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| Venture Capital: the game show |
November 8, 2007 |
Entrepreneurs get a shot at millions on CBC's Dragon's Den
By Mike Beggs
Robert Herjavec is a rich guy. He sold his IT security firm during the dot.com craze for a cool $100 million and his new venture, The Herjavec Group, has been called Canada’s fastest-growing information technology company. So Herjavec is smart and business savvy, yet when three guys pitched him on the idea of selling plastic banana carriers he was not too impressed. “I thought those guys were whacked,” he recalls. But then he learned all three are surgeons from Vancouver and “they’ve sold 5,000 (units) in the U.K.”
That experience just about sums up the clash between the art and science of business that forms the basis of CBC’s popular Dragon’s Den. The show sees hopeful Canadians pitch their ideas to a panel of business tycoons. The five Dragons bring pocketfuls of their own cash—$3 million in total—and an entrepreneur with a good idea and a solid business plan can walk away with a handful of that.
The other Dragons are Laurence Lewin, co-founder and president of the La Senza lingerie chain; Kevin O’Leary, host of RO B-TV’s SqueezePlay, who made his first fortune when he sold The Learning Company to Mattel for $3.7 billion; Boston Pizza owner Jim Treliving; and Dragon newcomer Arlene Dickinson, president and CEO of marketing communications firm Venture Communications.
Along with the banana pitch, the first show of season two also saw a fitness instructor who almost got $300,000 to manufacture an exercise machine and a man who wanted funding to get women in bikinis to read technology news on TV. He told the Dragons he would make revenue by projecting ads on the womens’ bikini tops. The tycoons unanimously hated the pitch, with Dickinson calling it “the dumbest idea I have ever heard.”
But even with the awful ideas, Herjavec said it’s important to stay away from the snarkiness that infuses American Idol judging. “Ideas come from failure over time, so I think you’ve got to inspire the individual. There’s no need to put people down.”
But yes or no, the Dragon’s Den pitch experience can be useful for entrepreneurs. “As Canadians we tend to be a little wall-flowerish and not aggressive enough. The reality of business is it’s brutal, and you’ve got to get out there.”
 Popular Xbox titles moving over to Windows PCs
By Peter Wolchak
Microsoft will tell anyone who asks that PCs are the most popular gaming platform on the planet, despite healthy sales of the company’s own Xbox consoles and the phenomenal performance of its recently released Halo 3 game. That console game recently raked in US$170 million in sales in the United States on its launch day alone, trouncing the one-day revenue records previously held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the Spider Man 3 movie.
But with even more gamers playing on PCs than on consoles, Microsoft is moving to release some of its most popular Xbox games on the Windows platform. As part of the new Games for Windows brand, Microsoft promises that crossover Xbox/PC games will share similar game play, graphics and scoring, so it won’t matter which machine you and your buddies use to frag aliens.
Gears of War for PCs (above) will probably be on sale as you read this and, although Microsoft would not confirm this, Halo 3 should hit Windows soon.
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Young Triffie
This is a very Canadian movie: Canadian director, Canadian actors (including Rémy Girard, Colin Mochrie and Corner Gas’ Fred Ewanuik) and a Canadian setting, Newfoundland’s isolated Swyers’ Harbour. It is also a very good movie: funny script, quirky characters and a solid murder mystery.
So take this opportunity to support Canadian movie making while also landing a good film. Approximately $30.
30 Rock, season 1
When 30 Rock won this year’s Emmy for Best Comedy, creator and star Tina Fey thanked the show’s “dozens of viewers” for watching. Fey’s a comedian and was exaggerating for chuckles, but if you’re not one of those dozens pick up season 1 for about $45. The show is well written and has a New York feel in the same way Sex and the City did.
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