AN innovative Brierley Hill company heard the dreaded words ‘I’m out’ when they appeared on the recent episode of the BBC hit programme Dragons’ Den.

Pitching their revolutionary writing product, which aims to make writing easier for children to learn, Write Size’s managing director Ross Williams and operations manager Surlender Pendress received some typically fiery feedback on Sunday evening’s episode (July 24).

When seeing the products – a range of pencils to scale for children aged two to 10 in an attempt to make handwriting less daunting – for the first time, dragon Sarah Willingham said: “This is either bonkers or genius.”

Fellow dragon Nick Jenkins wasn't convinced the products were offering either and said it was likely someone had looked at creating a similar product before deciding it was not worth it.

Four of the dragons, Nick, Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden and Touker Suleyman all quickly declared themselves out, meaning Write Size’s hopes all rested with Sarah.

With the writing on the wall, the final dragon ended the stationery entrepreneurs’ den dreams, saying the amount of marketing the company would need would not be covered by the £50,000 investment the pair were after.

Ross said: “Our experience on the programme has been a real eye opener and we have taken the feedback on board. We are approaching a very exciting time with the product and brand.

“Who knows where this will lead us.”

The Write Size concept was originally brought to life by Ross in 2012 after watching his young children struggling to learn to write with a tool which was not in proportion to their hands.

He said: “It took two years to get the initial idea off the drawing board. We kicked started a number of research programmes with teachers, children and parents which reaffirmed the impractical use of adult sized pencils when teaching children to write.

“Around 14 billion pencils are sold yearly, yet they only come in one size – the right size for adults’ hands, and yet a five year old’s hands are only 50 per cent as big as an adult’s. Clearly this makes a pencil feel twice as long as it does to us.”

Ross added: “Working closely with my team, we decided that getting our product onto the Dragons’ Den was an opportunity to pursue.

“At the very least, it has given us a platform to get people talking about the logic of the product.”

Since filming, the company’s products have being launched in a number of retailers across the UK including Webbs Garden Centres, LPC Stationers, Ruddocks of Lincoln and national retailer Rymans, while they are also available in New Zealand and the Middle East.