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I bagged £100k deal on Dragons’ Den but never saw a single tycoon again – what they’re really like behind the scenes
FOR many entrepreneurs, bagging a large cash injection and two of the biggest names in the business world would be a dream.
But former Dragons' Den hopeful Simon Heap, 53, reveals he turned down Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden after agreeing on a deal for £100,000.
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Simon, from Bodmin, Cornwall, pitched interactive fitness games company to the business bigwigs back in series 14 but less than a year later pulled out.
With sales booming, he decided that giving up a 30 per cent stake in his business was too much - and felt miffed over the dragons' lack of a clear vision for his company.
Simon told The Sun: “I wanted to understand why they had invested, what they imagined the future might look like and where they thought we could get more sales.
“But they never gave any hint about how it was going to work. The most they would say was, ‘This is going to be life-changing for you’ and ‘Don’t worry, it will all be brilliant’.
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“We agreed to part ways in the end and I thought we probably wouldn’t be on the show but we were in the season finale at the very end and the only ones to get investment.”
Fake set
Simon recalls the filming day, in 2016, starting “very early” and having a quick run-through ahead of the pitch.
“We gave a short précis of what we were going to say to the lighting and sound engineers so they could sort out how it would look,” he said.
Two hours later filming began and Simon reveals the Dragons' Den set is “just a studio set” and “not as it appears at all” on TV.
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He said: “There’s no lift, it’s just two doors that open. We must have had to press the ‘lift’ button 100 times within half an hour for them to get the filming right.
“The pitch room isn’t a warehouse either. There’s no ceiling, behind the windows is a painted landscape and one of the side walls is missing for the cameras.”
Crew distractions
With money on the table, cameras rolling and a grilling from the Dragons on the cards, the pitch can be nerve-wracking.
But for Simon, there were a few added distractions from the crew, which made it “harder”.
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“There was a yellow electrician's ladder leaning against the wall that I could see through the ‘window’, which was really distracting.
“One of the cameras on the rail track had a Starbucks coffee cup on it and kept moving up and down, which I found hard to avoid looking at too.
“Then a funny thing, I remember was the crew were eating breakfast behind the open wall while I was talking to the Dragons.”
Broke major rule
Ahead of trying to schmooze the Dragons, Simon and his colleague Martin Worth were warned there would be no second attempts or reshoots.
“The director insisted they would not cut or break filming for any reason, even if something wasn’t working or went wrong,” he recalled.
However, that didn’t turn out to be the case after when the cameras were rolling.
Simon said: “I was told to head to a little green tape marker on the floor but I couldn’t see it, so I kept walking until I was about six inches away from Debra’s knee.
“Then, when they had the big reveal, we looked over and none of the fancy computers or lighting were on. I knew something had gone wrong or was broken.
“So I said, ‘Look, can we cut because it’s not working? None of it’s working?’ The director was furious because that shouldn’t happen and was against the show's rules.
“But what could we do? If it wasn’t working we couldn’t demonstrate our business and it would be pointless. It turned out someone on the set had accidentally pulled out the power lead.”
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'Terrible two-hour pitch'
After the false start, Simon says the real pitch “lasted two hours” and went “terribly”, but believes the Dragons' Den team was “quite gentle in the edit”.
He admits his “mind went completely blank” and his colleague, who was responsible for remembering the numbers, was “lost” too.
Simon said: “It was a terrible pitch. I’ve done loads of pitches and have been super confident, but I went completely blank and so did my new sales guy.
“I must have paused for what felt like a million years and then spouted a load of rubbish and repeated myself at least 10 times. It was horrible.
“My sales guy could remember the numbers, so I had to admit that I didn’t know what was on the balance sheet and it sounded like I was clueless.
“Later, I started to relax and enjoy myself because I forgot the cameras were there. We were in there for two hours, it felt like forever.”
'Dragons’ screen-time battle'
Simon noticed the Dragons changed when filming began and believes they “were all performing”.
Another observation was that the business gurus seemed to be battling one another for “more screen-time”.
“Some of the Dragons asked the same questions as each other but with slightly different wording,” Simon said.
“There were a couple of occasions where I thought, ‘That’s such an obvious question, why have you asked that?’ because I already answered it earlier.
“It seemed to be when one of the Dragons hadn’t spoken in a while, you could see that they had to keep their screen-time up.”
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'Nearly blew it'
While Simon was disappointed by his performance, he received offers from Peter, Debra and Touker Suleyman.
Simon said: “I meant to ask what the Dragons could off my business but it came out in a weird way along the lines of, ‘Why would I trust you?’
“Debra got huffy and said I was going to blow it if I didn’t concentrate. I managed to pull it back and say something credible to Peter.”
Despite Touker offering to take a smaller percentage of the company, Simon accepted a joint offer from Peter and Debra, which was 20 per cent more equity than he initially intended to give away.
“To be honest, I didn’t think Touka and I would get on so I decided to go for Peter and Debra and it was all great,” he said.
“They were all smiles, they came up for a kiss and a cuddle and then after seeing them briefly at lunch after I asked for a quick word, I never saw them again.
“Now looking back, it feels like it was a dream. It was a very intense day and a half and then that was it.”
‘I backed out’
To Simon’s surprise, after agreeing a deal there were no further face-to-face meetings with Debra or Peter and he was only in touch with Debra’s investment team.
He said: “I met them, packed up the van and came back to Cornwall. Nothing was signed on the day but there was definitely more filming to do.
“You wanted to be whisked away to sign a contract with a gold pen and celebrate with champagne but that didn’t happen, it was disappointing.”
Between filming in April 2016 and the show being broadcast the following year, Simon’s business started “doing really well”.
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After backing out of the deal, he expected his time on the show wouldn’t be broadcast but to his surprise it was.
Simon said: “It worked out brilliantly for us. We got all of the positives - like the publicity and Dragons fighting over us - but we didn’t lose shares in the business.
“I would have carried on with the deal if they had been more forthcoming and clarified what they were going to do.
“But the business hit its stride, which made it easier to decide not to go ahead.”
Since the show, Rugged Interactive, which launched in 2009, has continued to grow and is now used in schools, trampoline parks, indoor entertainment venues and within the sports market.
“I wouldn’t say turning down the Dragons was the best thing, maybe we would be bigger with them and access to their networks," says Simon.
“But I don’t regret doing it nor regret going on the show. We benefitted from it hugely and I found it very intriguing. It’s a great show that’s informative about business too.”
A BBC spokesperson told The Sun: “Dragons’ Den is about real business and investments, and we are proud of the brilliant success rate of deals and upward trajectory of businesses after their time in the Den.
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"All the successful entrepreneurs enter into the normal period of rigorous due diligence with the Dragons once a deal has been struck and, as is often the case in the real world, deals can fall through.
"As well as investment, the entrepreneurs benefit hugely from the exposure the Den brings and all the work that goes on behind the scenes, including guidance, connections and advice the small businesses receive from the Dragons.”
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