'I was rejected 5 times on Dragons' Den but now my profits have doubled'

A Dragons’ Den contestant has admitted she’s grateful to have not secured investment on the BBC One competition.

Anshu Ahuja entered the Den in an episode that aired tonight, hoping to seek £100,000 for 3 percent of her business, DabbaDrop.

The founder and her business partner had built up their sustainable takeaway business, inspired by the dabbawala system of Mumbai, in 2018, and had valued the business at more than £3,000,000 just a few years later.

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The entrepreneur was looking for investment from the likes of Peter Jones, Sara Davies, Touker Suleyman, Deborah Meaden, and Steven Bartlett to help upscale DabbaDrop and encourage its growth outside of London.

However, despite her inspirational ethics behind the sustainable product, and the fact that DabbaDrop had turned over more than £800,000 in its latest year, Anshu failed to convince the Dragons to invest.

In fact, Peter encouraged her to “pivot” on one key part of her business model, while Touker called the valuation “crazy” and Sara feared DabbaDrop was in “distress.”

Yet despite their comments and not securing an investment from Dragons’ Den, Anshu has had no regrets.

In an exclusive interview, she reflected on Touker’s harsh remark on their valuation, saying: “We had done quite a lot of work going into Dragons’ Den and our own fundraising round, so the £4million valuation was independently valued, based on our £850,000 revenue and a lifetime value of the 1,500 subscribers at that point of nearly £400 per subscriber. At that point, we also had a 1,000-person waiting list, which is currently, even before airing, standing at 4,000 people.”

Anshu knew it was a “risk” to go on national TV and pitch her business, but was willing to take the leap as the team was fundraising for DabbaDrop at the time of being approached for the show.

They’d already received interest from more than 2,000 investors, had reached millions of views on an Instagram reel, and pledged more than £1,000,000.

“It is risky going on national TV, but why not? Let’s take the ris,k and it might be worth it," she said.

“Also, the opportunity to talk to five smart, brilliant people was what I was most excited about, being up there talking about our story and our vision, all about the Dabba dream, and having them dissect it and come up with interesting ideas of how to take it further.

“I know it sounds mad, but I was thrilled about being chosen to have that conversation, regardless of what happened at the end.”

With the help of the investors and support they’ve received, Anshu already has plans for DabbaDrop to expand with more products and to build new hubs in other cities, after demand for the service across the world in Mumbai, New York, and Sydney.

“It’s not just us that believe in it, there are investors across the world who think this is a great idea and have the same sort of vision for it as we do,” she said.

Since going on Dragons’ Den, before the episode had aired, Anshu revealed that the company had already doubled its number of subscribers and profits.

She reflected:” We’ve really taken the advice that the Dragons gave us to work at bettering our model. Actually, in a lot of ways, I’m glad we didn’t get the investment, and look at how great we’re doing, we’ve used that moment to go away and think about how we can be better.

“I’m really proud of how far we’ve come in just a year with no help.”

“I have absolutely no regrets,” she declared. “It was worth every minute of that grilling, even Touker saying, ‘You just take other people’s money and go and spend it.’ It was worth all that stress, chaos, and embarrassment. It was worth it, I’m still smiling.”

Dragons' Den airs Thursdays at 8pm and is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.