It’s the second week of Irish Dragon’s Den and I’m really enjoying it and getting into it so far. Here’s a breakdown of the main pitches.

Hen Party – http://www.hen-party.ie

Key people: Kate Hyde

First up was Kate from Hen-Party.ie, an online shop to buy everything you need for your hen party. Kate came across very passionate and energetic and I feel she did a super job delivery her pitch to the dragons. She did stumble a little bit when it came to the financial details, but overall she did very well. She was looking for €30,000 and got the full amount. She did have to give up 40% though. Overall a great pitch, and I have no doubt she will do very well for herself.

Children’s Safety Stabilizer system

Key people: Michael Houghton

Michael Houghton, a maintenance technician from the UK invented what he claims is an improved stabilizer system for children’s bicycles (a safety product that tilts when the child goes around corners to prevent falls). Michael was looking for €60,000 in exchange for 20% of his company but failed to win over any of the dragons with his invention. Sarah Newman made a very good point of children’s bicycles coming assembled with stabilizers already and wanting parents to pay for his product won’t get much attention. Part of Michael’s marketing plan was to distribute flyer’s to houses and this didn’t impress the dragons at all.

Sal’s pizza - http://www.salspizza.eu

Key people: Tony Frattaroli

Tony was looking for a modest €30,000 for 15% of his business. Tony’s idea was one of those gems that are really good, you might glance over and not take seriously. His plan was to create, deliver and sell pizzas to the untapped rural Ireland districts, eventually expanding to other parts of the country and possibly franchising the business. Tony’s pizza recipe comes from Italy and this is definitely one to watch out for. There were a few issues raised regarding Tony not being registered with the health board, but he was adamant that his company was not operating illegally and that he had lengthy talks with the health board about this. Tony failed to get any investment from the dragons but I feel this idea is a winner and we will be hearing more about Tony over the coming years.

Kaylite – http://www.kaylitebags.com/

Key people: Adrian Keegan

Kaylite is a lighting device for handbags that allows women to easily find their miscellaneous items in darkly lit places or at night. Adrian’s pitch wasn’t particularly polished but he did get two offers from the dragons. Sean Gallagher made a very smart move, he made an offer of the full amount but wanted rights to overseas too instead of just Ireland. Adrian, didn’t go ahead with Sean and instead went with Bobby Kerr.

Overall this week’s show was very good fun to watch and alot better over last week’s starting show. I was glad to see an Internet company getting investment and seeing the show’s dragons loosen up alot more. Looking forward until next week.

Just finished watching the Irish version of Dragon’s Den on RTE and was quite worried it would be a little cringey like ALOT of other Irish programming, but it turned out ok, not too bad but not fantastic.

First off, the dragons come across as quite mundane and have no real character in the show (apart from Sean Gallagher) unlike the UK version dragons (I’m looking at you Theo). The production of the show is very good and the set and music resemble the UK version alot, which I really like. The host of the show, Richard Curran does a great job presenting the show.

Here’s a mini run down of the pitches:

Clean Cash – http://www.cleancash.com

Key people: Eamon Nealon, Patrick Fitzgerald

Clean Cash were looking for a €100,000 investment for 15% of their company. Their product is a cash register device that is supposed to clean the money that passes into the cash register. It uses UV light and a clean air system to clean the money. They failed to get any investment – which is what happens when you have a product that nobody really needs anyway.

Booze Berries – http://www.boozeberries.com/

Key people: Michelle Power

Michelle was looking for €125,000 in return for 10% of her premium liquor company. She did get an offer of the full amount she was looking for but she had to give up 40% of her company which she was not willing to do. Not a bad pitch, but you could tell she was very nervous by her voice.

Aqua Images

Key people: Kevin Klatt

Kevin wanted €100,000 for 20% of his tropical fish aquarium company. Kevin’s plan was to offer 3 year contracts to install and service tropical fish tanks in waiting rooms and receptions to make the experience better for the waiting customers. He failed to get any investment or real interest from any of the dragons, but luckily he does have a day job selling photocopiers.

Pedigree Cattle – http://www.pedigreecattle.ie/

Key people: Donall O’Connor, Michael O’Donnell

The guys behind Pedigree Cattle were looking for €50,000 for 10% of the business. Their company’s business is a online marketplace for farmers to buy and sell cattle and I think it’s actually a very good idea and they did manage to secure the investment they needed for 20% I think it was.

Overall I though the RTE did a good job with the show, but the dragons need to pull up their socks and get some more personality going, I suppose it is the first episode of the show. Let’s see how it progesses over the coming months.

This little gem popped into my reader today from Mozilla via Life Hacker, a sleek new web editor that allows real time collaboration between users. Bespin allows plugins and supports HTML, CSS and Javascript at the moment – I’m sure there will be more languages planned. It is in alpha at the moment but the guys are actively developing the product and you can play around with it here. All your code in the cloud, pretty cool!