Christmas comes early for Prim Pickins

December 22, 2015 · 0 Comments

Christmas came early for local Jamie-Lee Higginson of Prim Pickins when she accepted a deal from the Dragons.
Last Wednesday at 8 pm there were a lot of people in Shelburne and the surrounding area that tuned into the television show Dragons Den to watch Higginson ask them to invest in her business Prim Pickins.
Higginson was first up in front of the Dragon’s on what they called their Holiday Special. Here Higginson asked the Dragon’s for $150,000 for 20 per cent of her company, which put a valuation of her company at $750,000.
Her pitch started with her having Dragon, Michael Wekerle play Santa and hand out custom made gifts made specifically for each of the Dragon’s based on their likes. Showing that she did her research before she went on the show to the delight of each of the Dragons.
Higginson explained to the Dragon’s how she had started making her items and opened a store, however it became crazy busy so she started dealing with a leading Canadian wholesaler three years ago and has since grown exponentially and can now be found in hundreds of stores.
Dragon Jim Treliving asked “what would you do with the money if you get it”? To which Higginson stated “I want to put the money into marketing and get things such as proper product photography”.
Next Dragon Manjit Minhas grilled her with the fact that good marketing would bring her more business. How would she keep up? Without skipping a beat Higginson explained, “I work with Mennonites in my community and they are ready to do whatever it takes to get an order completed, regardless of its size, and have shown their commitment in the past with having an assembly line set up for me with short notice on weekends”.
Then Dragon Joe Mimran stated “you know there is a lot of people doing this stuff”. That’s when Dragon Michael Wekerle chimed in “I’m of a different theory, you know I really like the product and think it’s a specialty product”.
At that point the Dragon’s started debating over whether or not they wanted to invest. Stepping out very quickly was Mimran then Minhas. That’s when Wekerle came up with an offer of $150,000 for 50 per cent of the company plus he stated that he will purchase a property for her to work from in the Mennonite community. This brings the deal to a total of $400,000 for 50 per cent of the company. That offer had Treliving and Dragon Michele Romanow stepping out of the offer process stating that they both believed the offer Wekerle was offering was a good one and neither of them could match it.
At this time Higginson asked if Wekerle was negotiable on the percentage at all, even just five percent? To which he stated very blatantly “NO”. To which Higginson replied “then unfortunately I am going to have to accept”.
Upon speaking to Higginson she tells the Free Press that as of this date nothing has materialized with regard to her Dragon’s Den deal to date, however she looks forward to 2016 when she thinks everything will start to fall into place.
If you missed the episode of Dragon’s Den that Higginson appeared on you can go to www.cbc.ca/dragonsden. To see more of Prim Pickins items and to purchase them you can go to www.primpickins.ca

By Michelle Janzen