Monetising personal digital data sparks interest in the Den 🐉 Dragons’ Den - BBC

Summary

Sam Jones, the founder of Generate, pitched his innovative business idea to the Dragons' Den panel, seeking a £60,000 investment for 10% equity. His company offers users the choice to protect their privacy or earn from their data by sharing it in exchange for rewards. Generate's business model involves returning 80% of advertising revenue to users while taking a 20% cut. Sam's pitch impressed the Dragons, with three of them offering the full investment amount. Ultimately, Sam secured a deal with two Dragons sharing the stake, including office space benefits.

Highlights

• Sam's pitch for Generate captivated multiple Dragons with its compelling concept. 🚀
• Users can choose between privacy and monetizing their data with Generate. ⚖️
• The company incentivizes users by sharing 80% of ad revenue. 💰
• Generate's innovative approach sparked intense interest, resulting in multiple offers. 🌟
• The final deal involves two Dragons and includes free office accommodations. 🏢

Key Takeaways

• Sam Jones introduces Generate, aiming to empower users through data monetization. 💡
• Generate offers two modes: privacy protection and earnings through data sharing. 🛡️💸
• The business returns 80% of advertising revenue to its users. 🤑
• Sam secures full investment offers from multiple Dragons, highlighting the pitch's success. 🐉
• Collaboration with Dragons Peter and Tsuka, including free office space, seals the deal. 🤝

Overview

Sam Jones made a memorable entrance in BBC's Dragons' Den with a pitch that combines privacy with profitability. His startup, Generate, targets the digital advertising world by letting users decide to either protect their data or share and earn from it. The concept is refreshingly consumer-focused, putting the power back into the hands of the individual internet user.

The pitch detailed Generate's revenue-sharing model, which generously returns a significant chunk of advertising revenue to its users while collecting a modest 20% for itself. The likable aspect of the business isn't just its user-centric approach; it also promises real financial benefits for consumers opting into data sharing.

Sam's smooth delivery and the solid business potential of Generate led to multiple Dragons eagerly offering investment. The session ended with a partnership deal between Sam and two Dragons, complete with added office space benefits, setting Generate on a promising trajectory toward becoming a major player in its market.

Monetising personal digital data sparks interest in the Den 🐉 Dragons’ Den - BBC Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello dragons my name's sam jones i'm the founder of generate and i'm here today to ask for 60 000 pounds in return for 10 equity the open secret within the advertising industry is that it's built on exploiting our data like when you mention something to a friend and the next thing you know you're being bombarded with adverts for it everything that we do online is being tracked to follow our movements and understand
• 00:30 - 01:00 our behavior then they collect this information and sell it but i believe that people should have a choice to stop this from happening or even better to earn from it themselves generate gives people two choices privacy mode this is where we stop all companies from tracking them online or number two earning mode in return for sharing their data with us people
• 01:00 - 01:30 earn points and they can redeem these points for products vouchers or donations to charity and right now the average user is redeeming between 5 and 25 pounds in rewards and value per month when a person chooses to earn from their data they tell us what they're interested in we then use this information in order to tailor all of the adverts that they see anywhere online so that they are based on their interests
• 01:30 - 02:00 generate has started a movement that empowers people and i hope that you'll come on the journey with us very smooth pitch i just like to understand in terms of the business what is your revenue model so everything that we do is about empowering people to have control and to be able to earn from their data so we tell them that companies and advertisers want to pay to show them what they're interested in so if you share your interests with us we'll be able to target relevant advertising we're very confident that we will be
• 02:00 - 02:30 able to drive at least between 5 and 10 pounds per user per month our business model is that we give 80 of the revenue back to the user and we take a 20 cut and i assume it's using cookies is that right when you go on websites and then they track you from that no so that's what happens right now so a cookie is one of the best tricks in marketing cookie means tracker so when you go to a website and you see that annoying pop-up where it says allow us to drop a cookie
• 02:30 - 03:00 on you if it really said allow us to drop a tracker you'd say no but actually what you should do next time is click on the c vendor list and you will see all of the companies that you are allowing to track you and on many of your favorite websites the list is literally hundreds and hundreds of different companies right now if you use the world's largest search engine and you want to stop them from tracking you it will take you 17 clicks to do so
• 03:00 - 03:30 if you know what you're doing if you know what you're doing yes with your software installed yeah does it prevent it from adding a tracker or cookie onto you yes how long has it taken you to build the platform and how close to finished is it so we spent a full year and a half before we even soft launched it last year by the end of last year we had about 10 000 weekly active users at this point this year we've got about 30 000 so we added 20 000 more
• 03:30 - 04:00 is there a competitor out there there's a company in the us who would be the closest to us the key point of differentiation is that they reward users with cryptocurrency so what kind of market penetration have they got um they're valued at about 135 million dollars they have about six million users so there's a hell of an opportunity there will be a billion dollar business built in this space and it may be that the first one who gets there wins it
• 04:00 - 04:30 sam i've been in the den for six years this is one of the best pitches that i've ever heard thank you now tell me about your plans to raise more money because what i don't want is to invest now and find out in two weeks time i'm diluted so where we are right now with no more um raising of capital i believe we can end next year with 311 000 users and the following year with a million however i think there could be a good discussion to have with existing
• 04:30 - 05:00 shareholders to say guys if we can add another zero on the valuation should we raise a couple of million quid and go out and capture the market what about someone like google coming into this because it's pretty much their technology they could quite easily develop a system whereby they monetize people by allowing data to be shared could that happen any startup that said they weren't slightly worried about google would probably be lying they're a ten ton gorilla that's for sure
• 05:00 - 05:30 but the refuge that i take is there was a browser extension last year that was acquired for four billion dollars from paypal and what they did was they added discount codes at checkout google could have built that but they never did similarly we see that there is an enormous opportunity for us here and i wouldn't rule out google as a potential acquirer in the future sam i think the business model is really clever and
• 05:30 - 06:00 it kind of feels like individuals become ultimately their own affiliate and receive the line share of a commission that your business is ultimately going to pay them so i think it's really really interesting and the timing of this is now i actually think that generate could be a movement which is really saying something in the market because that's when you get real penetration so i don't think you're going to be
• 06:00 - 06:30 surprised that the quality of your pitch the size of the opportunity and the excitement has generated my interest so much so that i'm going to offer you all of the money all sixty thousand pounds for exactly what you've asked for for 10 of the business thank you very much peter look i think what you've created is truly the one solution for the issue that we have
• 06:30 - 07:00 you know i think i could help you with raising money for this with access to a huge number of tech investors so i'm going to make you the same offer all of the money for 10 wow thank you very much so sam this is about getting a message out this is about being trusted and i think your timings absolutely bang on in terms of plugging into that concern that's
• 07:00 - 07:30 beginning to register in the back of people's minds and you add on top of that actually even better than that i can earn some money out of my data so i i absolutely love it and i'm going to offer you all of the money the 10 of the business thank you very much [Music] outstanding is the word i would use to describe everything about this pitch we've just seen and i knew that you would be walking out of here with an offer i don't sit in this chair and pretend to
• 07:30 - 08:00 be the techie expert and i'm sure i am not the best dragon to partner with you on this venture and it is only for that reason that i'm not going to make you an offer and i'm out sam have you got offices uh rental offices how about pre-offices for you for a year in my office i'm gonna give you all the money sixty thousand for ten percent and offer you free accommodation up to
• 08:00 - 08:30 six eight people per year okay thank you very much before um i think i'll definitely take a moment if that's okay please take your time to the wall thank you very much um thank you all so much this is absolutely amazing to be in this position tsuka i love the enthusiasm and the
• 08:30 - 09:00 energy that you clearly have for generate and peter i know that you have incredible expertise in this space particularly when it comes to scaling would the two of you be willing to share the deal at five percent each with the offices included i i would yeah yeah i think so [Music]
• 09:00 - 09:30 it's a deal thank you very much brilliant well done really looking forward to working with you an exquisite pit brilliant business thank you wow this is such a game changer to have two massive dragons on board just helps to
• 09:30 - 10:00 make sure that my business is a household name in the near future i've always been brought up by my parents and i even teach my kids you've got to have humility not gloat but it's so difficult not to gloat after that decision who says free office space doesn't work absolutely