Dot Dot has bagged two dragons to take their Stoke Newington grab-and-go bubble tea business to the next level.
Friends and business partners Susie Lau and Yandis Yan starred on BBC One's Dragon’s Den this week asking for £50,000 to help scale their bottled bubble tea business. They invited the five dragons to: “pop their bubble tea cherry!”
Susie told the dragons: “We opened our independent bubble tea café in North London in 2020 and quickly realised there was a gap in the market for a bubble tea in a bottle product that could exist beyond the café setting.
“We felt Bubble Tea was ready to take the next step to become a ready to drink, Grab and go product that you could find on a supermarket shelf or deli fridge.
“We would really welcome the kind of marketing expertise from a dragon and if we do take on a major supermarket retailer, it’s how to scale that product up.
Yandis added: “We want to be a UK based leading tea brand in Europe.”
The pair, who met through their children’s nursery, have launched a bubble tea brewery, producing up to 6,000 bottles a week. The product is stocked in Selfridges as well as in Kew Gardens and Harvey Nichols. They told the dragons that, in just under nine months, Dot Dot had generated a revenue of £250,000 with very little marketing and organic growth alone.
Offering all the money for 10 per cent of the business (five per cent more than they were hoping to give away), Peter Jones said: “Congratulations. I think it’s absolutely lovely – it’s a great product. It tastes fantastic. I’m a big fan of bubble tea.”
He added: “I think you both are incredible individuals; you’ve got the chance to have something quite special and I am absolutely bloody brilliant at taking businesses like this and scaling them.”
Deborah Meaden added: “I really think you’ve got something here.
“I’m not the pun master here, but there is a business that has been bubbling away for a while and there are a lot of people jumping on board but putting this out there in to people’s hands so they can grab and go is really good.”
Susie, who also works as a fashion journalist, and has amassed more than 700,000 followers on Instagram with her Suzi Bubble brand, described appearing on the show as: “an out of body experience.”
Bubble Tea originated in Taiwan – the tea-based drink features different bubble-like toppings and Dot Dot’s teas have juice popping balls that burst in your mouth. Their flavours include Lychee and Rose, Coffee Americano and Mango and Passionfruit.
Sara Davies declared herself out, criticising the business for failing to build a sufficient Instagram following. And though Dot Dot received offers from Deborah Meaden and Touker Suleyman, after a brief chat at the infamous wall, they opted for a partnership with Steven Bartlett and Peter Jones – giving away 10% in return for £50,000.
Speaking after the Den experience. Susie said: “It was such a rollercoaster. I’m very glad we’ve two dragons on board and hopefully they can take Dot Dot to a new stratosphere!”
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