If a week is a long time in politics, then 48 hours is a lifetime in business and TV.
On Thursday millions of viewers of Dragons’ Den watched Lucie MacLeod leave empty-handed for her Pembrokeshire-based hair oils business Hair Syrup.
Her appearance caused controversy after Dragon Touker Suleyman offered the full £190,000 in exchange for 3 per cent of the flourishing business – but only if he got all his money back after three months and kept the 3 per cent!!
The offer stunned his fellow Dragons. Deborah Meaden shook her head and warned the 24-year-old: “You’re basically giving away those shares.”
Steven Bartlett advised her to walk to the back of the Den, have a drink of water before making a decision.
Sensing the mood Suleyman quickly backtracked.
“I don’t want you to feel I’ve tried to trick you in anyway,” he told her. “That is not my intention.
“I tell you what Lucie, I can feel you’re uncomfortable and I don’t want to take 3 per cent of your business so I’m out.”
Viewers took to ‘X’ to accuse Suleyman of ‘shameful’ tactics and trying to ‘con’ MacLeod.
However, fast forward 48 hours and the biggest winner is undoubtedly Lucie MacLeod herself.
Her appearance has attracted blanket media coverage and added an extra 20,000 TikTok followers in just two days.
Hair Syrup – which has changed its profile to ‘Rejected by the Dragons, LOVED by TikTok – now boasts 323,000 followers and 8 million likes.
Since the programme was recorded the company has got its products stocked by Boots and is on track for a record £6.5m turnover this year.
Rather than shy away from the chastening experience – especially when Deborah Meaden said: “I think you don’t really understand the mechanics of how companies work.” – MacLeod is embracing the experience.
The day after the programme aired MacLeod took to LinkedIn to write: “Help. Woken up to the whole of the UK believing I don’t know what a dividend is. Television, hey 😂✌️.”
However it’s on TikTok – which accounts for nearly half of Hair Syrup’s sales – that MacLeod has fully exploited her 15 minutes of fame with a series of self-deprecating posts.
One post alone got 159.6k likes and if anything her appearance highlights an embarrassing lack of knowledge among some of the Dragons about the power of TikTok.
Speaking, predictably, on TikTok she said: “They didn’t really say anything about the product. I think that caused a bit of disconnect because they thought it was this TikTok trend. I don’t think they really understood how amazing these products actually are. I think they just thought I was this girl who got lucky selling some stuff on TikTok because I was good at marketing, which obviously isn’t the case.”
As PR strategies go, MacLeod has played a blinder.
Rather than criticise the Dragons, she’s gone out of her way to praise them. “The Dragons were really lovely,” she told the BBC. “They told me and taught me a lot of things that are really invaluable lessons to me.”
I’ve now re-watched her appearance on the BBC show three times and I’d go as far to say that not investing in Hair Syrup could go down as the Dragons biggest ever mistake.
For those who haven’t seen the show, a quick recap.
The story started in 2019 when MacLeod was a 21-year-old student at the University of Warwick, frustrated with her frazzled, dry and damaged hair.
After wasting money on products that promised the earth and failed to deliver she set about finding a natural solution and so Hair Syrup was born.
In 2020, during the height of the UK lockdown, the self-confessed ‘accidental entrepreneur’ posted a video showcasing her hair transformation to her TikTok followers.
The video went viral, amassing 600,000 views.
By harnessing the power of TikTok, MacLeod realised she was on to something and the growth soon followed.
In 2022 the turnover was £130,000 with net profit of £42,000; in 2023 the turnover was £1.3m with net profit £400,000; and in 2024 the turnover was £4.5m with a net profit £1.4m.
It was then that MacLeod took her biggest gamble of all to raise Hair Syrup’s profile – she went on Dragons’ Den.
It was clear she didn’t need the £190,000 she was seeking in exchange for a 3 per cent slice of her business.
“I want someone to grow with me and help me to not make the mistakes I’m probably going to make without someone,” she told the Dragons. “I want someone to come on a journey with me. What I want from a Dragon is mentorship.”
She spoke about wanting to take Hair Syrup to the ‘next level’ as she plans to grow turnover to £10m by 2028.
Whether it was more by accident than design, MacLeod’s masterstroke was she appeared vulnerable – and the cameras loved it.
She walked into the Den after 39.29 minutes of Thursday’s show and walked out at 59.21 minutes.
The Gen Z entrepreneur may have failed to secure any investment but she bagged nearly 20 minutes of prime time TV to talk about herself and her company.
Lucie MacCloud, founder, Hair Syrup, on Dragons’ Den
She revealed she had no plans to sell the company, take out a dividend and wanted to expand beyond cosmetics.
“One thing I really want to do one day is revision books because I was a sucker for them when I was younger and there was a very limited market,” she said in answer to a question from Jones.
A phrase you hear a lot is ‘people invest in people’ and the biggest mistake the Dragons made was that they overlooked MacLeod’s entrepreneurial talent and obsessed on how they would get their money out.
“I’m not trying to catch you out,” Meaden said. “I think you don’t really understand the mechanics of how companies work.
“The problem is you have to generate £6m of profit, not turnover, to pay me back my £190,000. No return on that at all.
“To double my money you’ve got to produce £12m worth of profit – we’re not talking turnover – unless you’re willing in a reasonable timescale to look at an exit. You’ve actually said you’re actually keen on that.”
Meaden is one of the longest-serving Dragons and while social media dismissed her advice as patronising it was gold dust.
“I’m not great at that side of things,” admitted MacLeod, who is the only shareholder in Hair Syrup so doesn’t need to pay herself a dividend,
It was at that point that guest Dragon Trinny Woodall – CEO of global, digital-first beauty brand, Trinny London – intervened with the immortal line: “I think Lucie doesn’t know.”
The 60-year-old also questioned the longevity of the brand.
“The biggest risk to me is ‘is this a moment in time?’ or is it going to turn into something big and I do not know the answer to that,” said Woodall.
“I don’t like to invest in trends. I like to invest in things with longevity. If you’d been asking for less – say £100k – I’d have been willing to take the risk but £190k I’m not willing to so for that reason I’m out.”
Fellow Dragon Peter Jones was gushing in his praise. “It’s awesome,” he said. “To get a business making £1.4m profit is off-the-chart great.
“Because of the fact that you genuinely haven’t thought of what an investor would want an investment offer from me would place you in a situation when I’m going to have to steer and control you and I wouldn’t want to do that.
“I’m going to say I’m out but congratulations on what you’ve done.”
Meaden also declined to invest: “For me you’re brilliant but you have made it difficult for an investor,” she explained.
Sara Davies, my favourite Dragon, dipped out as did Steven Bartlett, who was surprisingly underwhelmed by the power of TikTok despite having 2.8 million followers on the platform himself.
“I think you’ve done a wonderful job but I’m personally a little bit concerned about your dependency on one particular platform (TikTok) to generate 50 per cent of your sales,” he said.
“When I heard this 50 per cent number I thought ‘we need a life raft’. For that reason I’m going to say I’m out.”
MacLeod apologised for ‘not selling it enough’ and had the cameras stopped rolling then it’s unlikely we’d still be talking about her and Hair Syrup.
Every show needs a pantomime villain and Touker Suleyman played this role to perfection with arguably the most outrageous offer ever made in the show’s 20-year history.
As despicable roles go all I could think of was the fictional Child Catcher character in the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
“I think what you need is a mentor not to make mistakes,” said Suleyman, before making his controversial offer.
What I don’t understand was why none of the Dragons make MacLeod a counter offer. If they’d offered £190,000 for 10 per cent of the business they’d be sitting on a small fortune now.
That’s why I think the decision not to invest will go down as one of the biggest mistakes the Dragons ever made – especially Woodall, whose business looked a natural fit for Hair Syrup.
As for MacLeod, she may have left the Den without a Dragon but she still owns all the business and has secured invaluable exposure for her brand.
“What I did get was a load of really, really useful feedback that I’ll be sure to take onboard and hopefully help me succeed in the future,” she said.
She summed it best in the final line of her LinkedIn post on Sunday. “Moral of the story?” she asked. “Not getting a deal turned out to be the best possible outcome ▶️📈.”