SARA Davies has never been your typical Dragon on the hit BBC show.
Ever since she joined in 2019, Sara has shown a softer, friendlier approach to potential entrepreneurs entering the Den than her fellow businessmen and women.
In one episode from her first year on the show, Sara was left in tears alongside Touker Suleyman as they listened to entrepreneur Will Chew deliver his pitch.
Will wanted an investment of £50,000 funding and support for his brand Mak Tok’s Authentic Chilli Pastes.
The pastes were inspired by his mother’s own recipe and Will sang about setting up his condiment business while playing the guitar.
He told the Dragons how he missed his mother’s cooking and Malaysian chilli paste while he studied in the UK, so she sent him some ingredients to make his own.
He then teamed up with his cousin to turn it into a business.
The performance won applause from the Dragons, and Will explained how he hoped to expand the business into supermarkets and on to different countries.
But he moved the Dragons further after Sara asked why he had come on the show.
Will said: “Your expertise and your contacts. I suffer from social anxiety, so I’m not the best person to go out there and talk to people and I’m not great at phoning up people. I get really, really scared to do that.
“But what I can do is stand in front of people and tell people about my product and my little story.”
Sadly, the Dragons didn’t want to invest in the business, apart from Sara, who told Will: “When I came into the Den, I set myself some clear parameters. This is everything I said that I wouldn’t do.
“I really want to make this work with you”
“There’s loads of chilli pastes but there’s only one Will, and I think you are great.
“I just, I love you and I really want to make this work with you.”
As she welled up, she told him: “I just think someone needs to give you that break.”
She then offered him all of the money – £50,000 – for a third of the business, rather than the 20 percent Will had originally offered.
An emotional Will accepted the offer, and according to Insider Growth, at the time of writing the business is worth £500,000.
Dragons’ Den is available on BBC iPlayer.
