When the MyDish founder entered the Dragons' Den, she walked away with healthy investment from a top entrepreneur. Now her recipe-sharing network has signed a social media deal with Tesco
Carol Savage I decided to build MyDish when my husband's mum died and he came back with a caseful of her mementos, including two scraps of paper with her favourite recipes. When I talked to people about it they said, "I wish I had my gran's recipes" and I thought it would be great to have a social media space to store and share recipes. I started the business in 2007 and in 2009 I went on Dragons' Den.
Deborah Meaden I haven't cooked a meal in 25 years so the attraction was not about me liking cooking. But I have heard the amount of conversation that goes on about recipes and everybody has a story about their grandmother's favourite and how to bake the best bread. I understood that there was a real need for somewhere for these people to be able to talk to each other.
CS I went on Dragons' Den because I wanted the money but I also wanted the publicity. I felt that if I got up there on TV and talked to people, even if I was torn apart, at least I would have a platform to be able to shout about MyDish.
DM I spent a lot of time listening to Carol's pitch. I don't think I spoke for about an hour and I was just listening to questions being fired at her and the way she handled them, and I completely got the Facebook-for-foodies idea. The thing that makes Web-based businesses successful is usually the people who are driving them. My investment was as much about Carol as it was about the website itself.
CS I am very good at presenting and I often watch Dragons' Den thinking "if you are so rubbish at presenting, why go on there?" But I just froze and I couldn't even say my name. I felt like I was 4-0 down in a football match and I came back to win only when they started to challenge me on my business, and then I forgot where I was. I could answer the questions and defend what I knew to be true.
DM She got a grilling, but I don't think she at any point let herself down, so I don't think she had to come back, she just had to hang in there and keep answering the questions because she never for a second let it show that it was stressing her. She didn't panic and was very impressive.
CS Deborah asked me intelligent and considered questions that made me understand that she knew what she was talking about and would help me. The more I work with her the more I respect and like her. I think she has been incredibly strategic and she has been hands-off where she needs to be. Where I need her advice is when I have done strategic proposals, I have sent them to her and she has given me comments to make it better as well as helping with PR and marketing.
DM I have invested in 15 businesses and I spend as much time on them as is needed. I rely on a good person knowing when to get me involved and when not to get me involved. I am not there to run the business, but to help maximise the opportunities.
CS Deborah is approachable, direct and honest. There have been times when I have disagreed with her in terms of implementation of activities and I think she has respected the fact that I stood up for what I believed in.
DM Carol is my kind of person. She is full of energy, initiatives and ideas, and she has very good judgement. She often phones me to use me as a sounding board, but it is rare that she won't have the answer herself. She has got very good instinct.
CS Having Deborah on board has made a huge difference. The kind of branding that goes with Dragons' Den adds a huge level of credibility. I did all the negotiations in the deal with Tesco, but without Dragons' Den and Deborah I probably wouldn't even have got through the front door.
DM I have brought profile to the business and a level of confidence. Sometimes you've just got to go for it and if we don't do A, B is not going to happen. I have added a level of confidence to say "guys, let's put our money where our mouth is, we may not see immediate returns but trust me, it will happen".
CS We have 10,000 people looking at our site every day, and we have more than 10,000 recipes and 30,000 members. Within the next year I want to get to 100,000 members and I want to be the place that people go for tried-and-tested recipes. I want to be the biggest and best collection.
