Little’s: The end of ordinary coffee
Will Little, Dragon's Den
Little’s is hailing the end of conventional coffee with its Nespresso compatible coffee capsules, instant, ground and flavoured coffee. On 6 February, Little’s MD, Will Little, pitched the Little’s concept, business successes to date, and plans for expansion to the Dragons’ Den, gaining four offers from the Dragons and ultimately agreeing an offer of £80,000 investment for 5% of the business from Steven Bartlett.
Little’s has been in the coffee-making game for over three decades. The Great Taste Award winning, Devon-based family business differentiates their offering by liberating the coffee market for younger, flavour-driven audiences, who love their coffee shop specials and who drink iced coffee year-round, teaming this focus with a broad range of pod, instant and ground coffee, for all tastes.
Pitching the business, Will Little asks for £80,000 investment for a 2% stake, saying, “Little’s is a challenger brand on a big mission to get people drinking better coffee. High street coffee shops are exploding with a huge selection of flavour trends and innovation, but we’re here to show you can have a coffee shop experience at home for a fraction of the cost. You don’t have to spend £5 in a coffee shop, and you don’t have to settle for less, especially when it comes to instant… Our journey started over 35 years ago, when my parents first dreamt up the idea of making flavoured coffee. They were inspired by coffee roasters they’d encountered on their travels around California. We need a Dragon to help us navigate through that next stage of growth and help us on our mission to get people drinking better coffee.”
The Dragons learn how Will has taken Little’s from a £500k annual turnover family business to a national brand worth £4million, but he now is time to grow consumer awareness, and so the focus for Little’s growth will be marketing the brand and building on its DTC offering.
Peter Jones commented, “The specific thing that you need to think about, is how you put this name into the market, so that when people think Little’s, they think coffee. If you work that out, I think you have a glorious business opportunity here globally.”
Deborah Meaden added, “I really really like it, I think the coffee world gets lumps and bumps of innovation, but it’s actually quite slow to…talk to the generations coming through.”
Sara Davies noted, “do you know what I’m really impressed with? You’ve taken that big step from the business that your parents have had, probably as a lifestyle business, doing well and giving them a good income, and you’ve had bigger ambitions for it. And I like that a lot”.
Last to reveal his thoughts was Steven Bartlett, “The journey you need to go on, is a journey that I’ve been on several times. And there’s a certain element of fortune when you catch cultural zeitgeist in the way that this brand could – or could not – take off. We’ve done that a few times. I think I’m the perfect Dragon for this business. I can’t say it in any other way. There’s never been, in the Den’s history, a product that is more well suited to me than this”.
Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones went on to offer Will all of the money, for 4% in partnership with one another; Sara Davies offered all of the money for 5%. Steven Bartlett also offered Will all of the money, but for 7.5% of the business. After some bargaining and competition from the Dragons, Will and Steven agree their partnership.
Will Little, MD of Little’s, says of the experience of entering the Den, “We’re a self-funded family business, so my natural reaction was to say no to Dragons’ Den when I was approached by the BBC. But I thought about it, and I realised that Dragons’ Den has become a really credible TV show for challenger brands and having the backing, and mentorship, of a Dragon seemed like an opportunity I’d be silly to pass up. It’s hard to explain how intense, surreal, and nerve-wracking the whole experience is. Nothing can prepare you for the moment you step into the Den and face the Dragons. It’s not every day you get to meet the people you grew up watching on television. Overall, the experience was actually amazing. Scary, but amazing.”
Tune in to see Little’s offer the Dragons the chance to try the coffee, and invest in the business, on BBC One iPlayer from 43:30:00 .
You can find everything in the range via the Little’s website, the brand is also stocked across Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, Booths, Ocado, Amazon, Whole Foods Market and Harrods.
