Love it or hate it: Marmite board game maker wins £50,000 investment on Dragons’ Den
On Sunday’s episode of Dragons’ Den, two board game entrepreneurs flip all around a failing pitch to win backing from Duncan Bannatyne and Peter Jones. The Agencieshas the untold story behind the demonstrate 
Board game organization Pants on Fire, founded by Argyll buddies Richard McLuckie, 48, and Stuart Mackenzie-Walker, 51, secured £50,000 of investment on Sunday’s episode of Dragons’ Den, giving up a 40pc slice of their business.
Nonetheless, the pair practically left the Den with nothing, after their pitch got off to a rocky start. “We fluffed our lines,” admits Mr McLuckie. “I experimented with to cease Deborah [Meaden] by saying, you haven’t heard the full story, but then she was out also.”
Three Dragons rapidly took their income off the table, and the predicament was receiving desperate. But the Pants On Fire founders had a dilemma: they weren’t allowed to tell the Dragons about their most significant deal.
When the episode was filmed in Could of this year, Pants on Fire had landed an unique licensing contract with Marmite to create three video games.
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However, the pair have been under strict instructions from Unilever, Marmite’s mother or father organization, not to mention the contract on the demonstrate.
“We had to discover a way around it,” says McLuckie. “So I explained, ‘I’m about to launch a licensed game with a nationally renowned firm and a known supermarket brand.’”
When the Dragons demanded to see the paperwork, the entrepreneurs had their possibility to spill the beans.
“We showed them the contract and Peter [Jones] said, ‘It’s Marmite, isn’t it?’ but we didn’t actually tell them anything at all.”
This yr, the company will launch Really like It Or Dislike It and Who Place The Marmite In The Fridge on behalf of the food business. “I came up with the thought for the second a single simply because my wife is French and always puts the Marmite in the fridge, so it’s totally unspreadable like concrete,” says McLuckie.
“Every morning, I’d ask who’d place my Marmite in the fridge. I believed it sounded like a great identify for a game.”
Subsequent yr, the business will launch a 3D Marmite jar puzzle.
Bannatyne and Jones have been swayed by the Marmite deal, and agreed to stump up the cash. They now own 20pc of the business every single, which will shrink to 15pc as soon as their investment has been repaid.
Pants On Fire is forecasting a fivefold boost in turnover as a end result of the publicity on the Den, taking revenues to £350,000.
“I can not wait to carry all their new idea and concepts to existence,” says Jones. “What I like about Pants On Fire is the cheeky edge to all their games. I’m looking forward to the good results of the company and the possibility to test market the variety with my family.”
Jones has experimented with his hands at board games just before, launching Peter Jones’ Large Enterprise in 2007.
“Peter asked if I knew about it and I told him he’d offered 15,000 games, which took him aback,” says McLuckie. “It was a excellent way to prove that we knew our stuff.”
Acquiring Jones on board could demonstrate profitable for Pants on Fire. The Dragon is launching a new Tv quiz demonstrate in January and the organization is hoping to generate the board game spin-off.
“If the display is effective, it will take us to a total new degree,” says McLuckie. “The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire board game sold 1m in three years. We’re only seeking to sell 50,000 games across the board this yr.”
The Pants On Fire founders made a decision to go on the Den following one particular of their biggest customers, high street retailer HMV, went bust, owing the company £20,000. “We wanted publicity and investment,” says McLuckie. “We had been in cashflow difficulties.”
This spooked some of the Dragons, admits McLuckie. Piers Linney called the company “a bail-out, not an investment,” reveals McLuckie. Whilst Kelly Hoppen was “rude”.
“Either she didn’t like us or she doesn’t like board video games,” says McLuckie.
Most established board game companies have substantial marketing and advertising budgets to publicise new game, he explains, with companies like Drumond Park investing up to £500,000 on the launch of The Logo Game.
“We didn’t have the funds to promote our games like that, but it’s the only way to become an established brand.”
Pants On Fire was launched after McLuckie and McKenzie came up with a new notion for a game although enjoying Trivial Pursuit. “It was a drunken evening and we were acquiring bored so we commenced messing around with the cards and producing up solutions,” says McLukcie. “We suddenly realised that it was a really fantastic basis for a bluffing game.”
Liar Liar was launched in 2009, and the pair drummed up publicity for the game by calling regional newspapers up and down the nation, claiming to be nearby entrepreneurs.
“We’d researched street names and neighborhood colleges and everything,” says McLuckie. “We considered, it is okay if we get caught simply because our game’s named Liar Liar.”
Pants On Fire has considering that developed a portfolio of 9 board video games, like bestsellers You Cannae Push Yer Granny Off The Bus and Bluffoons, offered through John Lewis, WH Smith, Waterstones and Amazon.
The Marmite games will be accessible from the end of the month.