August 4, 2006

Eureka moment - fool or loaded?

Not much crosses my path on TV these days I’ve always got time for the Simpson’s but as far as organising your time around the schedules so you don’t miss that one show - the age of DVD box-sets, digital TV on hard disk, high speed internet and endless repeats due to hundreds of channels all means that if you missed it you’ll probably have more than enough opportunity to see it again some time real soon.

One show that I will make time for is Dragons Den - the concept is basically five very rich, very clever, self made business men and women sitting as judges and one by one entrepreneurs, inventors, deluded mental cases and people with simply too much time on their hands, all take the floor and pitch their idea and try to get the investment to help get their plans off the ground.

Should they have managed to come up with a suitably interesting, unique and marketable product and also manage to pitch their idea without making a gibbon out of themselves, then the dragons decide if they will invest or not – this is usually means the rich folk weigh up how much the protagonist needs not only their money, but also their help - the dragons have the connections, the know how, the experience to be able to make the difference between simply a good idea and one that will actually appear in the market place and sell - therefore they can look the applicant up and down and decide how desperate they are and sometimes end up taking 50% of the company for the price the seller was offering 10% about five or six minutes ago (usually around $140-160,000).

This may not sound extraordinarily exciting but when you think of it as a sort of intelligent version of all the reality TV based pop idol Saturday night extravaganza it takes on a different slant - you get to see some completely insane people with equally insane ideas and inventions get completely shot down in flames and also that you occasionally witness inspired moments of genius from folk who have come up with something you really wish you had thought of yourself and see them walk away with the money (and sometimes see them get royally screwed for the ownership of their company)

We had some goon saying he had left his job, sold his house and put all his time and money into a coffee table multi media hub you can wirelessly send signals to any device in the house from the coffee table - like a plasma TV or a computer for example- response: why would I want to do that if I have a TV and a computer already doing the things that your coffee table does? - further brow furrowing as you see the guy stumble and fumble through his five minutes of pitch and not come up with one valid reason why someone would pay around $4000 for a coffee table with a TV in it - and then add that he has a wife and kid who he is dragging along on his fruitless quest.

You have all kinds of fools who seem to really think they have something unique and worth buying (designer clothes for dogs, cardboard furniture,) - including this Martian who thought of the perfect answer to getting caught short when needing to take a leak in public

.. but then you see someone turn up with the cheap umbrella vending machine in subways idea and the guy with the egg-boiling toaster and Boom goes the dynamite! - they get their investment, get the support and start along the road to riches.

Spo | August 4, 2006

Spo
Location:Gecko Lounge, Cape Maclear, Malawi.

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