The Bearded Dragon’s Den
SUSSEX – A New Brunswick entrepreneur took his product (and his beard) into the Dragon’s Den this past spring. Next month, you’ll see how it all went down.
Matthew White, founder of Sussex Beard Oil Merchants, will be appearing on the CBC show airing on Nov. 11.
Fifty-three-year-old White founded Sussex Beard Oil Merchants three years ago. The company designs, markets and sells grooming products for men, particularly men with admirable beards.
White heard the show would be holding auditions in Saint John from an email from Breathru, an entrepreneurship competition run by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation.
“I laughed at that and I thought ‘who in their right mind would do this?'” White said.
So he went to the audition.
“It was a combination of having an idea I’m excited about and daring myself to see how far I can take it. At the time realizing if I’m going to take this any further, I’ve got to do things that I normally would not do,” White says.
It went well, and White was picked to go to Toronto to pitch to the most frightening business people on television. With help from friends, he prepared for the rigorous pitch that would either go really well, or become something that haunts his dreams.
“I had a good friend who came the night before I left for Toronto and made me go over the pitch so much that I was almost sick,” White says. “I’m so glad he did that because I think I would have completely died.”
White pitched the Dragons with Jesse Hayman, director of Community Engagement for Movember Canada, at his side with a full beard to show his product’s magic. Though he obviously can’t reveal whether or not he got any of the Dragons to invest, he says the Dragons are actually quite nice.
“I didn’t know if it was just me or if it happened to everybody, but I felt wonderfully treated through the whole process,” White says. “I felt so welcomed, so received. It was exactly what I needed to have happen. The interaction, the response from the Dragons, the beard feeling that went on, there was some dancing… at one point I forgot I was there to pitch.”
White says the whole experience showed him that he was on the right track, that his product was worth the passion and the hard work.
“It got me to see a bigger picture in what I’m doing. It gave me a sense of validity for what I’m doing. It pushed me to be able to test my convictions about my product before some people who were really hard to talk to,” he says.
“I already felt the way I did about the product that we had, but it just cemented that even more.”