kinsella with the ‘Cut n’ Curl’ scissors. Thomas was asking a big investment of €70,000 to help get his product to market. He obviously wasn’t banking on their being a nurse in the Den though and Norah quickly refuted his claims that the scissors would reduce the risk of infection in hospitals.  Pretty soon all the dragons bar Gavin declared themselves out.   Gavin obviously saw something the others didn’t and  offered the full amount for 51% of the business. Losing control of his company was not something that Thomas was interested in and after trying to negotiate with Gavin he turned down the offer.

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So here is it, our summary version of Dragon’s Den Episode 3 for all of you who missed the tension-cutting pitches on Sunday’s show!

First into the Den to meet the Dragons were Karen and Maureen from ‘WATzDAT party box’! The confident business ladies were looking for a €25,000 investment for just 5% equity in their business. Initially the only Dragon excited about the prospect of a party was Niall as he inspected the contents of the party boxes.
However they soon garnered Gavin Duffy’s interest and he offered half the investment asked but wanted a 22% equity share.  Norah followed suit offering them the full €25,000 but for a majority share of 51%.  A bidding war ensued with Gavin undercutting Norah with a counteroffer of €25,000 for a 49% equity share. After some deliberation, Karen and Maureen decided to go for Gavin’s offer. …

Finally the wait is over! The Dragons have resumed position in the Dragon Den and as always there are a multitude of entrepreneurs pitching their business plans and hoping to coax the Dragons into investing some much needed cash.

For the unlucky few that missed Sunday night’s show – here is our summary version! We’ll have one every week so you can keep up to date with the goings on in the Den

This year things are slightly different in the Den with the entrance of publishing entrepreneur, Norah Casey, as the newest Dragon. Taking over from Sarah Newman Norah was under pressure to put her hand in her pocket and prove herself from the outset. …

Series 3 of Dragons’ Den will launch on Sunday 20th February at 9.30pm on RTE1. To celebrate the launch we will be bringing you behind the scenes of the Dragons’ Den set and introducing you to one Dragon every day this week!

Bobby Kerr:

Bobby Kerr is a man inclined to action. In the past two to three years, he spearheaded the sale of the Kerr family business – Newpark Hotel in Kilkenny – for €23 million. He also sold 51% of his Insomnia group to Penninn, valuing the business at €16 million. All in addition to his escapades as a Dragon …

We are delighted to announce that another National Enterprise Week is due to take place from the 19th to 26th November 2010.

In May earlier this year we provided new business opportunities to over 5,000 businesses in branches across the country under the “Show your Business” initiative.

We also held over 60 events, featuring a range of speakers relevant to the SME community.  This included successful entrepreneurs such as Bobby Kerr (Dragons’ Den), mentors like ex-rugby player Frankie Sheehan and industry experts like Rick Kelley (Facebook).

This year, there will a number of events across the country, and once more we’re inviting local businesses to promote their businesses throughout Bank of Ireland branches nationwide. By promoting your products and services in your local branch you have a great opportunity to reach out to the public and let them know about you, your business and what you are all about. Want to get involved? Drop into your local branch or Click Here

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Bank of Ireland is delighted to announce that it is once again sponsoring the hit business reality programme Dragons’ Den which is now coming into its third series on RTE ONE.

The Irish Dragons are successful entrepreneurs and business leaders who have been there, done that. This year will see the introduction of brand new Dragon Norah Casey, who will join Gavin Duffy, Bobby Kerr, Sean Gallagher and Niall O’Farrell in the Den.

Crucially, it will be the Dragons’ own hard earned cash on the table. These are shrewd business people who have heard it all before and who are not afraid to say ‘no’ in the harshest of terms. But if they spot an idea with that extra special something, they and they alone will have the power to make dreams come true and invest money from their own pockets.

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