Southam businessmen enjoyed their grilling in the Dragons' Den

He thought celebrity or personalised masks might appeal to party organisers and shared his plan for a business making them with friends Dean Walton from Harbury and Leamington resident Ray Duffy.

Last year the trio, all businessmen in their own right - Dean is a director of Alumet in Southam, Chris is in finance and Ray runs an online jewellery company - set up a website and factory to make the masks, cards and life-size cutouts at Ford Farm in Southam.

Since then the business has gone from strength to strength with their appearance on BBC 2 television programme Dragons' Den on Wednesday likely to bring in even more orders.

Mr Duffy said: "Chris thought up the idea about ten years ago, but that was before the internet had taken off so there was no way of doing it.

"He would bring out his box of masks at dinner parties and everyone found it really funny.

"We got a website going last June and very soon orders started to come in. So many people said they had been looking for something like this for ages.

"It is a very straightforward process, people simply send us the digital photo they want to be used via the website."

The trio did leaflet drops and spoke to party shops and now have 56 outlets around the country that promote their wares.

All fans of Dragons' Den, they decided to apply to appear on the programme and pitch their bid for investment to some of Britain's top business brains.

Mr Duff said: "It was Dean's idea to go on there and we wore masks of the Dragons' faces.

"It was really nerve-wracking, but great fun. Once we got in there it was all down to business - a brilliant experience."

But despite making the Dragons' think they were seeing double, the team did not receive their support.

Mr Walton said: "The whole day was an unforgettable experience and everyone at the BBC made us feel really important.

"The Dragons didn't back us but they seemed to have fun with our masks and asked if they could keep them afterwards."

The last few months have been the busiest in Mask-arade's short history.

More than 50,000 masks have been shipped including 6,000 Ricky Hatton masks for his Vegas fight, 4,000 Owen Coyle masks for Burnley's play-off final at Wembley and 3,000 for West Bromwich's last game of the season.

The firm is already licenced to use many celebrity images, ranging from Barak Obama to Bart Simpson, and have just gained a contract with Coventry City Football Club to make team masks and greeting cards and are now licensed to produce Cartoon's Network's Ben 10 masks.

For more information visit www.mask-arade.com