Deborah Meaden is regarded as the scariest of the Dragons’ Den investors, and it’s not difficult to see why. Within a minute of meeting her, she’s probing the profit and loss account of this interview with her and fellow Dragon Sara Davies.
‘Why have you just got us two girls?’ she demands. ‘What’s the angle?’
Deborah has never liked to be seen as a woman in business, even if she and Sara are (whisper it) women in business. ‘In business, or as a Dragon, you’re not male or female, you’re just an investor,’ she insists.
‘If I ever came across any barriers – and people do have their biases, whether it’s gender, race, or because someone’s fat or thin – I just thought, ‘OK, I’ll go and work with someone else.’
Deborah Meaden (pictured) is regarded as the scariest of the Dragons’ Den investors. She explains why she has never liked being seen as a woman in business
‘The consumer, at the end of the day, isn’t interested in your product because of your gender. That’s why I say to women, ‘Don’t think of yourself as a woman in business, just think of yourself as being in business.’
Which is all very well, but it’s only thanks to the battles women have fought for many years that the percentage of females in FTSE 100 boardrooms has risen from 12.5 per cent a decade ago to 40 per cent this year. Still not completely equal.
‘Boardroom culture’s changing, but what concerns me is that the more you tend to recognise something, the more it worries you and the more it sends a signal to other people that something like your gender should be taken into account,’ says Deborah.
‘Business is a good place to make changes because you can choose who you work with.
Sara Davies, (pictured) who joined the show in 2019, actually grew up watching and being inspired by Dragons’ Den
‘And you’d be mad to choose not to work with a large, talented part of the population with an awful lot to offer. So more fool you if you make choices based on gender.’
As Dragons’ Den fans will know, Deborah, 63, has no time for fools. And while she may be the harshest of the Dragons, viewers love her for it.
‘I don’t think I’m scary,’ she insists. ‘I’m tough, I make no apologies for that, but I’m not hard. I hurt, I worry… but I’m tough because business is tough.
‘In the Den we aren’t just learning about the businesses, we’re assessing the people behind them. What happens when the chips are down? How resilient are you?
‘I can’t run people’s businesses for them. I know how to win friends and influence people. I could be all soft and lovely.
I don’t think I’m scary. I’m not hard. I hurt and I worry. But I’m tough because business is tough
‘But that doesn’t help anybody. My role is to tell people if they’re wasting their time, and I think the viewers appreciate that.
‘People buy things because a product or service is good. The one thing people always say when they leave the Den, whether they get investment or not, is that they’ve learned something.’
But beneath that steely exterior there is something a little mushier. She’s a total softie about animals and thinks she has about 35 dogs, sheep, cats, birds and horses, mainly rescue animals, at the ten-bedroom country pile in Somerset she shares with husband Paul.
They celebrate their 30th anniversary later this year, and while she wouldn’t consider herself a romantic (‘flowers do nothing for me’), she speaks with joy about how Paul secretly learned to dance the tango when she was doing Strictly in 2013 so she wouldn’t miss the show so much when she finished.
We’re in the money!
Investing may be risky, but it can also reap dividends. Levi Roots’s Reggae Reggae sauce, which Dragon Peter Jones still owns a stake in, is now worth £30 million.
One of Deborah Meaden’s most successful deals was with Magic Whiteboard in 2006. The portable whiteboard is now making around £1.2 million a year. In 2014 Deborah and former Dragon Theo Paphitis sold their £100,000 investment in the firm back to its owners for an impressive £800,000.
Sara Davies has yet to see any big profits from the £2 million she’s invested. Her companies include Malaysian chilli paste Mak Tok, and EasyTots, which makes baby feeding mats (below). ‘None of my investments have returned yet, but a couple of them are doing fantastically well,’ she says.
Sara Davies’ companies include Malaysian chilli paste Mak Tok, and EasyTots
‘Strictly’s changed my life forever,’ she says. ‘Paul and I still dance and a few years ago we went to Buenos Aires because we love the tango so much.
‘I formed some lifelong friendships on the show too.’
Dragons’ Den is also celebrating a milestone this year, its 20th series. Initially filmed in a chilly warehouse in London, the Den was recreated at the old Granada studios in Manchester a few years ago, where Coronation Street used to be filmed.
Days can be long (12-14 hours) and it takes about four weeks to make a series. But for t he Dragons that’s often just the start of the work. Deborah, who made her money in the holiday park industry, joined for the third series in 2006 and has invested in so many companies she can’t remember them all.
She estimates she’s spent £4 million of her own cash on businesses she’s helped, and many have made her a profitable return, but only after she’s put in weeks of work with them.
Her colleague Sara Davies, who joined the show in 2019, actually grew up watching and being inspired by Dragons’ Den. Despite making a fortune with her handicraft business Crafter’s Companion, she admits she was intimidated by Deborah at first.
‘I remember being really nervous to meet her but she was so warm and welcoming,’ says Sara, 38. ‘From the start she wanted to help me. I remember on my second day in the Den I was a bit too soft and she took me to one side and said, ‘You need to toughen up.’
Deborah also had a firm opinion about where Sara was allowed to look while on the show. ‘After my first scene when someone was making a pitch she said, ‘I need you to look forward, not be staring at me.’
‘I can sense what she’s feeling now – I can just look at her finger or something and have an idea of what she’s thinking, even if I’m not looking straight at her.’
The two have formed a close bond. ‘Because we’re the two women, we spend more time in hair and make-up, which gives us a chance to chat,’ says Sara.
‘She’s a fantastic mentor and someone I look up to. Sometimes I still pinch myself that I’m not only sitting alongside her as an equal but that I get advice and support from her.’
Sara too has appeared on Strictly, in 2021, and has remained such close Aljaz Skorjanec that he and his wife Janette Manrara went on holiday with Sara, her husband Simon and their sons, Oliver, nine, and Charlie, six, last summer. She credits Strictly with helping her feel comfortable in her body.
‘At first I felt really body-conscious and I’d ask for an extra pair of Spanx or a corset. But then the costume designer said, ‘You’ve had a couple of kids.
‘So what if you’ve got a bit of a tummy? Embrace it!’ She was right.’
Fitting Strictly in alongside work and motherhood was brutal. She was up at five to do her hair and make-up, danced from 6am to noon, then did three hours’ work.
After that it was the school run, cooking dinner for her boys and putting them to bed, then back to work until midnight. She’d be in the car overnight on a Saturday from London to her home in Teesside to be back in time to watch her boys play football.
Being a working mum makes her think differently about being a woman in business. ‘One of my staff who had a baby 18 months ago came to me this week and said, ‘I need more of a challenge.’
‘I’ve always been really driven but motherhood made me even more so. If you aren’t with your kids you want to be doing something meaningful.’
Sara has already invested close to £2 million in Dragons’ Den enterprises, and early in this series she goes into business with Deborah. Among the people they see are a clairvoyant who has a canny way with money, and a young girl with cancer who had one Dragon making a unique offer.
‘We’ve seen some unbelievable businesses this series, with more investments than ever,’ says Sara.
Meanwhile, it appears that Deborah’s no-nonsense approach has rubbed off on Sara. ‘I’m not the new kid on the block any more,’ she says.
‘I’m not afraid to say what I think, I’m tougher. I’m still a bit of a softie – but I’m not frightened to give someone a hard time when it’s deserved.’
Entrepreneurs, you have been warned!
- Dragons’ Den, Thursday, 8pm, BBC1
READ MORE:
There street where I grew up: Deborah Meaden, 63, entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den star shares memories of Bellfield Ave, Brightlingsea, Essex
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Dragon’s Den star gets it in the neck: Steven Bartlett is ‘reprimanded by BBC for breaking sponsorship rules after wearing jewellery brand he is linked to on show’
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