Do you have a million-dollar idea brewing in your basement? Do you think you have what it takes to be Canada’s next top business mogul? Now’s the time to find out—on DRAGONS’ DEN. After a successful 2006 fall-season debut, CBC Television confirmed the highly anticipated return of the series this fall.

DRAGONS’ DEN auditions are slated to take place in major cities across the country, starting Tuesday, April 10. Detailed information about auditions, updated locations and tips on how to pitch your business are available at www.cbc.ca/dragonsden. Aspiring entrepreneurs may also apply online by going to the DRAGONS’ DEN website and filling out an application form.

ONTARIO

KINGSTON:

April 10 

St. Lawrence College

100 Portsmouth Ave

Entrance E-12, Room (12210)

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

KITCHENER/WATERLOO:

April 11

The Accelerator Centre

Waterloo Research & Technology Park Accelerator 295 Hagey Blvd.

12 p.m. – 5 p.m.

LONDON:

April 12

London Small Business Centre

316 Rectory St, 3rd Floor

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

TORONTO:

April 14 and May 5

CBC Atrium

250 Front Street West

11 p.m. – 5 p.m.

WESTERN CANADA

Edmonton:

April 18

CBC Edmonton, Centre Stage

10062 102 Avenue

123 Edmonton City Centre East

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Calgary:

April 20 and 21

CBC Calgary

1724 Westmount Blvd. N.W.

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

ATLANTIC CANADA

Moncton:

April 24

Crowne Plaza Hotel

Acadian Lounge

1005 Main St.

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

SUMMERSIDE:

April 25

Slemon Park Hotel and Conference Centre

The Heritage Room

12 Redwood Avenue

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Charlottetown:

April 26

Rodd Royalty Inn & Suites

The Island Room

Intersection of Highways 1 & 2

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

St. John’s:

April 27 and 28

CBC St. John’s

95 University Avenue

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

“We’re looking forward to another great season of Dragons’ Den,” said Kirstine Layfield, CBC executive director of network programming. “We invite anyone who has an idea, big or small, to come out and pitch. The strength and creativity of those ideas is what makes the show so engaging.”

DRAGONS’ DEN gives budding entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their ideas to a panel of wealthy businesspeople, otherwise known as the Dragons, on national television. The prize is real money and real investment from the Dragons’ own pockets.

CBC Television’s Dianne Buckner returns to host the series. DRAGONS’ DEN is based on the successful format that has taken the U.K., Japan, Australia and now Canada by storm.

The executive producer of DRAGONS’ DEN is Stuart Coxe and the senior producer is Tracie Tighe.

TORONTO (CP) _ The CBC has added two more episodes of "Dragons’ Den," the series that documents would-be entrepreneurs from across Canada as they pitch their brainstorms to a panel of successful business moguls.

The public broadcaster is also re-running the show’s debut episode in the hopes of attracting more viewers. "Dragon’s Den" is already the fastest-growing program in the CBC’s schedule, getting a total of 657,000 viewers when the show aired last Wednesday and then repeated again on Thursday and Sunday.

The inaugural show will be rebroadcast next Wednesday, Nov. 15, and features, among other would-be business gurus, a Toronto woman trying to sell the "Dragons" on her idea for napping centres aimed at overworked office workers. The show is a Canadian version of a British series of the same name, and features a parade of Donald Trump wannabes trying to convince the panel they’ve got a great idea.

One brainchild? A so-called snow limo developed by two Whistler brothers aimed at people who don’t ski or snowboard but might also enjoy whizzing down the slopes.

"The last time I saw a piece of equipment like that was in Silence of the Lambs," Laurence Lewin, co-founder/ president of lingerie chain La Senza, said of the limo.

By Mike Zembowski

Finally, CBC may have a hit show, or at least one with potential to gain an interested Canadian audience. It’s based on the original BBC formulae. Each entrepreneur can pitch their big idea to a panel of major league investors for a specified amount of funding. If the entrepreneur can convince one or more of the Dragons to meet that specified amount (usually in exchange for shares of their company), the entrepreneur walks away with the cash. If the entrepreneurs find themselves short of the specified amount of funding, they lose it all.

Each entrepreneur is free to bargain with the Dragons in order to get the specified level of funding. Lastly, a new spin on reality television, these Canadian Dragons are playing with their own money. It is not sponsored, nor funded by the government, CBC has raised the bar, and it is about time. 

What exactly the dragons are looking for when it comes to investing seems to vary amongst them. We asked Robert Herjavec if there is anything about the individual he looks for, or is it all about the product? 

“Yeah, you want someone who is very passionate and very motivated, but not at the break of lunacy. We had a lady the other day who was really passionate and really into her product, which you want, until we said no to her and she broke down crying and went a little hysterical…so I would say she was over the line, but not too much, because it is so hard to start a business you want someone who is going to work twenty four hours a day.”

Jennier Wood explains, 

“It is important to gain a sense of trust and feel a connection with that person, that you will have a good working relationship and then if they got a product that make sense.”

The set of Dragons Den has the feel of a dungeon shot at the Historical Distillery district cellar may put the contestants at even more of a disadvantage as they are led down a narrow flight of stairs and walk a long path leading into “the Den.”

The Dragons are themselves all entrepreneurs who have been previously successful in business:

• Robert Herjavec, During the initial stages of the dot com craze, he launched BRAK systems, which soon became Canada’s top provider of Internet security software worth a reported $100-hundred million dollars. Robert sold his company to AT&T in 2000.

• Laurence Lewin, co-founder and president of national women’s lingerie chain La Senza Corp.

• Jim Treliving, the former R.C.M.P. officer who founded Boston Pizza franchise. 

• Jennifer Wood, a bush pilot, Alberta cattle rancher and businesswoman, led one of Western Canada’s oldest cattle buying, financing and feeding businesses. She then co-founded Cattle & Co. Investments Inc, a company that specializes in cattle feeding and financing.

• Kevin O’Leary, co-founder of The Learning Company, a world leader in the development of educational, reference and home productivity software that was sold to The Mattel Co. in 1999 for $3.2 billion.

The program has been extremely successful in the United Kingdom, and is currently in its third season. Now it’s time for Canadian ingenuity and entrepreneurship to take the stage. The Dragons have each committed to invest a minimum of $200,000 of their own — not their firm’s — money, during the show. Lewin is actually investing someone else’s money because, as head of a publicly traded firm, his board considers outside investments a conflict of interest, he explained.

Dragons Den has attracted major sponsorship support from companies like Cadillac and Sony. Be sure to catch the season premier Wednesday October 4, 8pm and for more information on the dragons or how to apply as a contestant for season 2, visit the CBC website www.cbc.ca/dragonsden.