26487830Dragon's Den's viewers and the five investors have been left in awe after a man who pitched the idea of a handheld hoover attachment explained his tragic backstory.
Alan Gillet from Kent is the inventor of the XtraHand, "an unrivaled and handsfree dust extraction attachment for vacuums. It effectively removes all of the dust and debris when drilling, cutting and grinding", and after pitching his idea to Deborah Meaden, Peter Jones, Sara Davies, Steven Bartlett and Touker Suleyman - from whom he wanted a £40,000 investment for a 10% stake in the company - it wasn't just the invention that had the dragon's admiring the entrepreneur, but the story behind his product which he invented 17 years ago, in 2006.
Telling the dragons, on Thursday evening's episode (which aired on BBC One at 8pm on March, 16), Alan said: "2006 I invented it. I left it in the cupboard until my mum got cancer and I had to stop work because I was looking after her. My mum unfortunately passed. It took me a while to recover from that. But then my wife and I went 'right, we're going to do this'. And we picked it up again."
