Peter Jones, Dragon
I was running a fairly successful telecoms business and had a phone call from the BBC saying that they’d like to come and chat. I was intrigued enough to say yes. I was late for our meeting and while he was waiting for me, Martyn Smith, the BBC’s producer, was watching people coming into my office saying: “What do you think of that? Should we do this?” He asked me, “What were those people doing?” I said: “Coming in and pitching ideas.” He said: “You’re not going to believe it …”
He explained that Dragons’ Den was a format in Japan and they were thinking of putting together a UK version. He said: “All you have to do is sit in a chair as people come in and pitch you ideas.” I thought: “Being an entrepreneur is pretty lonely. But here I’m going to get to invest in people. I’m also going to be on TV so my mum will be proud.”
Six months later I was in a warehouse in London filming the pilot. It was near a train track so every four or five minutes we’d have to pause filming for 10 seconds as another train went by. Investing your own cash back then was quite left-field and very unique. Today it might seem more normal. People would ask me: “How can you possibly make a decision about whether to invest £250,000 in 10 minutes?” My first Dragons’ Den investment was £175,000 for Wonderland, a magazine publishing business that Duncan and the other Dragons said wouldn’t survive a year. Twenty years later, we are the largest stylist magazine group in Europe.
The left-hand driving glove was madness. A baby dream machine and the armchair that converted into a gym for older people made me laugh.
It’s great that the BBC have never lost control of the original thought process. I call it “live to tape”. We still have no idea who is going to walk into the den and pitch their idea. When I sit in that chair waiting for the lift doors to open, I genuinely wonder: “Am I going to meet the next Levi Roots? Am I going to have the opportunity to invest in somebody and make their dreams reality?” There’s competition, fun, rivalry and investment – every single dynamic you could want. There’s not many better feelings than sitting in that chair.
Evan Davis, presenter
I was economics editor at the BBC and got a call from the entertainment department who said: “We’ve got this wacky Japanese series and are thinking of making a BBC version. Can you offer us any advice who might make a good presenter?” Obviously it was in Japanese, but it seemed to me quite aggressive and ferocious. I said: “I think you want someone without much personality because the personality has to come from the Dragons.” They said: “That’s exactly what we thought. We thought you’d be perfect for the job.” I probably should have taken it as an insult.
When you buy in a format, you have to keep close to the original. The Japanese version was called Tigers of Money and took place in a white space. The BBC changed the name and picked this warehouse look. No one could agree on a title. “Dragons’ Den sounds too Dungeons and Dragons-y. No one will know what it’s about,” someone said. But the silly names like Life’s a Pitch didn’t work either.
There was much more voiceover in the first series because they thought the viewers needed hand-holding through all the negotiation around equity and all of that. I take my hat off to the early entrepreneurs for walking into something they knew nothing about. Originally they had to walk up a flight of stairs to face the Dragons. Anybody in broadcasting knows the combination of being nervous, adrenaline-fuelled and slightly out of breath is fatal.
We always knew Dragons’ Den would tip one of two ways: towards the more business end of television programming or towards the entertainment side. It took a bit of time for it to find its groove. “I’m out” only became a catchphrase by accident.
I have always been in awe of the entrepreneurs for taking their ideas as far as they have. A juice blender that attached to the internet seemed so ridiculous at the time. I’ve seen the Harry Enfield spoof. When people start using the language and catchphrases, you know you’ve got a hit, and it happened quite quickly. I think we knew by the end of the first series that it had earned its place on TV screens.