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Secrets of Dragons’ Den: Behind the scenes

Outside the studio during Dragons' Den auditions
Outside the studio during Dragons' Den auditions

Darien and Jordan nervously walk down the stairs and enter the den. They are in Toronto for the popular CBC reality show Dragons' Den to ask for a large amount of money to mine gold in the Yukon.

They claim to have found a new method of profit-sharing and say they could make the dragons a lot of money. They go through their plan for about 30 minutes and enter a lively debate with the dragons about their knowledge of the area and the value of their company.

If this makes it to one of the 20 episodes, it will air sometime between September 2013 and March 2014. If it makes it to air, the viewing audience will see a pitch and debate that is only about five minutes long. But a lot goes into that five minutes of TV.

It starts with trying to coordinate a schedule between the panel of investors and the CBC studio, which is done a year in advance. Long before taping commences, a team of producers travels the country hunting for budding entrepreneurs. This year they visited 45 cities over a little more than two months.

They set up in anything from a chamber of commerce to a hotel ballroom and start listening. Between January and March this year they saw 3,000 pitches. Another 2,000 people or groups applied online.

Molly Middleton is a senior producer for the show, which has an audience of about 1.5 million viewers each week. She saw Darien and Jordan in Vancouver.

"How many young people do you hear want to mine the Yukon?" Middleton asks. "We want to showcase fresh ideas, and if I've seen a fresh idea, that was one of them."

Dragons' Den senior producer Molly Middleton walks on to the set during the taping of the 2013-2014 season.
Dragons' Den senior producer Molly Middleton walks on to the set during the taping of the 2013-2014 season.

Middleton has been with the show for seven years and thinks she may have heard every possible business idea.

"I can't tell you how many toilet ideas (I've heard)," she said. "What's wrong with the toilet?"

In addition to toilet ideas, she's seen tons of board games and cereals. Despite the fact that board games have a history of failing in the Den, people just keep pitching them.

Producers don't give golden tickets on the spot. They'll regroup to discuss the pitches and narrow them down to the 300 or so they will invite to Toronto. Not everyone says yes — some have a conflicts or chicken out at the last minute.

"Every year we comb the country and think there can't be anyone left, and every year it gets better and better," Middleton says. In the first season they had six episodes and were praying for six deals. After 16 days of filming for the 2013-2014 season, there were more than 50 deals.

When entrepreneurs get to Toronto, producers help them prepare for the TV experience. Pitches can last anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours depending on how many questions the dragons have. Dragons listen to about 12 pitches per day. Producers and editors then spend the next couple months cutting it down so each pitch is about five minutes long on the show.

The dragons don't know anything about the entrepreneurs. They are only told their names as they walk down the stairs.

This year they filmed about 250 pitches over 20 days between the end of March and the end of April. None of them will air until at least September and no one involved with the process can say anything about the outcomes until the show airs.

"We encourage them to tell the world they are coming to Toronto to see the dragons," Middleton says. "The hardest part I can imagine is if you walked away with a deal, like a dream come true, to not tell anyone. They sign their lives away."

The biggest question Middleton says people ask when they find out what she does is 'why do they always wear the same clothes?'

"They are wearing the same thing so that we can make an episode based on the best content instead of being tied to who came that day," Middleton says. "It would be distracting if every pitch they changed outfits."

Fear not — they are not wearing the exact same clothes. They simply have multiple changes of the same outfit.

Dragon David Chilton jokes that it's the second question people ask about the show when they meet him. The number one question is "is Kevin [O'Leary] really an a*&hole?" Chilton said he's not.

When a deal is struck, the entrepreneurs and dragons both go through a due diligence process. Chilton said he closed on about 40 per cent of the deals he made last season, which was a high rate compared to other dragons. He also said most people don't realize that a lot of the time it's the entrepreneurs who back out, not the dragons.

And what about those ominous stacks of cash the dragons flip through as they contemplate a pitch? Only the top bill is real. The rest of the bills in the stack are paper with the edges coloured like money so they can flip through the stacks and people at home won't notice.

And if you were wondering what it's like to contemplate a deal in that little room, we can tell you it's pretty intimidating. Entrepreneurs close the door to the room where they'll find only a working phone, a phone book, instructions on how to make a long-distance call and lots of lights and cameras. They can see the dragons — who are most likely talking about them — but they can't hear a word the dragons are saying.

The upcoming season will begin airing this fall with a redesigned set that is much larger and scarier.

"It's a totally different den. It's almost double the size as it used to be," said Middleton. "I think it's more intimidating."

(Photos by Jordan Chittley/Yahoo! Canada News)