Every entrepreneur has a story about the one that didn’t quite make it. For us, that tale involves the HidBin, a side venture born from a simple idea: tackling the unsightly problem of wheelie bins. We envisioned a modular, freestanding frame, covered in synthetic hedging, designed to seamlessly camouflage those ubiquitous bins. Our tagline? “From unsightly to unseen”.
The excitement was palpable, especially when the opportunity arose to launch it on national television – Ireland’s Dragon’s Den. I went in asking for €50,000 in exchange for 20% of the business, risking a televised failure during the Great Recession. The pitch was a success, securing investment from Gavin Duffy. We drummed up significant public interest, even taking over 100 firm online orders before the official launch. The media exposure alone was a valuable win.
However, the reality of execution proved challenging. Our initial prototype was a bit clunky and homemade. More critically, when it came time to reorder, our Chinese suppliers were no longer operating. Finding a new supplier for an improved version at a viable price proved impossible. The ultimate downfall was that the product’s cost was simply too high for a depressed market, leaving insufficient margin for distributors and retailers to achieve the necessary sales volume.
The HidBin project eventually “petered out”, and while our investor didn’t recoup all of his initial outlay, and I was personally out of pocket, the experience was far from a total loss. We learned invaluable lessons about product development, market pricing, and the complexities of global supply chains. The project inadvertently boosted the profile of our main artificial grass business, demonstrating our creativity and willingness to innovate. The raw material – synthetic box hedging – continued to sell at a decent margin.
In the world of business, not every idea turns to gold. But the true failure, as I see it, would be not applying what we learned to future endeavors. The HidBin was a misstep, but one that undeniably sharpened our entrepreneurial edge and reinforced our commitment to practical, imaginative solutions.