Page 344 - James Caan - The Real Deal

The Real Deal

we wouldn’t even be given a business plan for each of the
entrepreneurs. How on earth was I going to assess the financials?
Or their CVs? Or their sales figures? I picked up my pen: I was
going to have to make a lot of notes. And I was really going to
have to pay attention.
For the first couple of days’filming I was on a really steep
learning curve. Things that take up ten minutes on screen can take
a whole hour to film, and with about 250 people coming into the
Den each series I soon realised that not all of the people we film
would make it on to TV. For the first couple of pitches I don’t
think I said much, in part because most people were pitching to
other Dragons. They didn’t know who I was, and I was realising
that many people come into the Den hoping to get the interest of
one particular Dragon – tech people clearly court Peter, retail
people are after Theo’s cash – but no one was after my money
because none of them had heard of me. I was going to have to be
a bit more assertive to compete with the other Dragons for the
good investments.
I was also discovering that what I thought would be my strength
in the Den – the fact that, unlike the other Dragons who operate
companies in specific sectors, I am a full-time investor – was
potentially my weakness. I was used to taking my time to reach a
decision about an investment, but in the Den not only is there
never enough time, but you are also in competition with four other
people for the good opportunities.
I was surprised just how competitive things got between
members of the panel. If we sense a chance to make money, then
we really want to keep that chance to ourselves, so there’s often a
bit of brinkmanship going on. I also hadn’t realised that the editors
of the programme do a terrific job making some of the pitches
intelligible, because some of the visitors to the Den aren’t very
skilful at presentations and it can take quite a few questions just
to understand what someone’s business does and how that makes

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