What Really Happens Behind Dragon’s Den Doors: Piers Linney

0:00Ten years later, I still can't walk down the street without, you know, some 17-year-old saying, oh, hello, can I have a selfie with my mates on Snap? And I'm like, what the heck? And they're because they keep replaying it. So Dragon's Den to me, my life, right, was probably nine and a half, ten weeks of filming at a studio in Manchester. I turned up for two stints of five weeks. So Dragon's Den, it's like a multiverse, right? I'll explain it. So they come out of the lift which is not a lift it doesn't move this is a box so they come out of this pretend lift you've got your pretend 50s and they walk over and then they pitched you so that's all real right they never stop the cameras it's real so the first thing i did was the secret millionaire this is like 2011 so i was approached to do it because i had this profile and i and it was two halves to one was where i was in wolverhampton helping um community organizations the other half i was in a young offenders so when they put it out they only put out the part where i was in the young offenders and i was like hang on a minute i gave most money from the other part which i never actually put on tv so i was like anyway so i'm in this young offenders and uh there's a slight side story there going back to our previous conversation so i met a young lad called um let's call him nathan uh he was in there i met him he was teaching other prisoners to learn to read and i said well when you get out and the producer's like whoa you can't help you got the prisoner give you money i guess i'm gonna give him money when he gets that i'll help him so he came out I mentored him a little bit.

1:23You know, he learned to work for me for a while. I made him redundant. It's quite awkward. And then he started some businesses, went back to working in IT. And now, you know, what, 10 years later, he probably owns over 150 grand a year. He's some kind of cloud infrastructure architect, right? So that just shows you that if you give people a bit of support and guidance, if you deflect someone 10 years downrange, they end up somewhere else. Anyway, so I'm on this program. I did my thing, 15 minutes of fame. That was it. so obviously then that researcher I think moves to BBC they're looking for someone to tick boxes on Dragon's Den and my name came up they said do you want to do it and I thought you know what so I'd um so I'm kind of a you know this sort of mixed race entrepreneur made a bit of money ended up on the list of the the hundred most influential black Britons my dad used to who's now no longer with us he's taking the mickey out of me saying uh in at 99 something I was like, whatever.

2:19So I was on this list, which is nice, a bit of PR, I was quite proud of being on it. So I kind of thought, okay, I don't know what to do. So the producers are chasing me. I'd gone to an event with Sir Richard Branson, who'd, I think it was like 60 grand to go on holiday with him. I was like, yeah, why not? So I gave some money to his charity, and after I went on this trip with him, gave it to Virgin Unite, actually, what's what it was all about. And I was at Usaba, which is his private game reserve in the Kruger National Park in South Africa. So I'm there with Sir Richard hanging out thinking, what the hell?

2:51And I thought, who do I talk to about the media and business and how you put the two together and does it work? And the obvious answer was Sir Richard. So I can't remember how exactly it happened, but we had a chat over a beer, literally. And I went through the whole thing with him and he said, look, you should do it. He said, yeah, you'd be good on TV. I thought, okay, let's do it then. so I kind of said okay I'll do it and as I walked away I remember to this day he made me ring the producers back there and then and tell them I'm in and I saw no to this day and that's how I ended up on Dragon's Den at the end of the pitch you sort of say okay I'm going to invest or I'm not that's all real so you shake hands and then you don't hand over the cash there and then a suitcase and off they go let me know in 10 years if you sell the business you go off and do one multiverses you go off lawyers, accountants shareholder agreement subscription agreement and you do an angel investment, a real proper one.

3:45Sometimes due diligence, what they told you on TV, isn't reality either. That's a whole different multiverse. So it's not reality. So the deal doesn't happen. Or maybe they're there for the PR or it goes on for so long, the show's aired and they get a better offer. Fair enough. Doesn't happen. So that's my experience. The TV producers have now got a lot of content trapped on a hard drive somewhere and they're going to make a TV show out of it. So they take it away probably an hour and a half and they'll edit it down to three minutes for the snippets, maybe 12, 15 minutes for the long form pictures.

4:19And then they go away and they'll show it on TV and I'll watch it and they'll be like, well, Piers didn't invest because he didn't like the brand and the guy started crying. And you're like, well, I didn't invest actually because if you go into the detail of what really happened, he did start crying because we weren't going to invest, but it's because he's got a subsidiary of a Canadian franchise and that just doesn't work. And he's in the IP anyway. And you're like, well, it doesn't work. That's why we didn't invest. Well, that's not a good story for TV. No. So they create these caricatures. And I think even like Debra Meaden's character, it's like the dragon, you know.

4:52I think that's just 1990s misogyny. Now the female investors never have that kind of personality. Debra's the nicest lady you'll ever want to meet, quite literally. So I think they create a caricature of you and it's not you. What people think is you. And people meet me and they look at me and you can see them looking at me and they're kind of like, where do I know this guy from? I've been in like nightclubs in Ibiza and guys all night go, mate, he's like, mate, look who it is. And I'm kind of like, oh, hello. And he's like, get you some drinks. And all night, he's like, get you some more drinks.

5:20I'm like, I'm all right. I'm seriously, I'm all right. End of night, I'm kind of like, I've really got to go. And he's like, look, it's been great to meet you. You're an amazing rugby player. I'm like, oh God, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, So people, people,

5:42And they're all like, gee, I know you. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'm about to say, you work in Barclays in Camden. And now you said that, I'm thinking, let's say someone says a comment about a business and you take umbrage with it and then it will pan to your face. And you said like a visual reaction. Has that actually happened or not really chopping that in afterwards? Yeah, so I think they have to, they can't completely make it up. So, you know, if it's typical, those reactions are real. you might get the odd thing when they're editing it like for a teaser or something where somebody might say something and you'll go and that might be taken from somewhere else but generally speaking what was interesting when I was on Dragon's Den it was in factual so it's quite a different approach to the to the content whereas now it's in entertainment so it's like a different approach to the whole program I haven't watched Dragon's Den since I I didn't watch it before I was on it I haven't watched it I haven't watched it since I've been on it it's really really quite odd actually i hear about it and i see clips obviously sometimes on on like youtube places like that but i haven't really watched it since but i like to think that i was the first to do that proper deals like you know taking five percent for sensible amount not i'll give you 50 grand for 68 of your business you know i was the first to do like you know lost my name wonderably it was uh they wanted to give away four percent for a million for hundred grand They got 5 % in the end.

7:08And all the dragons in the green room were like, that's not what it's about. That's just, don't do deals like that. And I was like, whatever. And then that, you know, I won't go into details, but it turned out to be probably the most successful deal at everyone on Dragon's Den. And they sold it for cash. Are they like maximums and minimums? So they're like, you've got to put this amount of money and you've got to invest in this amount of businesses. No, none of that. It's real. But what I would say, what made me laugh is the producers, they don't want to tell you anything. But they might want to tee up a little bit.

7:35So they might say, well, the next one's like, it's a bit, they say like business lessons or I think it's quite investable. Because they think it might make good TV or whatever. And they come out and it was always completely the other way around because they didn't have a clue. They come out and they're like, what are you talking about? They don't have a clue about what you'd invest in. So that always made me laugh, but it is real. But like I said, it then splits into two multiverses. One's TV, going to make a TV show. And one, you are going to spend the next, let's face it, 10 years building a business working with these people.

8:08So it sounds like it's actually full on hands you're involved. Like it's not just a case of there's the money, see you later. Well, some people have like a team that gets involved. I was involved personally. But you're not involved every day. It's like an angel investment, isn't it? You might get involved if there's some PR or to put a fire out of these from support. You might be like a chairman's type of figure maybe, an advisor. But you're not really in it day-to-day hands-on. I used to always have a bet with the people on the show that when it goes out, your website's going to crash. They'd be like, no, it's not.

8:40I've got virtual servers or dynamic. And I'd be like, okay. And the only people whose websites stayed at was Lost My Name Wonderly guys because they actually knew what they were doing. I suppose if we were to put you back in the Dragon's Den chair today, would you be fundamentally asking a totally different set of questions based on where we are today if someone's coming in for investment? No, it'd be a similar question because often you're trying to work out the person is actually, not the business plan, not the operational model. I'm trying to work out, can I work with you? Are you going to actually generate a return?

9:12And are you going to be able to put up with the ups and downs of trying to build a business over, let's face it, 10 years? What business opportunities has that brought on? What doors has that opened for you? You know, I've been able to do things that I probably, mostly I would never have been able to do before. But the main thing I would say is, is that it opens doors. that people will take your phone call and that's worth something. It was a bit weird because it kind of, I was kind of on Dragon's Den and then I kind of had a business that didn't really work out and I kind of went quiet for a few years.

9:43And I guess the business side of things is that when you, like even recruiting people, you know, people think they kind of, they don't know you, but they feel as though they know you. And that's quite powerful in a way. But it's also the flip side of it is people think they know you and they don't know you. They know a caricature. that the BBC created of it.