The cast of Dragons’ Den. Courtesy of the CBC

It’s a sunny Thursday morning in Toronto, not the kind of day one wants to spend inside, but here I am making my way up to the tenth floor of the CBC building. The CBC has invited members of the press to check out the filming of the broadcasting corporation’s popular TV series, Dragons’ Den, and hell if I’m missing a chance to talk to Kevin O’Leary.  

As I sit down to watch a live feed of the show’s filming, a pair of young men make their way onto the show’s stage. Their names are Jordan and Darien, and they’re here to pitch the Dragons on their gold mining business. The two say that they’ve found an easy way to extract vein of gold on the Klondike River, south of Dawson City. The catch is that they need a $5 million investment to buy the land and to purchase the equipment needed to extract the gold. In exchange for the money, the cousins promise the Dragons a 20 per cent stake in their company. 

I’ve seen many polished and articulate startup pitches before. This, however, is not one of them. Obviously nervous and intimidated by the dragons, Jordan and Darien stumble through almost every part of their presentation. True to his form on previous seasons of the show, O’Leary decides to have some fun at the expense of the boys. He asks Darien, the younger of the two and the one still coming to terms with his new frame, “How long are you visiting the earth, Darien?” For his part, Darien takes the teasing well, and after prodding him several more times, O’Leary decides that Darien is in fact not an alien from the planet Zutron, but a Klondike gold miner he’s met in a past life. 

After they’ve had their fun with the two, the Dragons start to take them seriously; despite the adolescent awkwardness that permeates almost every facet of their presentation, there’s some merit to the idea that Jordan and Darien are trying to peddle. And whether it’s because of his business-sense or some part of his imagined past-self trying to tip him off, O’Leary decides to make the first offer: $1 Million for 4 per cent of the business. Of course, as fans of the series know, anyone pitching to the panel has to get the Dragons to match or exceed their initial ask, or leave the Den empty handed. 

For the past seven years, this is the type of scene that has played out countless times before, and one would think that TV audiences would be tired of watching the same scene again and again, but then Dragons’ Den shows no signs of slowing down as it approaches a decade on the small screen. In that sense, the series has gone from being a reality television show to a Canadian cultural artifact; in fact, the Canadian iteration of Dragons’ Den is one of the longest running and most successful versions of the concept–the series originated in Japan in 2001, and has since been adapted for television markets across the world. 

After Darien and Jordan finish their pitch, the cast and crew take a break from filming to enjoy lunch. It is at this point that the press is invited to tour the stage chat with the cast. I’m given O’Leary and Jim Treliving to speak to, and so I decide to use this opportunity to ask them why they think the series has been so successful. 

In response to the question, Treliving suggests that the show’s success has a lot to do with the young viewers the series has been able to attract. “When you’re young, you hear everything that you can’t do, then you see the entrepreneurs that come to the show and pitch a business idea to us, and your mind is sitting there, thinking, ‘If someone else can do that, I can do it, too,’” says Treliving. He adds, “When people come to pitch now, they’re not old anymore: they’re young. And that’s what I think is driving the popularity of the show.”

Treliving’s hypothesis is supported by one of the show’s producers, Michelle MacMillan, who says that the series has consistently been able to attract a wide age demographic. In her words, Dragons’ Den is a “family show.” Still, I can’t help but think there’s more to its success than merely appealing to a wide demographic.

I think part of that success comes from the fact that, more so than its peers in other countries, Dragons’ Den, which debuted in 2006, came to Canadians when they needed it most. Treliving alludes to that fact when he tells me, “When there’s a recession people start to try and think of different ways to make money. You’ve just come out of university: you have a degree, but you end getting a job where you’re making less money than you did waiting tables at Boston Pizza. So you start to think, what could I do to change that?”

In a sense, some look to the series for inspiration: “We’re five different personalities, and five different people have come together to show you what entrepreneurs are,” says Treliving. “I think we’ve changed the thinking of Canada. We were a shy nation, and we still are, but now you see these people on television that have no special talent–they don’t sing or dance–but they have an idea. And the mind is a powerful thing.” 

Indeed, some of the series’ best pitches have shown how average Canadians have used their ingenuity in an attempt to better their family’s fortunes. Easy Daysies, started by Elaine Tan Comeau, an elementary school teacher from Maple Bridge, British Colombia, is a pitch Treliving fondly remembers because of its hard-working creator (the pitch can be seen here). Before Comeau brought the idea to the show, she would stay up until 3AM each morning to work on the organizational magnets–in addition to taking care of children and teaching a class every day.

“When you’re watching Dragon’s Den, I think what you’re watching is the pursuit of freedom. People have figured out that there’s a connection between wealth and freedom,” says O’Leary. “It’s not about the money, it’s about the ability do something that sets you free, so that all of the toil that you went through when you were younger leads to you being free to do whatever you wish. I certainly think that has a lot of merit, and there’s something very visceral about watching that process occur.” Normally I disagree with him, but I think, like the show, O’Leary is on to something. 

The eighth season of Dragons Den starts this fall.

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Igor Bonifacic is a writer working for the Toronto Standard. You can follow him on twitter @igorbonifacic. 

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