Rachel Elnaugh

In 1989, Elnaugh founded Red Letter Days, one of the first UK companies to sell experiential gifts, such as motor racing days, hot air ballooning and health spa days.[2] The idea to set up Red Letter Days came from purchasing tickets to a cricket match for her father as a gift.

The company grew to an £18 million annual turnover and led to Elnaugh being a 2001/2 finalist in the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

After an attempt to expand the business into the retail sector, Red Letter Days went into administration on 1 August 2005. Elnaugh, who had become a dragon on the TV series Dragons' Den, sold the remaining assets and goods of Red Letter Days to fellow dragons Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis.

ITV1's Tonight programme criticised the business model of Red Letter Days, which included unpaid suppliers and disappointed purchasers. The programme suggested that the company failed to escrow or earmark supplier payment equity, using it instead as working capital. However, Elnaugh blamed Red Letter Days' bankers.[3]

In the mid 2000s, Elnaugh joined the BBC's television series Dragons' Den.[2] She was one of the five investors ("Dragons") in the first two series of the show, making five agreed investment offers – in Grails, Le Beanock, Snowbone, Elizabeth Galton and Bedlam Puzzles.

Her book Business Nightmares about the fine line between business success and failure was published by Crimson in May 2008. After this, Elnaugh was a business mentor for other entrepreneurs and founded the digital publishing and marketing platform Source TV in 2013. Her book PROSPERITY was published on 23 April 2016.

She aired her controversial views on the Covid vaccination programme and sparked outrage when she called for Chris Whitty to hang, calling jabs of 12-15-year-olds "child abuse".[4] She was subsequently part of a group that created a controversial 'sanctuary' in the Peak District.[5]