Dragons' Den, Concordia-style
Even shouts of “lights, camera, action,” couldn’t have daunted the students of the year-end MBA marketing class more. Students in several sections of the Introduction to Marketing MBA course presented their term projects — Dragons’ Den-style.
The CBC show features aspiring entrepreneurs pitching business concepts to a panel of moguls with the cash and moxie to make dreams come true. This semester’s Concordia version saw Jordan LeBel, a professor of marketing at the John Molson School of Business (JMSB), challenge his students to introduce a new product or item to Canada, complete with business and marketing plans.
It wasn’t a purely hypothetical exercise, LeBel explained; over the years, some of his students have actually been offered cash for their ideas.
Playing dragon-for-a-day were Jason Baxter, JMSB graduate and founder of Altitude Corporate Coffee Spaces; Thibaud Joubert, Optim Ressources (sustainable development consultants); and Andre Pace, co-founder, Pureliving.ca (natural skin and body care products).
Five groups presented their projects in class on April 7. First up: Alternatives, a line of compact trendy ballerina shoes with carry bag, to be marketed in cigarette machine-style dispensers in clubs, convention centres and upscale athletic venues. For women wearing stilettos who had reached their limit of suffering.
The second group proposed importing Ebel Camel Soap, a certified organic eco-friendly Jordanian soap made with ingredients that include aloe vera, honey, mint, olive oil and camel milk. “Comes with its own innovative soap dish that will accentuate your decor.”
Tutormarketspace.com, group three, wanted to connect students with tutors using voice-over-Internet protocol, chat and file sharing technologies. “Wherever you are is the classroom — your tutor’s a click away.” Potential Montreal market: 200,000+ students at nine local universities. Feedback and tutor quality control were part of the value added. They proposed charging students and tutors $1 each per transaction. Dragon Baxter was in, but with this advice: “This is a great opportunity, but at $2, I see bankruptcy. Tell the tutor, ‘You can just sit there all day and tutor at $20 per hour. No more searching for clients. Here’s your platform. Oh, and we’re taking a 30 per cent chunk of your business.’” The extra cash would fuel an expansion to other cities. LeBel summed it up: “The big lesson here is to not sell yourself short. Be more assertive financially.”
Group four presented Babyglow, a hot new clothing line taking off in Europe. The baby garments are heat sensitive, changing colour when the wearer’s body temperature exceeds 37° C. Estimated demographic: gift givers to the 231,400 annual urban births in Canada and givers searching for “special, unique and quality products. The psychographic where gifting is important.”
Noting Canada’s gift market tops a staggering $10 billion annually, the final group presented Legacy Maps, capitalizing on “the desire to offer meaningful, longlasting gifts that strengthen relationships, a piece of art that commemorates a life.” The idea came from the 20th anniversary celebrations for the Richard Nixon Library. In graphic form, a map created for that event showed where Nixon was born, played football, etc. Target markets include birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, or a firm’s milestone achievements. The group requested $100,000 for 20 per cent in equity and $80,000 for start-up. There are 140,000 weddings yearly in Canada, 1.12 million small businesses, and over 800,000 adults reaching milestone birthdays next year. The plan to include the funeral market was declared “genius,” by Dragon Pace, who challenged the students about protecting their intellectual property and why they wanted $20,000 above start-up. After some hemming and hawing, LeBel swooped to his students’ rescue: “Just say, ‘Thank you Dragon. It’s called ‘reserves.’’ That’s how you get out of this sticky situation.”
The winner, LeBel explained, would be chosen by the Dragons, “based on the best overall idea, the ‘idea with legs’ that could be taken to market right now, as is.” And — drumroll, please — the winner was Tutormarketspace.com. Congratulations to Atif Ali, Andrew Oliver Gillis, Arhum Nomani, Juan Camilo Ramirez Zuluaga, and Nikki Roehrig.
LeBel, obviously proud of his students’ work, pointed out that “the Monday night group was equally talented. The big winner there was The 2nd Home, a daycare centre for seniors suffering from loss of autonomy.” The team, including Stephen Atkinson, Marc Bou Jaoudé, Geneviève Grainger, Chrystal Healy and Claude Mikhail, were approached by a real estate financier to make their project a reality and approached LeBel with questions on how to move forward. He directed them to the expertise of Dragons in the room. LeBel a added: “That’s ‘real life’ coming to the classroom. I love it when that happens.”
Related links:
• Concordia's Department of Marketing
• CBC's Dragons’ Den