By Sam Underwood in the Brighton & Hove Argus
An entrepreneur with a dream of doll domination has ventured into the Dragons’ Den.Freelance designer Sarah Lu, 27, will be on Monday night’s show, pitching her Youdoodolls.
The small canvas, unisex dolls come with trousers, skirts and other clothes and can be customised to resemble anyone. Faces can be added by printing a photo of the person onto special paper which can then be ironed onto the doll.
Sarah, who asked the dragons for £35,000 in exchange for 25 per cent of her company, said she first came up with the idea several years ago when she made a doll of a friend. She said that since then so many people had asked her to make one for them, she could see the idea had a future.
Her next step was to privately make 1,000 of the dolls with the help of friends and family.
Her auntie Lan hand-stitched all of the dolls and made their clothes. Sarah and her friends stuffed them and put them in professionally-made packaging.
The potential success of the idea was cemented when she took the dolls to a trade show in London. She said: “I couldn’t believe how popular they were. I knew then that I had to focus on this and make it work.”
Sarah’s next move was to contact Sussex Enterprise where she was helped by business mentor Christine Ecclestone who suggested that she take the idea to the dragons. Sarah said: “I was terrified walking into the den.”I went in three weeks after I started trading and had to work out all my figures the night before.
“I made dolls of each of the dragons and gave them to them. I was really nervous at first but as soon as they had their dolls they were laughing and playing with them which helped me relax.” It was still much more scary than it looks on television.”
Sarah, who graduated from Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College in High Wycombe with a graphic design degree in 2001, now lives in Hanover, Brighton.
Her life as a freelance designer is a far cry from her parents’ upbringings aboard houseboats in Vietnam.
In 1979 they fled Vietnam to the UK to start a new life and a year later Sarah was born. She said: “I’m extremely grateful and proud that my parents came over here and brought me up over here. “I love where I came from and I love going back home to visit my family there but I wouldn’t have had the same opportunities if I had been born there.”
The dolls are already being sold in Pussy and Doyobi in Brighton and on various websites, priced £19.99. Sarah has also secured a deal with Topshop which will start stocking the dolls in 25 of their stores from the middle of next month.Her idea has been granted design registration so it cannot be copied and if all goes well and the dolls make her a substantial amount of money she plans to buy one rather special toy for herself – a helicopter. She said: “I’ve always wanted one and if I make enough money, that’s what I’m going to buy.”
After I’ve bought my mum a house, of course.