Entering the Dragon's Den

This is the first newsletter of five that we will be doing about the TV Show ‘Dragon’s Den’.

Dragon’s Den is a British TV reality show where entrepreneurs are given the chance to pitch their ideas in front of a panel of 5 wealthy investors, who scrutinise every detail to gain an understanding of whether the business (or entrepreneur) is worth investing in. The first episode broadcasted around U.K. homes on the 4th of January 2005, where the panel of fiery Dragon’s were made up of Duncan Bannatyne, Rachel Elnaugh, Doug Richard, Simon Woodroffe and of course, the longest serving Dragon, Peter Jones. At the time of writing, the show is broadcasting its 20^th season.

Today, we will give a small profile on each of the 21 Dragon’s that have appeared on Dragon’s Den.

Quote of the Day

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”.

Albert Einstein

Dragon 1: Duncan Bannatyne

• Series 1-12

Duncan Bannatyne was born in 1949 in Dalmuir, Scotland where in his adolescence he joined the Royal Navy and worked as a junior second class engineering mechanic. After working for several years, he received a dishonourable discharge for throwing an officer off a boat landing jetty and consequently served 9-months in military detention centre.

His first venture into business was buying an ice-cream van for £450 and expanded this by buying more vans during the time of the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars. He later sold his business for £28,000 and used this income to start his next enterprises - ‘Quality Care Homes’ and ‘Just learning’, a children’s nursery chain. These companies were later sold in 1996 for £26million and £22million respectively.

Bannatyne’s most well-known business is his health clubs, with the Bannatyne Health Club & Spa popping up around the country; amassing 71 sites including 46 spas, making it the largest independent chain of health clubs in the United Kingdom.

During his time on Dragon’s Den, he invested in 36 businesses; investing over £2 million. Ruth Davidson, former Scottish Conservative leader at Holyrood, interviewed Duncan Bannatyne on her LBC show where he said that he “probably broke even, made a little, or broke even” speaking about his investments. He was known for his sharp whit, humour and sometimes fierce moments on the show.

Dragon 2: Rachel Elnaugh

• Series 1-2

Rachel Elnaugh was born in 1964 in Essex, England. Before venturing into the world of entrepreneurship, she worked for the accounting firm Arthur Andersen.

Elnaugh started her business in 1989, founding one of the UK’s first experience day voucher businesses, Red Letter Days. The entrepreneur developed this idea after gifting a pair of cricket tickets to her father in a creative manner, which sparked an opportunity for her to fill this gap in the market. Elnaugh could not afford to fund the venture on her own, and after being rejected for a bank loan, her friends and family contributed £7,000 and the business was born on this shoestring budget. Red Letter Days originally took off after she strategically placed ads in magazines in the run up to Christmas, and after a number of years it amassed a turnover of £18million. This led to Elnaugh being a 2001/2002 finalist in the Veuve Clicqout Businesswoman of the Year and the Ernst & young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Subsequently, this success led to Elnaugh being one of the first five Dragon’s in the inaugural series, being the only female investor. During her tenure of the show, she made five agreed investments; 4 in the first series and 1 in the second.

Tragedy struck in 2022 when Red Letter Days struggled after a “disastrous over-expansion” and consequently 3 years later in 2005 the company entered administration. A report by ITV 1 criticised the business model of the company and the running of the company, after suppliers were left unpaid and purchasers left disappointed.

Elnaugh left Dragon’s Den after the second season due to her company’s problems and could not fulfil her executive responsibilities in the companies that she invented in. As of July 2022, Red Letter Days was bought by the well-known gift brand Moonpig.

Dragon 3: Doug Richard

• Series 1-2

Doug Richard was born in 1958in Buffalo, New York, U.S. After majoring in psychology at University in 1980, he received his Doctorate of Law in 1985.

Dough started his first company, ITAL Computers in 1985, which sold services that integrated computer aided design and manufacturing systems to the southern California aerospace industry. After being sold in 1991 in a private transaction, Richard used the profits were used to fund his second company, Visual Software. This was later sold to Micrografx for £12million in shares in 1996, and a year later he became the president and CEO of the public listed company. Richard later became an angel inventor in tech start-ups and joined the DEN in 2004 in its first year of production.

He was only part of Dragon’s Den for the first two seasons and only made two investments in his time there.

Dragon 4: Simon Woodroffe

• Series 1

Simon Woodroffe was born in Oxford in 1952 into humble beginnings and grew up in the 60s where the world was changing and the ‘hippy’ movement was in its conception. His early employment found him moving job-to-job, where he started as a bus conductor and then moved to factory work. Woodroffe was arrested in his adolescence for drug offences which found him serving three months in a detention centre and after being released found himself being 18-years old, no qualifications and no idea of what he wanted to do.

Woodroffe later read a job advertisement in a magazine for an assistant to the assistant stage manager at The Little theatre Club in St Martin’s Lane in London. Although having no background in this field, he quickly became stage manager and then went to work at the Royal Court at the Richmond Theatre. This was when he was introduced to rock n’ roll and became a roadie, where his first big break came after being a stage designer. Through the 70s and early 80s Woodroffe would design big rock shows, however this eventually became tiresome and he then went onto selling television rights. In an interview with Health and Wellness in 2021, Woodroffe said at the age of 40 in 1995 he thought “If I don’t do something now I’m going to run out of time. I’m going to be a sad old git and I’m not going to be successful’, this was after recently being divorced and not having a of money. Woodroffe explains how a person told him about a Japanese conveyor belt, and subsequently the concept of Yo! Sushi was born.

Yo! Sushi opened its first restaurant in 1997 in Soho, London without any start-up capital and by 2003 it had 12 restaurants, including the first franchise opening in Dubai, UAE. Despite having a continuous nag of self-doubt, he managed to spearhead Yo! Sushi into a global brand, eventually selling his controlling interest in a £10m deal to private equity firm Primary Capital in 2003. He retained a 22% stake and continued working both as an entrepreneur and a TV presenter.

Woodroffe entered the Den in its first season. During his time on the show, he only invested in one company, Mycorrhizal Systems who manufactured black truffles, for £70,000. This investment later fell through once he left the show. The reason for his departure, as he as cited, is he felt that entrepreneurs were not treated correctly in the Den.

Woodroffe is not a motivational speaker, speaking at corporate and promotional events around the world.

This round off our first part of our profiles on each Dragon that has appeared on the BBC hit show Dragon’s Den. We will be back with our next edition next week which will include Theo Paphitis, Richard Farleigh and a few more.

We hope everyone has a great week ahead and remember if anyone has any request please send them into the Sunrise Digest.