Even though Carmelo Marsala turned down an offer by one of the Dragons to invest in his Spray-Net company, it was well worth his time: the company received more than 400 franchise requests shortly after the show aired on February 3, 2016.
“My finance background at Concordia contributed a lot to being able to grow the business as quickly as we have,” he says.
Marsala won the Air Miles for Business Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in August 2015, and in December was named the only Canadian winner of the International Franchise Association’s NextGen in Franchising Global Competition.
“The profile of franchisees that we are attracting this early in the franchise system is phenomenal,” says Marsala. “We are getting top business people, CEOs of $100-million companies, bank VPs, engineers. It’s phenomenal and reassuring that people of this calibre see the potential of what we’re doing.”
Spray-Net has franchises in Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia, with new franchises launching in Alberta and British Columbia in 2016. The Financial Post reports Spray-Net sales “increased to $5 million in 2015 from $850,000 in 2012. Marsala expects revenue to hit $9.5 million in 2016.”
On Dragon’s Den, one of the show’s five dragons, successful Canadian entrepreneur and investor Jim Treliving, accepted Marsala’s pitch for $175,000 in exchange for a five per cent equity stake in Spray-Net. In the end, Marsala chose not to take the deal but says he enjoyed the experience of being on the show.
Seven things Marsala learned being on Dragon’s Den:
- “Jim Treliving is taller than I expected!”
- “It was quite fun! Most people asked me if I was nervous, but the adrenaline of being in the Den was actually super energizing, hence why I was speaking so fast!”
- “The wait time was quite long, so I was expecting the pitch to be very long. But I was in and out within 12 minutes, so that was surprising. I guess that’s a good thing.”
- “It forced me to really think about how much the business was worth, and although a lot has changed since the show was filmed a year ago, it was cool to see that we’ve actually created something of value.”
- “It really forced us to do our research on the potential of our market in both the United States and Canada, so we realized that the potential for our business is actually a lot bigger than we thought. The home improvement sector is always growing, and is the fastest-growing franchise segment.”
- “The result was amazing! We received over 400 franchise requests in one week, so we learned that people see the potential for our business as much as we do.”
- “If you know your stuff, the Dragons aren’t as fierce as they make themselves out to be. It was quite a collaborative-conversation mood.”