Dragon’s Den

08.12.2010

Today, Mr. Sen wanted us to experience a different way of learning, which is learning by role playing instead of just sitting in the class, listening. So we got down to business. There is a recent TV show in Turkey called “Dragon’s Den”. This show primarily serves potential business men and women either willing to startup a business or to expand it. They present their products to some of the top businessmen in Turkey, trying to convince them to invest the money they need to their company so that they have enough funds to do take the necessary actions.

The handout that Mr. Sen handed out consisted two different companies; the first one was an ice-cream company, lacking 80.000$ to startup its business.  The second one was a company named Sound Garage which was willing to expand its business. So the class divided into 3 different groups. A group of 4 people became the investors, 6 people were representing the Sound Garage Company and another 6 was representing that of the ice-cream.

The ice-cream was the first one to go and I was the CEO of the company. We confidently presented our company to the investors, giving out every little detail about our company whilst responding their questions. For almost an hour, we argued and negotiated, considering every factor. The dragons were not so positive about our company at first, but you could tell how their thinking has changed as we approached the end of our discussion.

In this lesson, I learned the way to communicate using the business language and as a result to convince people to what I believe to be true. I learned the negotiation techniques and also a great deal about Dragon’s Den and what type of questions the investors ask to their possible share holders. With this role playing exercise, I intensified my knowledge on the relationship between a private sector company owner and an investor.