I think he had a bit of an explantion for that, but Real Peter summed it up. I also love how they cut out all the "Okay, this is REALLY important if you know tech, but if you don't it's gibberish."
To flash forward - Peter Hopton stopped being a Director of Very PC in 2021, though Andrew Hopton continues to be one. In the year 2023, Very PC's accounts show total assets of £1.3m. However, now, they focus on custom IT solutions for education and business, including managed IT support. In other words, they did a big brand pivot away from energy efficiency and still have a valuation not even half of what they wanted the Dragons to invest in back in 2008.
While that's interesting, power saving is now more relevant than ever, and the solutions proposed by Peter Jones are no longer realistically feasible just a few years later.
Thanks for the re-upload!! Classic episode! My top 3 of favorite den fails is Very PC, Mathison "We bought the aircraft" Airways, and of course Flow Signals Limited.
It’s the difference between the older seasons and the newer seasons. In the older seasons they were like that most of the time, but even when people have bad products in the newer seasons they are nicer than before
@@Jf_1900 Which is exactly the face-fart they're reacting to. He's asking them for £250k and offering 5% of a business that, from my memory of watching this a week ago, made a profit of about £25k. In other words, he's asking for £250,000 for something worth about £1,250. Farting in their faces would probably be more successful -- at least it's different.
Not around the eyes, you're under. When I snap my fingers, you will remark how wonderful my business is and invest in my business. You're back in the room. 😢
I'd have guessed something like this, but I checked--they're still in business, and it looks like they're doing fairly well. On the other hand, they could be in dire straits, but keeping it under wraps.
@@TheEudaemonicPlague Still in business, doing fine, but their total assets are still about £4.3M, compared to the valuation of £5M he put on the company when this was broadcast sometime between 2007 and 2010.
That first line up of Dragons were the grumpiest ever. They’ve either mellowed somewhat over the years or been told to shape up and leave their egos at the door.
They’re actually doing ok these days. Still massively overvalued though. They made £900k profit last year and £800k the year before. So I would estimate the valuation nowadays to be in the region of £3million and back then around £70k.
A 26-year-old shouldn’t have been so out-of-breath after climbing a flight of stairs. He was huffing and puffing like a 70-year-old with a cardiac condition who’s had to climb a flight of stairs.
I honestly don't get his thought process of energy efficient pc. Mine is probably more efficient in idle mode than what he's got running on that table.
@@ryanwilkinson1513the company was not worth 5 million. according to the commenter above you it’s *now* worth just over 4 million. so still not at his projections. how is that a worthy investment? how many years of work would the dragons have had to put in before they finally saw a return?
@@deer0skullz With a dragons help the company could have had a worth of 10+mil potentially by now... Obviously the 5% was never gonna happen. Somewhere around 30% would be ideal and a dragon could have helped the business massively.
I like the show but it shouldnt be contracted with license fee money. The dragons are too self interested. Plus they got this one wrong. Very PC has dozens of staff and not long ago opened a big office.
He was a scam artist who essentially came in to call them all idiots and run off with their cash. He handled it like someone who didn’t want to ruin his own scam from working.
@@vonder7 consider me proven wrong then. I was going off the technical arguments they made, but perhaps they made drastic changes since that time. Thanks for the info.
He was hoping for a 100K profit in the future which gives the dragon 5K. Bad return on the 250K investment so yes the valuation is crazy and uninvestable. The company is still going and leaded by this guys brother. There is 1 location but quit some staff. This most be an healthy company. His product even looked nice at the time with an hardware and software solution combined. Still i understand the dragons reaction.
I think they were unnecessarily harsh on this guy. I was half expecting them to pile on top of him and beat him up. And I suspect Dragon Peter’s knowledge of server frameworks is not what he’d like us to think it is.
I am noticing 0:02 something every time. The dragons’ mIkes are turned up more loudly than the entrepreneurs. Easy to shout them down and often very rudely.
@@nathanloosemore4141 After how many years? I mean this episode was filmed centuries ago and the business is still not worth 5 million (not even taking into account inflation).
Massively over valued, but I totally disagree with peter. You can't compare a multi-user server to a standalone unit, otherwise would one street all share the same server? Are all terminals going to be in use at the same time? Does the building infrastructure allow for display and USB cables to be threaded through walls and conduits?
It was more that his was a greener product. Yes a small business could use one of those servers but its still not really better energy wise. Also you go into the den, your looking to do big business, not sell servers to small businesses but to large firms with large orders. And thats where his energy efficient argument fell apart.
That’s not what he was saying. He was saying that you’d have to use more hardware to perform the same amount of work, and at that point the energy cost far outweighs the typical system
@@garrettcannon2120 Mostly, he was just browbeating. The pitcher is saying "Replace each PC in your company with one of mine and your energy bill goes down by 70%." Peter is saying "You could replace all your PCs by terminals that uses even less energy but are much less capable and you'll save even more." OK, but so what? Replace all your PCs with pieces of paper and you save even more than Peter is suggesting. Specifically, his proposal to use RS232-based terminals is utterly ridiculous. All that can support is text interactions. He's basically proposing that everyone should ditch Windows and go back to MS DOS, which is completely inappropriate in most business applications, even when this was originally broadcast between 2007 and 2010.
@@renning1090actually they turned over 1.5 million the year after this aired I think - I googled the company after watching the video, also apparently, according to the company’s, very pc’s website, they were “invited” on to dragons den and according to their website they believe they have “since proven the dragons wrong”
Peter is no longer with the company. He resigned at some point according to public records. Edit: he resigned in 2018 and they were only worth around 221k at the time.
You somewhat can. What they probably did was configure it to more aggressively reduce power consumption at idle and lower computing loads, where you likely wouldn't even notice if it was running slightly slower than normal. But then it'll allow it to still run at full power when it's under high load. Modern hardware actually does a lot of this automatically these days. Computers spend the vast majority of their time on these lower loads, so reducing consumption by maybe a few watts at idle/low load will quickly add up across an entire office.
Well, Peter Hopton hasn't been a director since 2021 and they are about a million in debt and not doing well at all in terms of profit according to their latest financially filings with company house
@@wynwilliams6977 Not sure where you're getting that from. The latest financial filing at Companies House for Very PC Ltd was in September 2023 and shows net assets (i.e., assets minus debts) of about £1.3M. They employed an average of 38 people through that financial year. So seems like they're doing fine, to me. Not nearly well enough to justify a £5M valuation even now, but seems fine.
5:01 He starts to say "The heat from these units will heat the office" - yes, just like the computers that they're already using which this is supposed to be replacing. Guy's just grasping at straws at this point
Peter Hopton was last spotted in a remote monastery located in a small cave in the district of Phukall,Tibet where Dragons Den roastees are known to live out their days muttering and randomly kicking things.
@@frozengamer3030 it's called genetics. My older brother lost his hair at 21 and I have long thick hair at 36. Just happens. Something like 3 quarters of men go bald.
The most shocking part of this pitch is this guy’s only 26
he looks older, normaly the younger candidates get treated with more respect
😂😂😂
Someone like that would be 49 where I come from.
PC Pro used to give an award to anyone that took out a full page advert.
I wonder how much he was screaming in his head "They are old, why do they know this much about servers?!"
Thats an extremely ignorant statement
@@jacobishii6121 also not the one I was making
"Why didn't they invest?"
"We were open and honest with them."
Oooookay.
I think he had a bit of an explantion for that, but Real Peter summed it up.
I also love how they cut out all the "Okay, this is REALLY important if you know tech, but if you don't it's gibberish."
Cos you mentioned the magic word SERVER
Market this for home use & small crypto & boom
@@mcfcguvnors These episodes are about 15 years old. Crypto wasn't a thing that the average person knew about, in those days.
To flash forward - Peter Hopton stopped being a Director of Very PC in 2021, though Andrew Hopton continues to be one. In the year 2023, Very PC's accounts show total assets of £1.3m. However, now, they focus on custom IT solutions for education and business, including managed IT support.
In other words, they did a big brand pivot away from energy efficiency and still have a valuation not even half of what they wanted the Dragons to invest in back in 2008.
While that's interesting, power saving is now more relevant than ever, and the solutions proposed by Peter Jones are no longer realistically feasible just a few years later.
But they are doing well though!
I could fix this for him, we install a flow signal, it’s green in colour, it’s telling people to come buy the PC
😂
Nah, green is for the seaweed, gotta go with the amber, or something 😄
I will never not take the time out of my busy day to like a flow signal comment
But you'll comment.
Jenny's out.
5:35 Duncan trolling the guy hahahaha😂😂
Yeah, it was mean and funny.
"Peter, please pause a second, so i can say that i'm out"
"sure"
"i'm out"
xD gold.
“Peter has been looking increasingly gruntled”, doesn’t he always look like that 😂
3:50 Peter asked, "are they human?"
The reply, "they're VCs" (Venture Capitalists)
A simple, "no" would have sufficed 😂
Thanks for the re-upload!! Classic episode! My top 3 of favorite den fails is Very PC, Mathison "We bought the aircraft" Airways, and of course Flow Signals Limited.
Seaweed snacks and olive lady are my fav fails. Flow Signals Limited is a classic
All absolute bangers.
Olive lady is Jeremy Clarkson’s first wife
Have you ever tried to do business with a spaniard? @@meganlewis2424
@@meganlewis2424 are you spanish?
Some pitches the dragons are open and cheerful. Others, like this one, they act like someone has just farted in their faces before the cameras roll
It’s the difference between the older seasons and the newer seasons. In the older seasons they were like that most of the time, but even when people have bad products in the newer seasons they are nicer than before
He's giving 5% for £250k ...
😂😂😂😂
Because if the valuation. He had zero chance of investment.
@@Jf_1900 Which is exactly the face-fart they're reacting to. He's asking them for £250k and offering 5% of a business that, from my memory of watching this a week ago, made a profit of about £25k. In other words, he's asking for £250,000 for something worth about £1,250. Farting in their faces would probably be more successful -- at least it's different.
Duncan is straight to the point, savage lmao
He looks like the hypnotist from Little Britain
Kenny Craig 😂😂
Look at my eyes!
Not around the eyes, you're under.
When I snap my fingers, you will remark how wonderful my business is and invest in my business.
You're back in the room.
😢
😮 he does kinda wow minus the pony tail
Look into my eyes look into my eyes. You're under. You're bankrupt.
5:32 - My mom when dad and I talk computers at the dinner table.
Could have used a flow signal or two.
ducan was savage at 5.40 😎😎😎
That is a ROUGH 26 I’m 28 but he looks at LEAST 15-20 years older than me 😬
WOW. That was fast. That's why Duncan is my favorite Dragon.
He is asking for more money than the company is worth. I think he would take the investment and disappear.
I'd have guessed something like this, but I checked--they're still in business, and it looks like they're doing fairly well. On the other hand, they could be in dire straits, but keeping it under wraps.
@@TheEudaemonicPlague Still in business, doing fine, but their total assets are still about £4.3M, compared to the valuation of £5M he put on the company when this was broadcast sometime between 2007 and 2010.
@@beeble2003 Thanks for the research. Dragons were looking for a quick return then I guess, given how long its managed to stay afloat.
That first line up of Dragons were the grumpiest ever. They’ve either mellowed somewhat over the years or been told to shape up and leave their egos at the door.
They have to be kinder these days because we are living in the era of the snowflake
The only ego here is this derp overevaluating his amateur business by about 20 million, snowflake crybaby
200 watts? Mine pulls 750. I've had _laptops_ that used more than 200 watts.
*rings computer doctor
"My computer won't work"
"Take it to a repair shop m8"
Classic
Vindows xp licence has expired sir
Does it have a turbo button
So its a PC that has a custom low power consumption bios installed? First off anybody can do that. Nowadays one click in the software can do it.
I remember this was the first ever DD I watched! 👀 Thanks for the upload! 😁😁
imScott
🤓🤓
They’re actually doing ok these days. Still massively overvalued though. They made £900k profit last year and £800k the year before. So I would estimate the valuation nowadays to be in the region of £3million and back then around £70k.
I was HOWLING with laughter when this was first broadcast.
Considering just a year after this the company turned over 1 mil I'd say they got a lucky escape 🙈
A 26-year-old shouldn’t have been so out-of-breath after climbing a flight of stairs. He was huffing and puffing like a 70-year-old with a cardiac condition who’s had to climb a flight of stairs.
it's not impossible for a 26yo to have a cardiac condition you know
Electrical savings and "green" computers? What for?
Why would you declare yourself out if you didnt understand Peter?
He looks like a magician i don't want at my kids party..
They were all really grumpy!
Back when an 200wPC was a lot :(
I wonder what he says today about PCs using 1000W
1200W
Technology in terms of potential, are worth millions, the problem that he has is, he’s not a technology company, he’s a brand company.
Good idea for the home user
killed the pitch with the daft server
Duncans the best, straight to the point. 😅😅😅 I understood nothing this guy said. 😅😅
And that's why you're not a millionaire!
My man doesn't look 26 at all
James was a really nice guy
Fianlly I dont have to watch the stretched third party uploaded version.
I honestly don't get his thought process of energy efficient pc. Mine is probably more efficient in idle mode than what he's got running on that table.
Dragons at last using their 🧠 brains,they added a 🎁box next to their 🪑 chairs,so entrepreneurs creations are there already 😅
Pc's are running 10 times the wattage these days. There's pc running on 2000 watt. I guess the pc community didn't care
A 2000W power supply does not mean 2000W of draw. An overclocked, highest spec gaming PC is unlikely to hit 1000W.
At last Deborah stopped eating her finger nails 💅
😅
He thought that he did a good job at "Countering" their questions? Not answering them.
Didn't expect that the company still exist. Dragon could have told him just to buy Bitcoins back then😂
My PC has a power source that draws 600w? This seems like a worse laptop
0:51 Theo can already smell this guy's bs
They grilled him but he has founded two successful business and is doing well.
Which?
Dude asked for 250 thou for an unproven business it doesn’t matter how well his other businesses did. He has absolutely NOTHING here.
Go in to the bios and turn on eco mode and job done.
Very PC seem to be doing ok all these years later
Yeah, it's net worth is a little bit more than 4 million.
the dragons are completely useless at investing, it's just random wild guessing lmao
@ryanwilkinson1513 it's show
@@ryanwilkinson1513the company was not worth 5 million. according to the commenter above you it’s *now* worth just over 4 million. so still not at his projections. how is that a worthy investment? how many years of work would the dragons have had to put in before they finally saw a return?
@@deer0skullz With a dragons help the company could have had a worth of 10+mil potentially by now... Obviously the 5% was never gonna happen. Somewhere around 30% would be ideal and a dragon could have helped the business massively.
Ten years early and a few billion dollars in rnd short of the arm on desktop revolution
Why the dragons were so rude? There is no need for this. I think the guy took it like a champ.
I like the show but it shouldnt be contracted with license fee money. The dragons are too self interested. Plus they got this one wrong. Very PC has dozens of staff and not long ago opened a big office.
I guess when you sit there all day listening to outrageous valuations it gets your goat after a while.
He was a scam artist who essentially came in to call them all idiots and run off with their cash. He handled it like someone who didn’t want to ruin his own scam from working.
@@Ziggykitty666 in what way? The business is still running and successful.
@@vonder7 consider me proven wrong then. I was going off the technical arguments they made, but perhaps they made drastic changes since that time. Thanks for the info.
200w is nothing now 😂
Back in the day when a pc needed 100-200 W XD
26?? Tough break
He must have had a very long paper round
So glad to see he's still in business
The VeryPC website doesn’t have anyone named Peter anywhere on the “meet the team” page
He was hoping for a 100K profit in the future which gives the dragon 5K. Bad return on the 250K investment so yes the valuation is crazy and uninvestable.
The company is still going and leaded by this guys brother. There is 1 location but quit some staff. This most be an healthy company. His product even looked nice at the time with an hardware and software solution combined.
Still i understand the dragons reaction.
that episode has been available on youtube for years
I think they were unnecessarily harsh on this guy. I was half expecting them to pile on top of him and beat him up. And I suspect Dragon Peter’s knowledge of server frameworks is not what he’d like us to think it is.
Lmao ok UA-cam rando
100w-200w when was this filmed 1990 like 1500w pcs aren’t uncommon
Oi! They burned his a$$ to crisps😂
Hilarious some of these valuations.
Peter is so rude it's embarrasing! He should take a course by James Caan who has manners and knows how to behave in public.
I was wondering when this was going to get an official upload
Yes! This is one of my old favourites.
I am noticing 0:02 something every time. The dragons’ mIkes are turned up more loudly than the entrepreneurs. Easy to shout them down and often very rudely.
Is this business still in business?
Yes, I just looked on their website!
Net worth 1.3 million
Not worth the 5m he wanted here but they have a healthy balance sheet sitting at over 1.3m in assets.
There's this thing called Google...
@@nathanloosemore4141 After how many years? I mean this episode was filmed centuries ago and the business is still not worth 5 million (not even taking into account inflation).
Im other news haven't stopped raining all day had a blooming guts full 😊 roll on summer 2025
I'm sure this was uploaded recently on this channel.
Well the company is still going in 2025 since 2009, that in itself is an achievement these days
They are still in business.
Massively over valued, but I totally disagree with peter. You can't compare a multi-user server to a standalone unit, otherwise would one street all share the same server? Are all terminals going to be in use at the same time? Does the building infrastructure allow for display and USB cables to be threaded through walls and conduits?
And his suggestion of using RS232 was a wee bit silly. It's not 1990 any more, Peter.
It was more that his was a greener product. Yes a small business could use one of those servers but its still not really better energy wise. Also you go into the den, your looking to do big business, not sell servers to small businesses but to large firms with large orders. And thats where his energy efficient argument fell apart.
That’s why your a multi millionaire and Peter jones isn’t
That’s not what he was saying. He was saying that you’d have to use more hardware to perform the same amount of work, and at that point the energy cost far outweighs the typical system
@@garrettcannon2120 Mostly, he was just browbeating. The pitcher is saying "Replace each PC in your company with one of mine and your energy bill goes down by 70%." Peter is saying "You could replace all your PCs by terminals that uses even less energy but are much less capable and you'll save even more." OK, but so what? Replace all your PCs with pieces of paper and you save even more than Peter is suggesting.
Specifically, his proposal to use RS232-based terminals is utterly ridiculous. All that can support is text interactions. He's basically proposing that everyone should ditch Windows and go back to MS DOS, which is completely inappropriate in most business applications, even when this was originally broadcast between 2007 and 2010.
They are still in business so they must doing something right.
Or a bigger company bought his for like 200k or something and saved it before Peter trashed it.
@@renning1090actually they turned over 1.5 million the year after this aired I think - I googled the company after watching the video, also apparently, according to the company’s, very pc’s website, they were “invited” on to dragons den and according to their website they believe they have “since proven the dragons wrong”
Peter is no longer with the company. He resigned at some point according to public records.
Edit: he resigned in 2018 and they were only worth around 221k at the time.
This is a joke. You can't just make a PC use less power and have it run the same.
You somewhat can. What they probably did was configure it to more aggressively reduce power consumption at idle and lower computing loads, where you likely wouldn't even notice if it was running slightly slower than normal. But then it'll allow it to still run at full power when it's under high load. Modern hardware actually does a lot of this automatically these days. Computers spend the vast majority of their time on these lower loads, so reducing consumption by maybe a few watts at idle/low load will quickly add up across an entire office.
Anyone else ever heard of something not being able to be "politically" copied?
Looks like that guy from real hustle
Deborah’s eye colour is spectacular!
High tech accusations 🤣🤣🤣🤣
very pc ltd is surprisingly still going strong...so much so for the dragons
Well, Peter Hopton hasn't been a director since 2021 and they are about a million in debt and not doing well at all in terms of profit according to their latest financially filings with company house
@@wynwilliams6977 Not sure where you're getting that from. The latest financial filing at Companies House for Very PC Ltd was in September 2023 and shows net assets (i.e., assets minus debts) of about £1.3M. They employed an average of 38 people through that financial year. So seems like they're doing fine, to me. Not nearly well enough to justify a £5M valuation even now, but seems fine.
8:06 Deb is iconic! 🤣
Don't ever call her Deb or Debbie. She hates it.
😅
@@peterd788 tough! 🤣
It’s Debbie. I wouldn’t get on the wrong side of her 😂
Company is still going!
5:01 He starts to say "The heat from these units will heat the office" - yes, just like the computers that they're already using which this is supposed to be replacing. Guy's just grasping at straws at this point
Not Very Pc, could be a sister company that has nothing to do with pc's.
Ethereum 🎉🎉🎉
Terminals? When did this air? 1960? lol
I miss when Peter was like this, he’s too soft now
26!! Dude looks closer to 46
Well he got told 😬
They sure tore poor Peter a new one, eh?!? 😅🎉
or two
Peter Hopton was last spotted in a remote monastery located in a small cave in the district of Phukall,Tibet where Dragons Den roastees are known to live out their days muttering and randomly kicking things.
Actually he is a multimillionaire now. the company did well.
His company is worth 1.3 million at best what is the multi million nonsense?
This is a glorious takedown.
9:04 - That sounded super harsh but I feel like he learned something... not sure what though...
@@paulct91 to give up entrepreneurship 😂😃
This has already been uploaded
Not by the official channel, though. This is higher quality.
Peter Hopton this idea, but then hopped off.
Deborah 😂😂
They were too rude.
Worth £5m because he’s modded a bios.
There's no chance that guy is 26 with a hairline like that
My mate got bald age of 19
How did that happen
@@frozengamer3030 it's called genetics. My older brother lost his hair at 21 and I have long thick hair at 36. Just happens. Something like 3 quarters of men go bald.
Some men start losing their hair from the age of 15. At that rate you could easily look like him at 26.
@@nathanloosemore4141true
David Peter Alpha Gammal, T's nutting but Stones, wot u mosh pitting aboat? Ye wee ould Budger?
They were all unnecessarily rude in this episode!
great TV