The founders of Dragons’ Den success Grow Sow Simple have told how a huge US contract is helping the firm reach £1m sales for the first time – before the deal with Sara Davies has even been completed.
Dan Robson braved the panel of millionaire Dragons last week to strike an £80,000 deal with crafting queen Sara Davies, founder of Crafter's Companion, after impressing her with the company’s themed seed boxes. Launched in 2014, Grow Sow Simple’s seed boxes have themes, such as pizza topper, herb garden and cocktail botanicals, and are aimed at families and beginner gardeners .
In lockdown, demand for the boxes bloomed, leading to a big supermarket deal with Asda and last year the firm had to move to a bigger base on the Tyne Tunnel Trading Estate in North Tyneside. Managing director Dan Robson, who runs the firm with his brother Joe, has revealed the company has already trebled its turnover in a year on the back of new deals, and that the Dragons’ Den appearance is delivering an even bigger boost.
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He said: “It’s all a bit of a blur now - the adrenalin peaks and falls the whole time – and it’s a crazy experience, so we’re really pleased, especially to have Sara. She so understands the model that we are involved in. We’re already reaching into her bag of contacts which has been massively helpful.”
The show was filmed last May and the deal with Sara Davies is still going through the due diligence process, so the company has yet to receive the £80,000 investment. But Mr Robson, who runs the firm with his brother Joe, said Sara has visited the firm and been giving the brothers lots of advice in the meantime, including guidance on preparing for the rush of orders when the show was aired.
Mr Robson said: “We were inundated. Sara said: ‘You guys need to be ready, it’s going to go crazy on the night’. We had our families here and as many people from work crammed into my house to watch it. At the same time we had four or five laptops set up in the kitchen with people doing LinkedIn, Instagram, checking the websites - it was like Cape Canaveral in our kitchen while the show was on.
“Thankfully the website didn’t crash. We really don’t do huge amounts of B to C, it’s not our bread and butter but it’s where we want to be, so it was great to see bag after bag being loaded into the cars, to send out after the show. We’ve done hundreds of sales and have lots of people signed up to the newsletter so it’s been a massive boost for us and the next steps for our business.”
Mr Robson said he and his brother have been heavily involved in a number of other transactions and trade shows. The company is in the final stages of launching Peppa Pig themed products, while also making deliveries to a huge US customer. Meanwhile, the company’s deal with Asda has been extended and new products will be going on sale in scores of superstores soon.
He has also been taking the Grow Sow Simple products to high profile trade shows in Europe and the US – revealing how he was actually boarding a plane to Las Vegas for one exhibition when the BBC called, telling him he was set to appear on Dragons’ Den.
He said: “We had orders we were working on before we went into the Den. After Covid we were able to start going back to trade shows, like the National Hardware Show, the largest gardening show, I think, in the world, and almost certainly in North America. We actually managed to do some good things with a couple of companies, so we’re now on track to turnover £1m, which is amazing, which is a big jump from the £315,000 we were doing.
“We’re in with a company called Winco Foods, which is all up and down the west coast, so we are now in the middle of packing all the orders.”
On the back of the new contracts, Grow Sow Simple now has a team of 10 staff in production and warehouse staff, and Mr Robson said the workforce will “grow extensively” in the future.
Future growth, Mr Robson said, will be dominated by new product design. While Mr Robson comes from a product design background his brother has been involved in the graphic design sector and fellow director Simon Scott-Harden is an engineer.
He added: “Between the three of us we have some fantastic ideas ready for launch in June, at shows in Birmingham and Europe, and we’ve secured a licence agreement with an Austrian company Gusta Garden for their innovative pots, and we’re going to distribute those.
“The most exciting thing is our range of 3D puzzle gardens under the Peppa Pig brand - we’re designing them now. So it’s all very exciting.”
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