‘If you’ve got a problem you’re not the right investor for me’

As far as appearances on the BBC show Dragons’ Den go, they don’t get much more successful — or feisty — than Lottie Whyte’s.
Whyte appeared in an episode aired in March this year where she pitched for a £100,000 investment in her business MyoMaster, which makes products to aid sports recovery. She started in 2018 with her husband, Joe Gray, a former professional rugby player.
Whyte kept a cool head as she saw off a series of disapproving comments from some of the programme’s panelists. Fans of the show flocked to social media afterwards to praise Whyte’s fearless style, and the BBC posted a clip of the negotiations to YouTube with the title “the most masterful pitch in the Den”.
It was her response to a challenge from Stephen Bartlett, the serial entrepreneur and podcaster, that set the most tongues wagging. The former co-founder of Social Chain, a social media marketing agency, suggested MyoMaster’s first product, a massage gun that sells for £199, was not unique, before gesturing to its line of other products that he had “seen all this before”. He added that he was constantly sent massage guns, which were “piling up” in his home.
Whyte’s response? “With all due respect, you’re not our core customer … Our core customer isn’t getting sent free Therabodies,” she said, referring to a competitor product that retails for £549. Whyte said her niche was making high-quality products more accessible to the mass market.
Whyte was inundated with messages from mainly female founders inspired by her no-nonsense approach. “I can’t tell you how many thousands of messages I’ve had from women who said, ‘You encouraged me to start my business,’ or ‘I’ve gone to raise funding because of you,’ or even, ‘I’ve gone into meetings and not been afraid to stand up for myself because of you.’ It was honestly the most gratifying and wonderful experience for me,” said Whyte, 34.
She ended up not taking the £100,000 investment she secured from the entrepreneur Sara Davies and Gary Neville, the former England footballer turned businessman. But the publicity supercharged sales. Since March, revenues are up by 700 per cent and Whyte expects to hit an annual turnover of £5 million this year.
Meeting that demand has been a challenge, she admits. “We’ve only just about kept our heads above water.” She says they’ve been out of stock on a number of occasions because they have a four-month lead time with manufacturers. On top of that, within two months of the TV episode airing, the company was kicked out of its office and warehouse in southwest London for being too “disruptive” to other businesses in the same unit, Whyte said. She found a temporary solution by knocking “door to door” in the local area to find another unit, but says they are again at full capacity and need to move to a larger premises.
Among MyoMaster’s bestsellers are its ice baths, which vary in price and sophistication, from a basic version at £99 to an elite model with a chiller, retailing for £1,049. Proponents of cold water therapy say it helps to reduce swelling and pain caused by sports injuries, as well as improving alertness and mood. Whyte says her husband uses an ice bath every day and that he “goes in as a sleepy, grumpy man and he comes out reinvigorated and energised. There’s a lot of science around how it releases a rush of endorphins and boosts your energy and a lot of people benefit from that.”
For her part, Whyte usually opts for a dip three times a week, but is abstaining as she is 12 weeks pregnant with the couple’s second child. Their first, a son, is five and has just started school.
Whyte admits that she’s “extremely nervous” about how she’s going to juggle running a fast-growth business with two children, including a newborn. Gray works full-time as a coach to top-flight rugby teams, as well as heading up product design at MyoMaster, so the pair have their hands full. Their son was just a baby when they started working on the idea for the start-up, so Whyte says in some ways it’s familiar territory.
“I can’t decide whether it’s going to be harder or easier now that we have a team because even though I’m not having to do absolutely everything, I’ve got all these people that are relying on me and we’re not at a point where we’re big enough that I have senior leaders to take over,” she said. The company employs six people full-time at its offices in Hampton Court, southwest London.
To fuel further growth, she is also embarking on a new round of fundraising, having previously secured a total of £800,000 in investment from a wide circle of private investors, as well as a $120,000 grant from Google’s Black Founders Fund. Whyte previously told The Times that Google’s grants to black entrepreneurs have a “life-changing” effect.
Raising capital is always time-consuming and notoriously difficult for female founders, especially those from an ethnic minority background, but Whyte is feeling positive. “In theory it should be easier this time. We’re going to do £5 million [in sales] this year. We’re profitable. It’s a strong position so I’m not going out there reeking of desperation, which is a position I’ve been in before. I guess I’m cautious that I’m going to be obviously pregnant and that’s going to be a bit nerve-racking because I don’t know how well that’s going to be received,” she said.
• Ice baths and bone broth: inside the hot new members’ club
She says she draws inspiration from Joanna Griffiths, the American founder of Knix, an underwear brand, who raised $53 million in her third trimester after rejecting every investor who questioned her pregnancy. “She was literally like, ‘If you’ve got a problem you’re not the right investor for me anyway because I am a mum with children.’ She was just really brave about it. I feel like you have to go with that attitude,” said Whyte.
Lottie Whyte is speaking on a panel hosted by The Times Enterprise Network at the UK Black Business Show on October 19.