Fredericton Maker of “World’s Most Dangerous Dress Shirts” Going into the Dragons’ Den
FREDERICTON– New Brunswick entrepreneur Jeff Alpaugh, founder of Jeff Alpaugh Custom and self-proclaimed maker of the “world’s most dangerous dress shirt,” is heading to CBC’s Dragons’ Den next month.
After an audition earlier in March in front of the show’s producers at the Crown Plaza hotel in Fredericton, Alpaugh got the call that he’ll be going to Toronto to film on April 29.
“We’re going to rent a coach bus and pack it with as many people in Fredericton who have dangerous dress shirts that want to come down,” Alpaugh says.
“I’ll make the Dragons feel like they’re in my den. I believe sometimes quantity is its own quality and I am just going to pack it with models all wearing crazy different dangerous dress shirts.”
But it’s not just the visual aspects Alpaugh is woking on. He says over the next month he is also preparing for the actual pitch itself. He’ll be nailing down numbers and practicing his pitch on other entrepreneurs and business people in the Fredericton area.
“Hopefully [they’ll] lay into me some difficult questions or harsh criticisms so that I’m [prepared for what could come up],” he says.
If given money from the Dragons, Alpaugh says he’d use it for a cross country tour and to advance the company’s online and mobile customization technology.
“I see us more as a technology clothing company. That’s what’s really going to allow us to give people the custom experience to people who can’t come in and see us personally,” he says.
“On the website now there are a lot of cool dangerous shirts, but what they’re missing is the opportunity for the individual to design their own shirt on a 3D rendered model. The future for us looks like a 3D mannequin that you can manipulate around and make different parts of the shirt different fabrics and create and design your very own shirt.”