With
her blunt approach, straight talking and razor-sharp business sense,
Deborah Meaden has been dubbed the female Alan Sugar. She’s been a
regular fixture on TV’s Dragons’ Den panel, investing 21 times since she
joined in 2006 and becoming one of the most feared, and admired,
dragons of the series.
Meaden had revealed an impressive business
head from an early age; when she was seven she set up a flower stall on a
neighbour’s drive, as she realised the location was better. By 11 she
was working at summer jobs to buy a pony and pay for its livery, and at
16 she left school in Essex to study business at Brighton Technical
College.
Like Sugar, Meaden skipped university and went into business, launching her own glass import company at the age of 19.
Despite
having little capital and almost no experience, she quickly began
supplying upmarket stores including Harvey Nichols. Then the business
ran into problems. Despite having sole agency rights, its goods began
appearing in other high-street shops, and after 18 months Meaden
realised that it was time to walk away. It was, she says, an important
lesson that laid the groundwork for future business success.
“I
consider it a failure to slog on with a business that is going to die
sooner rather than later. And that’s a skill I’ve had from my very early
days. It’s difficult to realise that you’re not going to make any money
out of something. A lot of people are blinded. They think, ‘I’d feel
like a failure’.”
Meaden’s first business may have been a failure,
but it stands out as one of the few blips in an otherwise exemplary
career. After walking away from the export company, she went on to
invest in a series of small enterprises, including one of the first
Stefanel textile franchises in the UK, before joining family holiday
park operator Weststar Holidays. Seven years later, she led a management
buyout and acquired the majority shareholding in the business.
That
was in 1999. By 2007, the firm had sold to Alchemy Partners for £83m
and it remains one of Meaden’s most successful turnarounds to date. It
also gave her the capital and the credibility to establish herself on
the Dragons’ Den panel, a move which allowed her to get stuck into what
she does best – investing in up-and-coming enterprises.
“I have
agreed 30 investments totalling nearly £2m since being on the show and
there are plenty more to come,” she says. “Oddly, I get criticised for
never investing but factually only Theo has agreed more offers than me
when you take into account how many series we have all been in.”
Meaden’s
current investments range from the sophisticated (The Merchant Fox, an
online store she launched at the end of 2011, selling British-made
luxury goods) to the bizarre (Billy and Margot, a start-up that sells
‘iced treats for dogs’).
She often shows particular interest in
environmental or charitable enterprises; her portfolio includes a
solar-power company based in the West Country and a system called
Ecoinomy that incentivises employees to save company resources by giving
a percentage of the savings to their chosen charity. When her schedule
allows, she also involves herself in charitable initiatives.
She
leads a somewhat hectic existence between her Georgian farm in Somerset,
her home in London, where she conducts business meetings, and
Manchester, where Dragons’ Den is now filmed. The fact that she can
co-ordinate her hectic life is down to her husband of 20 years, Paul,
who runs the domestic side of their life. “He organises our social life
and keeps the farm running.” He is also a fabulous cook, a good thing as
Meaden is barely able to make a sandwich for herself and, left to her
own devices, eats pickles directly out of the jar.
“There are times
when I get the balance wrong, but mostly I have a nice life,” she says.
“I get to meet the most amazing people and, when I want to, I can just
relax.”
Her desire to encourage small, worthwhile start-ups and to
inspire up-and-coming entrepreneurs has motivated her to write a book
aimed at aspiring business people. Common Sense Rules is part
autobiography and part business bible; a guide for entrepreneurs that
draws on Meaden’s own experiences for illustration. It was written, she
says, not just to offer advice, but to explore the mindset that many
entrepreneurs have in common. “Put in a nutshell, the entrepreneurial
mind is founded on that least common of commodities – common sense. And
it tells you when you need to forge ahead and when you should cut your
losses.
“The fact is that true entrepreneurs never stop learning from their own successes and failures, and from one another.”
Meaden’s
business approach marries self-confidence and a willingness to listen
to the ideas and perspective of others. She puts her success down to her
cool, critical attitude, which ensures that she stays focussed at
important moments. She also characterises herself as ‘extremely honest’
and admits that this can sometimes come across as harsh, particularly in
the context of Dragons’ Den. However, she’s also big enough to admit
that her innate ‘straightforwardness’ can sometimes be a weakness. “I
don’t suffer fools gladly and at times I know I can be too blunt. When I
was MD of Weststar it was my job to get the best out of people. My
direct style meant that I ended up with robust people because I’m robust
myself. If I have a weakness, it’s probably that I’ve lost some good
people who didn’t thrive in that environment.”
Her TV persona is
famously hard-hitting and feisty, so it might come as a surprise to
learn that Meaden has a softer side. In her spare time, she enjoys
pottering with her horses and has a passion for art and antiques that
often sees her trawling reclamation yards and junk shops.
“I’m a
very straightforward person and would find it impossible to be something
I’m not. It’s a serious business investing money and I’m not aid of
telling it as it is, if needs be. Having said that, it’s the true me in
one specific situation, so it’s not a full and rounded picture. I’m
aware that I can come across as quite tough and serious,” she says
wistfully, “and I don’t really have a problem with that. I just hope
that people realise that there’s more to me than they see on
television.”
Photo credit: Rex Features
(Article published courtesy of Stream Publishing.)
This was first published in the July/August issue of CN. Any comments? E-mail conferencenews@mashmedia.net
