“The Lion’s Den”
The lions wear women’s wigs and fight over two teenage founders
Nico Rosberg and Georg Kofler with an unusual head of hair
© Bernd-Michael Maurer / RTL
Jam with beer – zero points: At the start of season 11, the lions didn’t like everything the founders served them. But they woke up at a startup that recycles packages. And when two super-smart students entered the show stage, all the dams broke.
You are young and need the money. Maybe not. Because everything about the 2bag inventors Karl and Leander indicates that they grew up in a middle-class milieu. The self-confidence of the two 17-year-olds, which is not exactly small, also suggests a childhood with a lot of encouragement and without money from the state. “Now tell me again what you can do,” the teenagers asked the lions, who all wanted to take a piece of their youth. So much cheek, so much freshness kicked the jury even more. Glagau: “You have the right entrepreneurial spirit!”
The presented products:
- 2 bags: Multifunctional piece of luggage that converts from a pannier to a backpack in seven seconds.
- beer fruit: Beer-based spread that is offered in various fruit flavors and contains 1 percent alcohol.
- Fairhair/Fairtye: Organic hair ties that contain no plastic, but are made exclusively from cotton and natural rubber.
- laic: Designer tables that can be extended to one and a half times their original size using a slat system.
- Send me pack: Refurbished packaging that is returned to the parcel cycle.
The youngest founders of all time
After the “gigantic bright boys” (Judith Williams) from 2 bags had made the cave really hot, Nils Glagau and Ralf Dümmel got into position. The two Babos have been looking for close combat in the past seasons, sometimes in a moody mood, sometimes in a really bad mood. This time Glagau made the start. “I’m sure you have other cool ideas that we can use to spread your brand,” he pampered the newcomers in typical startup language – and brought his own age into play: “You’re young, I’m the youngest here. Take yours Parents, there are words they don’t even know.”
Dümmel, who in his earlier life as a football referee made it into the C squad of the DFB, countered the tackle confidently. “I have three sons around the same age as you,” he said, “they think I’m cool.” But it didn’t help. The pimply-faced backpack revolutionaries went with Glagau. In the end, one of the two Mini founders even shed a tear. “I can’t remember a day when so many dreams came true.”
Green deals of the week
“I always get a bit alert when sustainability is emphasized too much”: You don’t follow all of the thoughts of hard-hitting capitalist Georg Kofler – but you do on this point. Also his criticism of the multi-million dollar rating Fairhair/fairtye called, hit the mark: “You have to earn money in the long term so that you can justify this rating.”
There were a number of oddities that popped up at the green startup’s presentation. For example: how can a hair tie be organic that contains elastane, i.e. plastic, even if it is from recycled production? Why didn’t the founders wait with their presentation until the plastic-free variant, which was apparently already in development at the time of recording? In any case, Ralf Dümmel tied his investment to the condition: “plastic-free must work”. The makers have now done that.
There was no doubt about it send me pack. A reusable system for shipping packaging, what a great idea. The company recycles the parcel waste from large online shops, puts a refurbished label on the parcels and puts them back into circulation. The life story of each box can even be called up via a QR code. Great. The lions were on fire and formed a pack of two and three. In the end, the Maschmeyer-Williams-Wöhrl package was awarded the contract.
The most embarrassing moment
When men put on women’s wigs on television, the standard is in jeopardy. Apparently that hasn’t changed since “Charley’s Aunt” with Peter Alexander. Dümmel and Co. raised their pitch by half an octave when they were asked to try out the Fairhair hair bands on an artificial mane of long hair. Judith Williams topped the squeaking hysteria with the 1950s saying: “That’s bad – it’s good that a woman is here.” Only one scene at the end of the “Send me pack” pitch was more unpleasant. When the deal was signed, Carsten Maschmeyer turned to his two fellow campaigners and asked them, as if after the act had been completed: “Did I do it well?”
applause and out
For two startups there was nothing to get in the “cave”. The extendable tables from Laik convinced the jury as an innovation (Dümmel: “A game changer in the table area”), but the high price (from 1500 euros upwards) and the monstrous company rating (3.5 million euros) pulled the plug on the enthusiasm. Georg Kofler struggled with himself until the end and hoped for a double with his social chain friend Dümmel. But he didn’t want to put his team on the job “for the course”.
Without expenses nothing was also for beer fruit. But let’s be honest: A jam that tastes like “fermented strawberry jam” (Judith Williams) might not exactly be a game changer in the jelly field. When Carsten Maschmeyer critically remarked that a taste that he associated with drinking alcohol did not go well with breakfast, one of the founders replied: “It also goes well with baked Brie.” Well then, bon appetit.