Dragons Den
Transcript: Dragons Den history Season Episodes Start Date End Date Dragons Season 1 8 October 3, 2006 August 28, 2006 Herjavec, O'Leary, Treliving, Wood, Lewin Season 2 10 Herjavec, O'Leary, Treliving, Dickinson, Lewin Season 3 11 September 29, 2008 December 8, 2008 Herjavec, O'Leary, Treliving, Dickinson, Wilson Season 4 20 September 30, 2009 March 17, 2010 Herjavec, O'Leary, Treliving, Dickinson, Wilson Season 5 20 September 22, 2010 March 30, 2011 Herjavec, O'Leary, Treliving, Dickinson, Wilson Season 6 21 September 14, 2011 April 4, 2012 Herjavec, O'Leary, Treliving, Dickinson, Croxon Bruce Croxon draws his business enthusiasm from venturing off the beaten path and approaching potential opportunities from unique angles. Whether it’s seeing an opportunity with a nascent technology or seizing an idea “off piste” in the wilds of Whistler, BC, Bruce defines his entrepreneurial philosophy as “serendipity mixed with smarts.” He credits his upbringing with a Jamaican mother and a British father as part of the motivation that drove him towards success and he celebrates his mixed-race heritage. Bruce started his fortune by being an early adapter in the digital realm. Capitalizing on the growing interest in phone telepersonals combined with the timely development of the internet, he spotted an opportunity to earn some serious coin. In 1987, Bruce co-founded Lavalife, the internationally recognized online dating service. He wore many different hats at the company, including Partner, Chairman and CEO and guided Lavalife to the position of category leader, achieving revenues of close to $100 million prior to its sale in 2004. the dragons Bruce Croxon Jim Treliving Jim Treliving has been a successful Canadian entrepreneur and investor for over 40 years. Hailing from the small town of Virden, Manitoba, Jim was a young RCMP officer in 1966 when he walked into "Boston Pizza and Spaghetti House" in Edmonton and saw big dough in his future. Over 350 restaurant openings later, Jim is now the chairman and owner of Boston Pizza International Inc., Canada’s number one casual dining brand with operations in three countries and almost $1 billion in annual system-wide sales. With Jim and his partner George Melville at the helm, Boston Pizza has been consistently recognized as one of Canada’s "50 Best Managed Private Companies" and more recently as one of Canada’s “Top Ten Most Admired Corporate Cultures”. He's opinionated, he's ruthless, he hungers for big deals and loves to take control yet he made his millions helping children learn how to read. Kevin's success story starts where most entrepreneurs begin: with a big idea and zero cash. From his basement, he launched SoftKey Software Products. As sales took off, Kevin moved to headquarters in Cambridge Massachusetts and went on an industry consolidating acquisition binge. From 1995 to 1999 he bought almost every one of his software competitors including, Mindscape, Broderbund and the Learning Company in the industry’s first vicious public hostile battle. Shareholders love his take no prisoners cost cutting style and fueled him with billions to do his deals. In 1999, Kevin sold his company to the Mattel Toy Company for a staggering 3.7 billion dollars, one of the largest deals ever done in the consumer software industry Arlene Dickinson is one of Canada's most renowned independent marketing communications entrepreneurs. After becoming a partner in Venture Communications in 1988, she became sole owner in 1998. She has grown the company into a strategic and creative powerhouse for a blue-chip client list, which includes Toyota (Prairie Region), Cenovus Energy, Travel Alberta, Mayo Clinic, Brookfield Residential, and Husky Energy. Arlene is a fervent believer that marketing's purpose is to deliver business results. She is well known for pioneering how marketing can be accountable to delivering on clients' business goals. David Chilton David Chilton is an economics graduate from Wilfrid Laurier University. In 1985, he won the award for the highest mark in the country on the Canadian Securities Course. Cheating was never proven but widely suspected. In 1989, he released The Wealthy Barber. It went on to sell an astonishing two million copies in Canada. After milking his one and only good idea for years, Dave left the personal-finance field to home-school his children. His daughter escaped after a few months, but his son served out his entire sentence of three years less a day. Both children somehow overcame the experience and are now attending university. Over the years, Dave also published the bestselling cookbooks Looneyspoons, Crazy Plates and Eat, Shrink & Be Merry! along with authors Janet and Greta Podleski. Adding no value but taking a third of the profits, guilt finally overwhelmed Dave and he left the sisters' business in 2007. They just recently noticed. His true professional passion, however, remains the field of personal finance, where he tries to mix humour and common sense to help