Its All Cock & Bull in the Money Pit with Jason Manford on Dave's New Dragon's Den

Shoreditch based clothing brand Cock & Bull Menswear are to be featured on The Money Pit, Dave TV’s new series where everyday people are given the opportunity to invest their money in a variety of new business ventures.

Dave will air the highly anticipated crowd-funding series for the first time on Thursday 29 October, 2015 on Dave (on Sky 111/232, Virgin 128, HD: 129, and Freeview 12) at 7.30pm. 

Entrepreneurs Andii Lindsay, from Highgate and Phil Scott, from Walthamstow will appear on the second episode which airs on Thursday 5th November in a bid to raise £25,000 for their fashion business. 

Hosted by comedian Jason Manford and Dominic Frisby the episode will feature their range of vibrant tweed waistcoats and hats alongside other items from their sustainable clothing range.

Like many new small businesses the duo admit to having had issues raising finance for their business, Andii Lindsay explains: “Like most small businesses we have been refused funding from our high-street bank. 

We represent a new type of entrepreneur who is establishing lifestyle businesses for niche audiences, but the banks aren’t interested in us, we are not big enough nor sexy enough for them to warrant the time to get to know our business and so we need to look to alternative sources of finance. We’ve had a to self fund our business dipping into savings and I even sold my London flat to release cash.

Things could have been a lot easier for us if we had chosen to produce overseas but we chose to produce our entire range in the UK because we believe in the tradition and quality of UK production. 

We want to support this tradition and not see it disappear. At a time when we are losing entire industries to overseas competitors we feel that the textile industry is a part of British Heritage that should be treasured and supported".

The couple who founded the UK’s first boutique dedicated to sustainable menswear admit to initially feeling nervous about appearing on the programme. Phil Scott explains: “Having seen how similar programmes portray entrepreneurs in a less than favourable light, we admit we weren’t very keen at first. 

But we knew that we really needed to focus on promotion and getting our line seen at trade shows, so a cash injection to employ a full time marketing professional was really what we needed and we took the plunge to appear on the show.

We were obviously the oddballs of the show speaking about sustainable production and organic textiles but the experience has been a really good one, we’ve had the chance to meet lots of great people with exciting new products who are in the same boat as us. 

We obviously cannot reveal the outcome of our pitch, you’ll have to tune in on the night.”

The Money Pit has been compared to BBC's Dragon's Den, however instead of big ticket investors, a larger group of smaller investors are given the opportunity to finance the ideas of the featured entrepreneurs. 

The programme makers, have described it as "fast-paced and funny, bringing to life the crowd-funding trend in an arena-style setting”.

Investment can be anywhere between £100 to £20,000. Excitement and tension is expected in each episode as investors are able to change their minds, withdraw their investment and back another company if they choose. The first series of The Money Pit runs for eight weeks.

Cock & Bull Menswear is currently available at 30 Cheshire Street, London, E2 6EH and at their website www.cockandbullmenswear.co.uk

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