Dragons’ Den star ‘disappointed’ after reaction to £100,000 investment
The initial reaction didn't reach expectations.
A contestant on Dragons’ Den has admitted feeling some sense of ‘disappointment’ after the initial reaction they received when the episode aired.
Zara Paul and Aaron Morris entered the Den in the hope of securing an investment for their video editing platform, Choppity.
The married co-founders, both 24, pitched 6% equity stake in their business to Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Sara Davies and Steven Bartlett, in return for £100,000.
After demonstrating their product and their ambitions for Choppity to be ‘in every business’ with ‘every marketer in the world using it for all of the videos that they need to be making’, Zara – who is one of the BBC programme’s first non-binary contestants – and Aaron left several of the Dragons impressed.
Though Steven deemed the £100,000 to be too risky, leaving Deborah ‘wobbled’ after his expert comments, Sara, Touker and Peter all offered up the full sum with the latter two requesting 15% of the business.
Peter told them: ‘Aaron and Zara, I think it’s great what you’ve done. It’s without doubt really admirable, and you are both really credible.
‘It’s really interesting because I do think you have something here and I think I could really help you build the business.’
Choppity founders Aaron and Zara featured on a recent episode (Picture: BBC)And after some negotiation, the couple walked away with what they had asked for from Peter, who agreed to drop his equity stake to 12.5% after receiving his £100,000 back.
But despite scoring a whopping six-figure sum, Zara has revealed they faced a sense of defeat after the episode aired, having high expectations from the marketing Dragons’ Den could give them.
In an interview with Metro, they said: ‘On the day of the broadcast, Aaron and I were sitting at our laptops and watching it and also waiting to see what was going to happen.
‘And initially, we were actually a little bit… disappointed, like we knew that our product wasn’t a very consumer-facing product, but we also thought we would get some response on the day.
‘But then the interesting thing that happened was that weekend ended up being the four biggest days that we’ve had in a while.’
Zara admitted they felt ‘disappointed’ after the episode aired (Picture: BBC)And since the episode has aired, Choppity has had a 22% increase in monthly recurring revenue attributed to the broadcast.
They went on: ‘I think the interesting thing is that most people who go on Dragons’ are companies with consumer products, which means that people make decisions instantly as to whether or not they purchase.
‘It’s very much like, “I’m going to order whatever this is now,” whereas with our product, it’s something that you try, you see if it fits into your business, maybe you have to register us as a supplier, maybe you have to find out what our onboarding practices are, and all that kind of stuff.
‘It just takes a little bit longer, which means that we’re going to be experiencing the benefits for potentially a little bit longer and less of a spike than ordinarily.’
Despite the immediate response they received from viewers, Zara recalled how they felt when hearing Peter call them the ‘best seen in the Den’.
The married co-founders were asking for £100,000 for 6% in their business (Picture: BBC) They walked away with an offer from Peter (Picture: BBC)‘I grew up watching Dragons’ Den, so it feels like an emotionally loaded event,’ Zara had said in the episode.
They later added to us: ‘It was really nice to see. It was just very validating. I feel like the best possible outcome for us was that they trusted in us and were convinced in us as entrepreneurs, and it really felt like that was the case.
‘Even for Steven and Deborah, who went out, I still feel like they were convinced in us as entrepreneurs and it was just very validating. I like that we came across as capable people.’
Speaking of their experience in the Den as a whole, they continued: ‘It was really intense. It was also really bare. Traditionally, the products that go on there are very consumer-facing, it tends to be a very tangible product, which means that when they’re building up the displays for those people, it’s a whole thing. So they actually bring their products in, they spend the time to lay everything out and do all that kind of stuff.
‘For us, it was literally the two of us and a screen in a room, which was intimidating because you don’t have anything that you can hide behind and there’s nothing that you can give to the Dragons to play around with. I think intimidating is probably the best word for it.’
Zara described the Den as ‘intimidating’ (Picture: BBC)The couple, who had been approached by the casting team after becoming finalists in The UK StartUp Awards, knew it was ‘an immediate yes’ to going on the show, despite not necessarily needing any funding.
Zara explained: ‘We’ve turned down quite a bit of funding from various people, mostly because we just haven’t needed it and we still don’t. We build all the tech in house, we’re very lean, we’ve got a great profit margin.
‘So it just means that we haven’t really needed any funding, and I think if we had even before then been offered funding from people with specific skills or specific networks that would have been very useful to us, we probably would have taken it, because for us the most useful thing right now isn’t money.
‘It’s the people that are behind the money, and I said that on the show as well – it was the opportunity to pitch to five incredibly established entrepreneurs who have a wealth of experience and are in brilliant networks. It was an absolute no brainer.’
Ahead of entering the Den and pitching to the Dragons, Aaron had revealed finding Steven – who became the youngest investor on the BBC programme in 2021 – inspirational, but it was Zara who ‘manifested’ shaking hands with Peter.
Steven Bartlett made history on Dragons’ Den, becoming the youngest investor in 2021 (Picture: BBC)They told us: ‘Steven is obviously someone who knows the space very well, and I think he’s probably the one that understands the space the most, but we were never like “all eggs in one basket” type of people, we didn’t go in with our eyes and hearts set on him and that would be it.
‘I think he’s been significant for Aaron’s experience as an entrepreneur being one of the first Black Dragons on Dragons’ Den. That was something that he sees as being aspirational, independently of Choppity, but we also know that they all independently have value, and in the pre-interview, we actually mentioned Peter by name.
‘And that was the interesting thing because the only reason I ended up mentioning him by name is because the night before, I had a dream that we shook hands with him!
‘And actually in the Den, Peter made a really convincing case as to why it would make sense for us to work with him.
‘It hasn’t fallen through, it’s still something that that we’ve proceeded with but yeah, we knew that each of them had value and that if we’d only had one offer from any one of them, we would have taken it.’
Zara dreamt of this moment – literally (Picture: BBC) The founder has broken barriers in the entrepreneur landscape (Picture: BBC)As well as leaving the Den with a successful offer, Zara broke down barriers on the programme as one of the first non-binary entrepreneurs on the show.
‘It’s really interesting because I spend a lot of time thinking about that and thinking about my identity and how I fit into the start-up world and ecosystem in general,’ they told us, highlighting anxieties they faced during filming about public perception and being misgendered by the Dragons – which did not happen.
And despite a few ‘weird comments’ online, they’ve begun paving the path for a different demographic of entrepreneurs, saying: ‘There’s a portion of voices or a demographic that feels very unheard in this particular landscape.’
‘There are so many steps that will need to be made to make it equitable in the start-up ecosystem, and people are still very focused on that, that I think it will be a while before we even get to the point of doing similar things or paving similar paths for non-binary founder,’ they went on.
‘Simultaneously, it feels lonely because I used to feel like there must be (and I’m still convinced that there are) other non-binary founders, but I was also convinced that there would be a community that I just hadn’t heard of yet, that I hadn’t come across yet, and now I don’t know… I’m becoming less and less convinced that I can find one. LGBT founders are easy to find but that’s just an umbrella category, and I think being genderqueer is different from being LGBT.’
Talking about the episode, they continued: ‘After it aired, what I think they did a great job of – which is what I wanted – is that they gendered me correctly without highlighting the fact that I was non-binary on the show, which is exactly what I wanted, because what I keep saying is that my identity is really important to me, but it’s not the most important thing about my business. I want my business to be the most important thing about my business.’
Dragons’ Den airs Thursdays at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
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