A Dragons’ Den candidate whose firm was deemed ‘pathetic’ now earns £10,000,000 per year.
However, there have been setbacks, including cancer fights and a factory fire.
Rachel Watkyn, 52, went on the show in 2008 to market her sustainable packaging company, the Tiny Box Company.
Duncan Bannatyne described it as ‘pathetic’ and something his eight-year-old daughter might make.
He blasted: ‘I think it’s ridiculous that you’ve come along with what you call a business, that you describe as ethical and recyclable materials and you produce a box which my eight-year-old daughter Emily could make better at school, the ends don’t match up, the lines aren’t straight.
‘It’s pathetic, it really is.’
Despite his criticisms, Rachel and her business partner received £60,000 in funding from Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis.
More than a decade later, her firm is even more successful, with her earning £10 million a year and producing 1,500 goods for nearly 200,000 clients.
Speaking to ITV, Rachel recalled: ‘They were brutal, they were absolutely brutal. On the show, I didn’t have any confidence. Off camera, I just knew that Etsy was becoming more and more popular and Not on the High Street.
‘There was a movement of a lot of start up companies and I knew that they would all need packing like I did.’
However, it has not been an easy trip, as Rachel has experienced difficulties that, she claims, taught her a ‘lesson in resilience’.
She said: ‘It has been the toughest journey of my life. I’ve had cancer three times in the last five years.
‘On the scale of unluckiness we’ve had a few incidents. My first warehouse caught fire, it burnt down, we lost quite a lot of stock.
‘We’ve had two severe floods, we’ve had a hacking of our website, our bank accounts hacked into. Quite a few business disasters.
‘I think what made me resilient as a person is you have two choices. When you get hit with issue after issue, you can either back away and hide in a corner – or you can say “okay that’s happened, how can I make the best out of this situation?”‘
In her Dragons’ Den pitch, Rachel revealed that her personal life had been fraught with challenges too, including when she had to stop working because she ‘picked up a killer virus in hospital’ after a routine appendix operation ‘went horribly wrong’.
‘I lost my job, lost my house, and everything else,’ she said.
15 years later, Rachel has said it’s ‘hilarious’ that not everyone understands the business, saying: ‘It’s really funny when people come into the warehouse and don’t know why they’re here, or are coming for something else, they’ll say “what do you sell then?” And we’ll say “boxes”.’
‘Everything people buy comes in a bag or a box or some kind of packaging, and if we can help business switch from plastic or less environmentally friendly solutions to more environmentally friendly, then the job’s done,’ she added to ITV.
Dragons’ Den airs Thursdays at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
Source My Celebrity Life.