Rachel Elnaugh: The Red Letter Days Founder
Rachel Elnaugh
Rachel Elnaugh founded Red Letter Days in 1989, selling gift vouchers for experiences such as driving days and flying lessons at a time when the category barely existed in Britain.
The company grew into a recognisable consumer brand through the 1990s, and that record is what put her on the first Dragons' Den panel when the British series launched in 2005.
Red Letter Days
The business sold vouchers well ahead of the experiences being redeemed, a model with a demanding cash cycle, and it ran into difficulty in the mid 2000s.
Red Letter Days entered administration in 2005 and the brand was bought by two of her fellow dragons, Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones, one of the most widely reported episodes of the show's early years.
Two series, then writing and speaking
Elnaugh appeared in the first two series of Dragons' Den before leaving the panel. Those early seasons are catalogued pitch by pitch on this site.
She has since written and spoken about building a business and then losing it, including in a book, Business Nightmares, and works with founders and small business audiences.
Products Rachel Elnaugh backed in the Den
