In the history of the CBC, there has rarely been a surefire formula for success. Hits for the network have been random to say the least, ranging from the kid-friendly programming of Mr. Dressup, to the fluff of Little Mosque On the Prairie, to the cutting-edge satire of This Hour Has 22 Minutes or The Kids in the Hall.

Originally developed in Japan, Dragons' Den takes everyday entrepreneurs and inventors and puts them in front of a five-person panel, made up of potential investors. The format has been a huge ratings draw in its various international incarnations, but its eventual Canadian success was not certain. After a disastrous first season, re-tooling and word of mouth turned it into the highest-rated program on the network.

To kick off its sixth season, TORO sat down with Dragon Robert Herjavec, a software mogul who immigrated with his family from Croatia as a child, to get some behind-the-scenes details. We learn about how being a weirdo can doom your business, trusting your instincts, and the only country where the show has never caught on.

Q: How much does the personality of a pitcher influence your judgment of them?

A: A lot. Right away, you pick up on a vibe. They’ve got to engage you. Sometimes we all understand (an idea), and it’s a great product, but from a weird guy...

[A knock at the door - a basket of new products is delivered to the dressing room]

Q: What is this? You get to sample everything?
A: This is all the stuff we see on the show. And this is just one of three boxes. I take it all home to my kids. I take it home, I’m really excited, I show it to my wife, and she throws it all in the garbage!

[Robert roots through the box]

Every one of these things, even the crazy ones ... condoms as gifts, this pork-barbecue thing, soaps, an artist making things out of duct tape, you name it...

[He retrieves a small cardboard box shaped and designed to look like a barn]

...cardboard boxes made in this shape. Somebody spent $100,000 to make a mould of this. What’s the problem with this?

Q: It looks like it would break easily.
A: That’s problem number one. But how do you ship 100 of them? They don’t stack!

Q: One of the great appeals of the show, for me, is watching you listen to an idea that is so obviously wrong, or that you feel is wrong, and seeing your nonverbal expressions of contempt.
A: But sometimes, we’re genuinely surprised, shocked.

Q: After they relax and clarify the idea?
A: Rule number one is, you’ve got to be engaging. [The Dragons] rarely agree on everything, but we often agree on what is a bad pitch. And someone who is rude, or arrogant, or who doesn’t engage us, rarely gets a deal.

Q: How important is that in the actual business world? There must be some people who have the ideas, and the knowledge, but just can’t engage others on a dynamic level.
A: That’s a great question. There’s no stone, like the Blarney Stone in Ireland, that you can kiss to get the gift of gab. Schmoozing, being charming, is very critical. Being able to communicate with people, because if you can’t do that, how are you going to engage them?

Q: But in this case, not every pitch you hear is from an experienced salesperson. A lot of these people are coming from small towns, building ideas on their own.
A: Everyone’s a salesperson. At its most primal, you’ve got five people that you need to sell to. Sales isn’t just about selling a car, or another product; it’s about selling me on you. On your idea, on your business.

Q: You must think, then, “How is this person going to get into the market if they can’t get past me?”
A: You know, (co-Dragon) Brett (Wilson) is the nice guy. He’s always giving people way more credit than I ever would. But even he will say “I let (the other Dragons) talk to (the pitchers) that way, because if you can’t cut it with all five of us, how are you going to cut it in the real world?”

Some people call it gut feeling. You know, I got on a flight the other day, and my gut feeling said, “Don’t get on.” And we almost crashed [Laughs].

Q: How much of your success is owed to gut feeling?
A: I think, as you get older, you develop a sense of instinct based on making a lot of mistakes. Some people are born with great instinct, but I wasn’t. I made a lot of mistakes. I was very lucky that none of my mistakes killed me, from a business perspective. I tried to limit the mistakes to a manageable point.

Q: Most of the people that pitch to you seem very nervous.
A: It is very nerve-wracking.

Q: Do you think they feel like, if they don’t make it with the Dragons, they won’t get another big chance?
A: I think that’s part of it. The show is a huge success now, we’re the number one show on CBC. Pitchers have the potential to make a lot of money, to take their business to another level, but they also have the potential to go in front of millions of viewers and make fools of themselves.

Q: They all must sense, now, that they’re not just pitching to the five of you.
A: This year, we’re calling it the Dragons’ Den Effect. We’ve become the Canadian Idol for business. [We show] the good and the bad.

We had a guy come out last week, and almost get into a fight with Jim.

Q: A physical confrontation?
A: Yeah! And Jim’s a big guy. As this guy left, he looked at the producer and said, “Wow, I really fucked that up.”

Q: But the publicity itself is appealing. I’ve watched your show with people, who’ve seen you turn down ideas, and they'll shout at the screen, “That’s a great idea! I’d buy that!”
A: Absolutely. We’ve seen hugely successful products that we turned down. That audience almost guarantees you a certain amount of sales.

Q: There has to be a default boost through the exposure alone.
A: For sure, a huge premium.

Q: What do you think appeals to so many people about the show?
A: I always use my wife as the “average TV viewer.” She’s not a businessperson, she’s a doctor, so I say, if we can engage her, we’ve got a hit. It’s business for the everyman. In the first year, we had a lot of computer stuff, which I generally know. But we realized the questions I asked were really boring. Nobody cares. If the camera followed me all day at work, it wouldn’t be very good TV.

So, firstly, people get to see how five very successful people make these decisions. Secondly, everybody believes they’re one idea away from a million bucks. The better mousetrap.

Q: Do you feel like you’re representing the business world?
A: I think, between the five of us, you’re getting the entire gamut of a business environment. The altruistic, the mean ... and you’re seeing those characters in different people at different times.

And I think we’re making business kind of cool. All my son’s friends think I’m cool, and they all want to go into business. I never wanted to go into business when I was 15.

Q: How did you get involved with the show, initially? It must not have been for the money or the exposure.
A: Yeah, don’t even ask what we get paid here. Some do it for the exposure. Look at Jim (Treliving), and how often we mention Boston Pizza. And Kevin with his O’Leary Funds.

CBC just called me six years ago, and that was it. We did the first season, and our ratings were so bad. Our producer gave us a big hug and said, “Great working with you guys this season!” We thought we were done.

Q: With your experience in the ups and downs of business, you must have been optimistic.
A: TV is a completely different game.

Q: So what happened?
A: Take a look at what’s happening with the American version [titled Shark Tank]. What’s the difference? In America, they want you to be a hit right now. I don’t mean tomorrow, or next week. Now. When our first episode came out, they were on pins and needles; “If you don’t hit this number, you’re off the air.” I said, “Come on, you’re not really going to pull the show?” And they’re like, “Yeah, we’ll pull the show.” The difference here is that they let it develop. The show wasn’t strong enough in the first season to capture an audience. But with word of mouth, people got to know it. It’s a great show, produced very well. And people found it. In the States, people don’t give you that time.

You know, the format has worked in every country it’s run in except Australia.

Q: What went wrong in Australia?
A: I don’t know. The Dragons were pretty funky-looking. They had one guy with a mohawk.  

Q: What stereotypes do you think you’re breaking through, things viewers might associate negatively with the rich and successful?
A: I think we have humility. Not many of us are arrogant. I’m sure we have days where we are tired and aloof, but it’s hard to be arrogant when you come from nothing. The other thing is: it’s possible to make money without an MBA, without being in the financial services world. You’ve got a guy with a pizza chain, a guy with a computer business. Both of us started with nothing.

Q: Are people unwilling to give up the lure of ego and personal status? Do they want to make money, or do they really want to be the next Steve Jobs?
A: People want the end-result of money, without the journey. I was like that too when I was younger, but I really had no vision when I was 18. I wanted the Ferrari, the Rolex, all the cool stuff. People would say, “What do you want to do with your life?” And I’d say, “I want to be rich!”

Then I met a friend, who told me that I had to find something that I loved to do. Something I loved so much, that if I did it every day, and looked back at the end of my life, and didn’t make a lot of money, I’d still look back and say, “I’m glad I did that.”

Q: Do you engage with people, in a motivational sense, outside of Dragons’ Den?
A: I used to do a lot of speeches. We all get approached by agencies to go out and talk.  I do it more now, because I’ve got a book coming out, and it’s great PR.

Q: There’s a boom of that now. “Come to my seminar, and you’ll learn how to make a million dollars!”
A: Big industry. Here’s my issue with that: if you’ve never made a million dollars, why the hell are you telling me how to do it? We’ve had people come in, and that’s their business: motivational stuff. We say, “Have you ever made any money?” “No...”

Q: “But I will!”
A: Oh, yeah. “I’ll be worth millions of dollars!” Yeah, if I give you a million.

Q: Is there any benefit to those seminars?
A: No one can motivate someone who doesn’t want to be motivated. Everything like that, for me, is a catalyst, a spark. Fires you up. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. If you go to stuff like that in order to get inspired, that’s great. But I don’t subscribe to the whole, “Just believe, and it will happen” thing. You’ve got to believe, but you’ve got to work hard.

My father, who passed away recently, worked in a factory for 40 years. And he told me, “As long as you work hard, you’ll never be poor.” The flip side of that is, just because you work hard, it doesn’t mean you’ll be rich.  

Q: What is the biggest mistake people make in their pitches to you?
A: Unrealistic valuations. People stand up and say, “I’ve invented a cardboard box!” And I think they said their company was worth a million dollars. Crazy.

The sixth season of Dragons’ Den starts Wednesday, September 22, at 8 p.m., on CBC.

Robert Herjavec’s new book Driven hits stores September 21, via HarperCollins Publishers.


Related: Dragons’ Den online