RBD returns to BBC 2’s “The Dragons’ Den”!

Red Button Design will be returning to ‘The Den’ and your TV screens on Wed 28th Sept!

The new series “How To Win In The Den” will bring viewers up to date with RBD’s progress and showcase the Midomo water-purifiers at their most advanced stage of development. The units will at last be shown out in a community in Eastern Kenya doing what they were designed to do; providing locally managed, environmentally neutral, safe drinking water.

Directors Amanda Jones and James Brown will also be interviewed on the triumphs and tribulations they have experienced along their 4 year journey.

The episode will air in a fortnight: Wednesday 28th September, BBC2 8pm Scotland /9pm England

EDIT: check for regional variations / repeats via the RadioTimes.com listing

In the mean time, you can catch up with us on www.midomo.co.uk
and, for real-time communication, on twitter:
@RedButtonDesign and @MidomoBracelet

Midomo units to reach Mwingi, Kenya - this week!

I write this cautiously, from a pleasingly well tech-ed up Methodist education centre just outside of Nairobi.

Cautiously, not just because of the number of keywords this network will flag as inappropriate (I’ll be watching my language for once!), but because after three years of development and, more recently, what amounts to months of frustrating delays* we’re about to introduce the first batch of Midomo to a community in Mwingi.

If you were one of our Midomo Bracelet customers prior to the end of March, then it’s your units the community will be receiving this week! Read on with pride! If you’ve yet to discover our collaboration with jewellery designer Alex Monroe .. we’re really proud of it; check it out.

Mwingi is an Eastern province of Kenya about 3 hours drive North East of Nairobi with a population of 304k, 79% of which do not have access to safe drinking water.

The main source of drinking water (accounting for about 69% of users) is surface water and you’ll easily see from this photo we took last week why it isn’t considered to be safe. In addition, with 66% of the households reporting that they did not treat their water before consuming it, irrespective of the warning signs, it isn’t surprising that at any given time around 1 in 8 of the population is suffering from a water related illness.

Midomo is ideal for this community; not just because it’ll take the water from the dam and make it safe to drink but because, like many similar communities, water is collected from many kilometers away from the home. In Mwingi a majority of households (65%) take more than an hour fetching water, with the average time estimated as 1 hour 44 minutes.

You can imagine carrying 20 or 30 litres of water this far in the African heat and humidity is hard work, and we saw in Mwingi many of the innovative ways the women used to make this task easier - including using wheelbarrows to carry the full jerry cans! With existing habits like that we already know that Midomo will fit in well here, so we’re thrilled that Farm Africa got in touch and have been so supportive and informative in our visits. Part of Red Button Design’s ‘Design Against Dependency’ philosophy is not to introduce anything unnecessary into the community, be that materials, products or skills, and Farm Africa have been invaluable making sure that everyone possible, from our translators to steel fabricators, were members of the local community.

I’d say we’re excited, and to a degree we are of course, but as many of you will appreciate this has been a long time coming(!!) and with every new setback, be it an hour, a day, or a week, the tension mounts.

Oh, and as if that wasn’t enough, we’re taking with us a film crew for some BBC 2 business show we just can’t keep away from ;)

So I’ll leave you on a cliffhanger..
Pending any more delays, they should be on site by next week! Stay tuned!


*(everything from the Mombasa Port Authority’s computer system ‘going down’ for 10 days, to stocked trucks getting locked in warehouses over the weekend!)

**source: KNBS / Unicef

*** more pictures!

We never set out to start a business... but this is how it started.

(apologies for the delay ..my dog ate my homework? Well, actually, blogger ate my first post and I was so dismayed at needing to re-write everything it took a while to replace it.. I'm sure the first version was shorter, funnier and more eloquent .. but here we are)

Red Button Design was founded by James Brown and Myself in 2007, six months after we'd come up with what we thought was a pretty cool idea; a water purification product that avoided chemical or electrical components, and made dirty water drinkable at the same time as assisting in its localised transport.

The idea itself evolved slowly. James and I were, even then, both actively involved in humanitarian issues and understood the need for more sympathetic technologies. Over coffee one day we were bemoaning the need for something more responsive than taking what the capital rich R&D departments of medical and military institutions were creating, tweaking it for robustness and economy, and selling into NGOs under the fashionable banner of 'appropriate design'. With typical student arrogance and youthful naivety - we thought we could do better..

The market needed an answer. James, who at the time was in the penultimate year of the hugely esteemed Glasgow School of Art "Product Design Engineering" Masters, needed a dissertation project worthy of his skills and interests and I, only recently graduated with my second degree, this time a joint Masters in Psychology and Philosophy, was looking for a way to avoid "a real job" that was more productive than cycling back into the oppressive world of arts & academia...

We never set out to start a business... but that is how it started.

It didn't take long for the Scottish enterprise community to catch sight of our little hobby-project, and when they suggested that there were a few competitions with cash prizes for designs like this .. well. Have I mentioned my dislike of traditional work?

Our first win was the university enterprise group's "Big Idea" competition. We netted £500, a pleasing bubble of praise, a bit of publicity and a mandatory trip to the local high-street business advisory centre. They, with little more than a cursory glance, sent me off to "gather support", by which I suppose they meant conduct some market research and come back with interviews, case studies and testimonials. However, I was unsupervised (James was after-all still in full time education) and prone as ever to insubordination and grand gestures, I elected to take a .. slightly less traditional tack.

What we actually did was apply for and win a series of high profile enterprise and design awards and then, one night, about 3am, safe at home in my pyjamas, my ego got the better of me ... and I applied for the Dragons Den.

To be honest, the day the BBC phoned to interview me, I was at work in one of my many short-lived attempts at engaging with the concept of 9-5 in return for a wage. I conducted the interview hiding in the stock room and agreed to screen test 200 miles away the day after next. We had nothing. No prototype, just a drawing and some theory. I was supposed to be at work all that week, and I hadn't told James I had even applied for the Show (nor, infact, did I until we were on the train!! ..) It's a good story! :) However... it's not a story for today.

For what it's worth, we never did get a prototype together for the filming and yet the show yielded us the best deal ever seen on the programme at that time. All 5 Dragons' coming in for the full amount, for the original equity offered. Despite this, good TV is still just good TV, and off air some months later we turned the deal down. For the next year we proceeded agonizingly slowly, crippled by lack of time, money and resources.

It took a year, but when my ego finally gave in and we returned to the 'Den' to do the follow up programme we had a brand new working prototype show off. This first fully-functional unit was the fruit of James spending his 'summer holidays' hauled up in his Dad's garage with a tiny budget, a brief that industry experts said he couldn't achieve, and me 350-odd miles away. I will never know how he achieved it .. though I'm reliably assured the latter was somehow critical (!)

Thanks to a second spike in publicity we clawed in just enough support to commission a biochemical report conducted by a UN microbiologist, the last line of which, is probably the most boring arrangement of phonemes ever to have made me 'squee' with delight:

"It can be concluded from this preliminary study that the system was effective in the removal of organisms from contaminated water."

This prototype, hand built on no budget, fully expected to fail at every post, went on to pass some further stringent tests, won some more awards including one very notable scientific award from the National Laboratory Service. We were stunned. Don't get me wrong, it was not perfect and it also won us some harsh criticism. It was this polarized reaction, thought, that triggered what was to be a long hard slog to find the financial and experiential support we'd, frankly, been struggling to survive without.

It seems simple enough to say it now: "we built a prototype", "we commissioned a report", but that first year and a half was in every way the most extreme tax on our emotions and resources. By the time 2009 rolled around James and I were both, at once, ready to jack it all in and finally certain that what we had was viable.

I'll not speak for him but I will admit that there were times I had hoped that the prototypes would fail the tests, the patent searches would reveal prior IP, or that the market would be stormed by something better, and that I would be forced to step down, guilt free.

But it didn't. I haven't and that's just the first chapter.
So on to 'the now'...

An Update on the Update..

It's a very telling thing, but as I went to write that long-awaited update post, it became very clear that I couldn't update you without recapping where we were last time we spoke. I couldn't really say or justify where we were, though, without mentioning how we'd gotten there. How we got there necessarily involved mentioning 'why' or what the overall aim was, which I would assume you all know except that, thanks to OxfordJam and recent re-runs of The Dragons' Den, I have acquired a volume of new followers..

All in, it started to seem as if I should just start at the beginning.
So I did..
And it got long.

Too long for one post.

So, as of tomorrow I will be posting the following..

1) The Intro
2) The Status Quo
3) The Future
4) The FAQs

And if there is anything that lot doesn't cover (!) you'll be able to add additional questions in the comments section of the FAQs. How's that sound? :-)

Red Button Design Pitch Published in Educational Textbook.

As you likely know, Red Button Design have twice appeared on BBC2's hit Business Show "The Dragons' Den" showcasing ROSS and seeking the necessary backing with which to launch the product.

What you may not know is that, as a direct result of the highly successful pitch James and I gave on the original episode of the show, I have had the opportunity to collaborate on a number of textbooks and for-schools initiatives to teach entrepreneurship, confident public speaking and language skills. Not least of which is the BBC's own Dragons' Den educational tie-in which has been live for 6 months now. More recently, however, one of our other projects, a Heinemann English Textbook, has made it to the publishers!

Chapter six of "Building Skills in English" covers topics including the expression of ideas, emotive language and vocabulary choice, non-verbal communication, and presentation tips; all using our original pitch, as televised, for the ROSS. (pg 135 - 153)

As such, I'd like my former teachers to take heart! As much of a handful as I may have been in the classroom, something obviously stuck and I am very proud to now be presented as a 'good example' rather than fulfilling the equally valid, yet less prestigious, role of 'terrible warning'.

Text Building Skills in English: Student Book Bk. for 11 - 14 year olds is now available to purchase from Amazon, WHSmith, Waterstones (and others) in the UK.

Red Button Design finally do YouTube!

I would like to announce the launch of our YouTube Channel.

Much of our collected media has already been retrospectively uploaded for your instant gratification. However, we hope to make available updated shots of the prototype, film from our travels to trial sites and launch video blogging, very shortly.

Doug Richard's "School for Start Ups"

If mass media hasn't taken the opportunity to remind you yet today, let me.
We are in the grips of economic disaster.
Shops are closing, jobs vanishing, bankruptcy is stalking us all and they tell us no sector is safe. With newspaper headlines reading more like the tag lines from an (admittedly very boring) US disaster movie by the day, anyone who knows anything about the economic climate is being dragged onto talk shows, begged to fill newspaper columns and guesting on local radio question time.

Understanding economics has never been so sexy.

And yet, lets face it, it still ... isn't.

This makes it all the more significant that James and I both dragged our flu-ravaged selves, pockets stuffed with Lemsip sachets, out into the freezing rain and it into town for 8:30am and knowingly and willingly spent the whole day learning about 'Entrepreneurial Economics'.

Run by former BBC2 Dragon, Doug Richard, we think getting yourself a place at a School for Start Ups event is a is a must-do for all young companies and aspiring entrepreneurs. Doug has stood in the shoes of both investor and investee, and by his own admission has had great successes and failures in both. He is also a professional speaker (incidentally he had also been the guest speaker at the previous night's John Logie Baird Awards*) and it shows in the ease with which he expresses complex ideas, throws in snippets of his vast personal experience and completely charms the audience

It was useful, engaging and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

So go here and sign up to attend, it may well be available free of change (depending on your situation). If there isn't one local to you - travel to it. Especially if you're not paying to attend. Make the effort to go, you (and the crumbling economy) will be glad you did.


* and quite frankly saved the show, but that's another story!

Missed Us?

Did you miss our second, "follow-on", Dragons' Den appearance? Or maybe you just want to watch it again? Fear not! If you're based in the UK you can still catch up with how James and I are getting on with The Dragons and get a preview of our new prototype in action on BBC iPlayer until the end of November.

Back in the Den, Our New Episode To Air Sunday 2nd!

Last year James and I breathed a sigh of relief as we walked away from The Den with the best offer ever seen on the programme, all of the Dragons' pledging to invest in our water transport, sanitation and storage device, for the original equity offered.

Despite a record breaking result, Red Button Design were awarded £45,000 in grant funding from Oxford Said Business School, prompting James and I to take the difficult decision to suspend this original deal. We continued to progress and retain 100% of our equity, spending this money from Oxford (and subsequent funding and support secured from NESTA and Scottish Enterprise, amongst others), producing a fully working prototype.

Since the prototype was lovingly completed by James back in August, we elected to get back to the fearsome five and ask if they'd like a second chance (or should that be 'to give us a second chance'?) at an investment. Of course, almost a year down the line, 20,000 pre orders in the bag, prototype in the office, field trials ready and waiting, we are no longer looking for £50K seed funding. This time we're asking for £200,000 towards our half a million pound project and the BBC were there to see what happened.

Will we escape the wrath of the Dragons' a second time?*

Tune in to find out: Sunday 2nd November, 9pm BBC2

* no really, will we? We don't know yet either!

If Not Trees - Where Does Money Grow?

Yes, after our brief hiatus we are back and blogging.

I feel like I owe you all an update and an explanation so lets start with the latter. Money.

For the last fortnight, RBD-HQ has been consumed by the activities surrounding raising finance. As many of you will know, and contrary to popular media, we have to date funded the company through competitions, grants, personal investment, in kind support and scrooge-like penny pinching. Not because it was our planned funding route, but because we were able to seize opportunities to access unconventional funds by being active in our network and on the internet. These opportunities enabled us to stave off the sale of equity until we felt the company had become sufficiently appealing and valuable. We are now feeling the benefits of that painful catch-22 "it takes money to grow money". This infinite regress is the bane of every start up but (to adopt the analogy) you need only one seed planted carefully to grow a tree full of your own seeds. Our tree started with £500, took root, and we're now trying get it to grow.
So we've been out.
Gardening ;o)

On to the update: aside from laps of the garden (literally this time, see above) we're arranged meetings for the next six weeks including representatives from EU External Aid Funding, UNHCR, The Red Cross, Asian Development Bank, and the World Health Organisation. We'll also be filming for "Newsnight Scotland" and the follow up for "The Dragons' Den", and on Friday I'll be back in London for the "Girls! Make Your Mark" Award Ceremony - if you voted, thank you, the results of the public vote and the prizes awarded by the judging panel will be announced live that afternoon.

And of course, we've been settling into our new website design. Isn’t it stunning? Just another couple of strings to James’ bow, not only did he do almost all the coding (I took what you might want to call a 'supervisory' role), but the photography is his handywork too.* If you're accessing this blog direct or from an RSS syndication I encourage you to take a peek at our new website at www.thisisredbutton.co.uk or our newly acquired and long awaited domain www.redbuttondesign.co.uk where this blog can also be accessed directly.

Needless to say with all the exciting things we've got lined up over the next month and a half, this blog will be buzzing. Make sure you don't miss anything by adding us to your syndication.

*If you want to see more of James’ Photography, or incidentally another website he authored, check out his personal photography and portfolio site www.james-elliot.co.uk

Time To Take Stock...

Well we're coming up to the end of our first year and thought it'd be appropriate to take a look back at what an amazing year it has been..

on July 27th 2007 Red Button Design Ltd formally registered at Companies House. By August we were one of 25 global businesses who made it into the Grand Final of the the "Business In Development" Social Business Plan Competition which received over 3,000 entries. Later that month James and I travelled, in great secrecy, to Pinewood Studio's to film "The Dragons Den". Where, despite securing the best deal ever done in the den (all 5 Dragons investing for the original equity offered), we are sworn to legally-enforceable silence until the episode airs! In September Red Button Design travelled out to San Fransisco to receive a Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award. We were the only UK company to be recognised in the competition. Not to rest on our laurels, November not only saw Red Button in the Final 5 "Enterprising Young Brits" in the British Chambers of Commerce Competition for the Social & Community Category but we were named the most promising innovative business idea addressing 21st century healthcare and medical challenges in the Oxford Said Business School's National Enterprise Competition. We were awarded a £10,000 prize and put forward for the Oxford SBS 'Global Challenge' where we were also awarded the overall award for Social Enterprise beating 182 entries from 23 countries and netting a further £35,000. December, and our Episode of "The Dragons' Den" airs just before Christmas. James and I finally get to see which 13 minutes of our 2+ hours of interrogation were deemed worthy of screen time! We collapse with relief and the website collapses under the deluge of hits! January 2008 and the new year sees us traveling to India with the UK-India Business Council on a Government Delegation with PM Gordon Brown, to be interviewed live on TV with Richard Branson, Karan Bilimoria, Peter Jones and Gordon. I did manage to get a question in which was answered by the PM and praised for it's insightfulness by the very lovely Richard Branson! We also spent time with a wonderful NGO working on the features of the product with a small village community in Mewat, part of India's poverty belt. We return to find out that Red Button has received £1,000 for winning the Regional heat of the Dumbartonshire Business Gateway Competition and progress to win the National Competition and receive another £4,000. In February I am accepted on to NESTA's Starter for 6 scheme, an intensive four month training programme for young creative entrepreneurs. Entry to this scheme is extremely competitive and is provided at no cost to the companies who are accepted! James gets nominated for "Global Student Entrepreneur 2008" in
March (we're awaiting to see how his application progresses). April saw us reach the last 5 young businesses in the HSBC 'Unipreneurs' competition from over 800 potentials. I completed NESTA's Starter for Six Training Programme in June was nominated as Glasgow University's Young Alumni of and The Company is awarded £7,000 follow on grant funding from NESTA.

*phew!*

So that takes us up to July and we're currently working on a series of educational text books, awaiting the publication of a few magazine articles, raising second-stage funding, re-designing the website and securing our International Patent.

Not bad for our first year I think you'll agree!

A Little Educational Role Play!

A couple of months ago we began working with the BBC on a for-schools programme they were launching based around the Television Series "The Dragons' Den".

It had come to light that a number of schools were using the 'Dragons' Den' format to teach a range of skills from confident presenting and public speaking to interview skills and (of course) business and entrepreneurship. No surprise to us, naturally, we've been involved with a number of student and for-schools programmes since we set our shaky feet in the den! Having belatedly discovered its appeal as a teaching aid the beeb decided they ought to support and encourage this, and contacted a number of the show's previous participants (ourselves included) to collaborate on some teaching materials. The first stage of this plan is a nifty education based game playable online.

It is our understanding that as time goes on the BBC intend to roll out a full education package designed for teachers, "providing unique and relevant teaching materials [to] encourage active classroom participation."

If you're a teacher and you're interested in helping shape this education package or apply for a teaching pack Visit BBC Learning

If you fancy playing James or Myself* on the BBC's shiny new online game Play Online Now!

* of course you could also play the part of one of the Dragons, Imran Hakim, Laban Roomes or Sarah Lu...but why would you when you can play as Red Button Design and challenge yourself to walk away, like us, with the best deal ever reached in the den!

Dragons' Den Repeats Red Button Episode

Our Episode of Dragons' Den will be repeated twice this week:

Monday (tonight) 9pm on BBC 3
Thursday (29th) 9pm on Dave

so James and I have left the country ;o)

Red Button Design represent British Enterprise in India

"I'd say it was hot and overcrowded... but that doesn't begin to describe it"

Nicky has been to India, infact he was there working while James and I were charming the Dragons, and I am after last-minute advice because in precisely 21 hours James and I are boarding a plane for Delhi where we are taking part in an Entrepreneurs Summit as part of an extremely high profile delegation representing British Business and Enterprise.*

"Oh, and take immodium because you'll be ill for the first two weeks"

"But Nicky, we're only going for a fortnight"

He just grins.

*we'll be blogging all the way, so watch this space or even better subscribe to this blog with the link at the very bottom of this page so you don't miss a thing.

The Word on the Wire..

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/other/display.var.1907118.0.Trio_aim_to_make_a_splash_on_TV_show.php

http://www.lammo.net/dragons-den/104/dragons-den-series-5-episode-9

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.1912327.0.city_trio_tame_dragons.php

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1911293.0.Dragons_unanimous_in_backing_Glasgow_students.php

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7147893.stm

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.1908537.0.students_take_water_idea_to_den.php

http://money.uk.msn.com/business/dragons-den/article.aspx?cp-documentid=7023363


forum gossips! (these are my favourite!)

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=50841

http://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2867

http://www.theenvironmentsite.org/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=11338

http://www.ukparentslounge.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=653574


if you see us anywhere else, let me know!

How many emails can a BlackBerry hold?

Just a quick one to sincerely thank everyone for their congratulatory messages and offers of support.

There's a joke in the Red Button Offices that as I don't work for a wage (yeah - that's a point all of you who want to get into this entrepreneurship lark! 9 months without an income... ouch!) but because I don't get paid in a financial sense I get paid with tit bits of praise and thanks. Infact I believe the term "Approval Junkie" has been coined for me. Nevertheless despite Oxford Said's Business School deciding that our £45,000 prize winnings wont be transferred until January (!) and the resulting frugal Christmas at RBD-HQ knowing so many of you share our visions will spur me on for another wage-less month!

And when the countdown clock read zero...

Well the fateful day has finally come around, spent the last week doing press stuff, interviews, pre-recording radio shows and other fun and games. Got a call from 'Radio 5 live' this afternoon, however, asking if I would go into a Glasgow studio, tonight at 11pm to be interviewed live by Richard Bacon...

They were surprised I refused!

11pm? On the night of my show airing? At a few hours notice? Ummm Richard Bacon, are you kidding me? I admit, I was ranting a bit by the third time they called but ... Seriously? forgive my disregard for your ego but I made plans, I have friends coming and with any luck I wont be sober enough to air live by 11pm!

Thanks to everyone who has contacted us to wish us luck etc. We are very grateful and will get back to you *all* over the next few days. Meanwhile I still have an hour and a half to bite my fingernails down to a quick and you've still got time to get yourself a wee dram on our behalf.

Manda

Let Me Put You Out Of Your Misery!

It's been confirmed:

9pm December 17th,

last in the series as suspected.

Troops Stand Down!

We have been lead to believe that our participation in the thing-that-shall-not-be-named will hit your screens in December so you’ve a couple of weeks yet. Hold tight though, we’re worth it I promise!