well done 19400

Dragons' Den star is back after red card

14 November 2005
RACHEL Elnaugh, founder of Red Letter Days and panellist on BBC's Dragons' Den, is returning to business just three months after the gift vouchers company she founded 16 years ago went into administration.



RESURRECTION: The fiasco at Red Letter Days taught Rachel Elnaugh 'exactly what not to do' at Easyart.com

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She is taking a 20% stake in Easyart.com, an online seller of prints of famous artworks, with a brief to bring it to the stock market through a listing on Aim.


Elnaugh, 40, will become chief executive of Easyart.com, taking over from its founder and largest shareholder Simon Matthews, 44, who is shifting careers to become a psychotherapist.


Easyart.com is also taking over its closest UK rival Worldgallery.co.uk in a deal that will take its sales this year to about 1.3m, on which it makes profits of 50,000.


Elnaugh lost more than 300,000 when Red Letter Days was forced into administration in August and then bought from the administrators by her fellow Dragons' Den panellists Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis. Since then she said that she had had many offers of work and offers to run businesses both via her website and through contacts.


The Easyart.com opportunity came 'via a contact of a contact in the City'.

She said: 'I jumped at the chance because art was my first ambition. I wanted to read art history at university but all five I applied to turned me down, so I ended up as an accountant. I firmly believe that if what you are doing is something which you are passionate about, you are much more likely to succeed.'


She declined to reveal how much money she has put up for what should become - through share options - a 20% stake in the business. But venture capitalist Brainspark, which has backed the business since it was founded in 1999, has invested the best part of 2 million for its 22% stake.


The US equivalent of the business, art.com, was recently bought by Getty Images for $80m (46m).


Easyart.com hit the headlines two years ago when it successfully defended itself legally against Stelios Haji-Iannou's Easygroup over the easy prefix in its name.


Elnaugh believes the business could be turning over between 5m and 10m by the time she plans to bring it to the stock market, in two to three years.


She said: 'All the business needs is a marketeer to come in and turn up the heat. So far it has only used the internet to sell and there is massive potential for using traditional channels to grow sales.'


As for the Red Letter Days debacle, she claims she now 'knows exactly what not to do'. The most important lesson she learned from its failure was 'don't step back from being chief executive and let someone else run your business. Although, come to think of it, that's exactly what Simon is doing with me'.

Easyart.com sells reproductions and limited-edition prints and has a framing business in Uckfield, Sussex. The second series of Dragons' Den starts on BBC2 tomorrow
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=405035&in_page_id=50001

yes sorry, I I sold at 2.6p and got back in at 1.6p... almost 200%.. its got a lot further to go

Not bad at all... Yes it does seem that way, although if they are saying deal has been done I would have thought the price would have moved already.

Why did you not looked into vog,its up 100percent to

no the deal has not been done, nothing signed yet, and the value we dont know yet either, they said minimum 10mil... but that was six months ago

google earth has not been around that long, and google are looking to buy some companies.... they 7bil to spend...
you cant lose

look at the trades for the past weeks, no one wants to sell....