Answers to some common questions about Dragon's Den

We still get lots of questions about our Dragon's Den episode, so here are some more answers for you!

Here's our first article, in case you missed it.

How does Dragon's Den really work?

Applying

We applied to Dragon's den with a video submission that we recorded at our grandparent's cabin in the summertime. We did a few takes, edited it in iMovie, and then submitted our application!

Interviewing

A few months later, we were emailed with an offer to do an interview to hopefully get on the show! We did the video interview from our houses in Vancouver and Edmonton. We went through a series of questions talking about our venture, with our very helpful producer named Amy.

The interview was mostly informational, and we did some practice with some Dragon's-Den-like questions.

Our producer was working with other potential companies he wanted to get on the show. Amy helped us think of cool ideas that would make a good episode of the show. So she asked us questions like, "what creative idea do you think you could do on TV that would get attention from both the dragons and from viewers?"

A few weeks later, she said that she wanted to get on a quick call with us again, just to go through a couple last things before submitting our application. But, if she was actually setting up to surprise us! On the call, she was recording, and she told us the good news – we were going to be on Dragon stand! She recorded our natural reactions.

Pitch Day!

Jeremy and I flew to Toronto and got to our hotel. Unfortunately, with Dragon's den they don't have a budget for flying you in or putting you up in a hotel. We had to cover that, which is a lot for a small business!

They did get us a good rate on a hotel near the CBC headquarters, which was really nice.

We had a great afternoon the day before the pitch, practising and enjoying walks around Toronto.

I had a bit of trouble falling asleep the night before the pitch! Also, we were due to be at the studios at 7 AM, which is 4 AM Pacific time, the time zone that I was used to at the time... so it was a VERY early morning!

We arrived, we were given a little place to get our things ready for our shoot, and then we sat and waited. But we didn't wait for long! A producer came and told us that we were the first pitch that day,

Before we knew it, we were getting mic'd up and standing backstage. Then, we walked on to the stage we had come to know so well from TV.

The pitch was great! As a reminder, we wrote a lot about that in our other post which is linked above.

Is it real money on Dragons den?

Yes! The dragons are offering their own real money.

Why do Dragon den deals fall through?

It's pretty common for Dragon's Den deals to happen on TV, but then fall apart when the parties come together to iron out the details.

This could happen for any number of reasons – on the part of the investor, on the part of the company, or just because the two parties don't come to an agreement that works for them.

They might disagree on valuation, on direction for the company, on what value the investor will or won't bring... any number of things!

In our case we had two really nice meetings with the Minhas group, but we were looking for different things and they were also really busy setting up deals with everyone else that Manjit made offers to that season. We parted very amicably!

How long does a Dragons den pitch actually last?

We were pitching to the dragons for about 35 minutes. I've heard from friends who have been on who have been in the den for over an hour! 

Our episode was cut to only 7 minutes - so as you can see, lots of the pitch hits the cutting room floor.

Hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about Dragon's Den and our episode. 

Let us know if you have any questions about the experience! 

Here's our home page.

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If you're in Canada, you can watch our episode here. (Note, it doesn't work on Google Chrome - use Safari).

If not, send us a quick email here and we'll point you in the right direction for watching our episode.

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