Mar 4

OOYA’s experience on the show Dragon's Den

Since we embarked on the business, getting on the show Dragon's Den has always been one of our goals. For us, it was like checking something off your bucket list ; an important step to take in the entrepreneurial world.

Many people's reaction when we told them we were going to the Dragon's Den was, "Wow, that's cool, you're going to be on TV!", but for us, going to the Dragon's Den is more than that. This is a golden opportunity that allows you to open the doors to your business in Quebec to the fullest. It quickly gives a company a lot of visibility and credibility.

Here are the answers to the questions that many of you have asked us several times 🤓

Why are you registering this year and not last year?

Even though it was a goal of ours from the very beginning, we still had to reach a certain level before signing up for the show. We wanted to wait until we were well established in the market, had several points of sale, had different flavors, and were really satisfied with the product before filling out the registration form.

What are the steps to take before going to the film set?

We have completed the online registration form;
We received an email from the dragon team to schedule a phone call to learn more about our business;
We made the phone call with one of the show's researchers who asked several questions about us and the company;
We simulated the sales pitch via “Zoom” in front of the show’s producers and researchers
We received a call confirming that we were booked to do the official recording of the show;
Finally, we received a call that we had been selected to be broadcast on television 3 weeks before our scheduled date, March 24, 2023.

How did you prepare?

We are two pretty last minute girls, so for us, the preparation only started a week before our visit. We know our business so well, we knew what we wanted to say, so we were pretty confident. We practiced our pitch in front of our loved ones, who pretended to be the dragons by asking us different questions. The first and last official practice was March 13 at 8 p.m.😅

Who was the most stressed?

We were lucky in the sense that we didn't feel the stress at the same time. Mathilde was more stressed during the preparation; she was a little more apprehensive about filming.

“ Will not, in situations like this, you experience a total loss of control. You don't know where the conversation is going, you don't know what the people at home are going to think of you or your business, you don't know what's going to be shown on TV. In short, you really don't know anything, which can be extremely distressing." - Mathilde

For Charline, it was completely different. She only started to get stressed as she was backstage preparing to board the set.

“ It was really when I put on my kit that fit with Mathilde that I realized that this was THE moment, that it was going to happen for real. In fact, several people asked us why we were dressed the same way. It’s simple, we were looking for an easy way to distinguish ourselves, so that people would easily remember us.” -Charline

How was the day on set?

When we arrived on set on March 14, we were both like, " Wow, this is so exciting " and " OMG, this is the first time we've been this far in advance!" 😅 » And yes, it's really the first time that we were this far in advance; we arrived at 11 a.m. although we were expected for noon.

We were moving on to third in the afternoon, so we had to be ready by around 3 p.m. The thing about this kind of show is that there is no set schedule, it all depends on the dragons. In our case, we pitched at 5 p.m., so there were more than two hours late. We stayed with the dragons for 45 minutes, presenting our product to them, letting them taste our different flavors and answering all their questions.