Lessons from Dragons Den

Laura Bartlett is the award winning founding editor and publisher of global magazine House of Coco, sold all over the world as well as in store at Harrods and Selfridges. Having built the business in her twenties from the ground-up, with zero investment, Laura is a leading voice for young female entrepreneurs and a larger than life example of failure breeding strength.
From being ridiculed by Peter Jones on Dragons Den at the age of 25, she is now in demand from brands all over the world, living her dream life.
Here our fave badass boss babe, and a founder member of LSN Group, shares what the Dragons Den experience taught her:

I appeared on Dragons Den in 2013, 25 years old and so confident with my pitch idea there was no way I wasn’t walking out of there without the investment.

Until that point, I’d run my magazine with ease, starting it with nothing and becoming Leeds’ most talked about Fashion Magazine within two years – no-one had ever told me ‘no’ before…until I stepped in to the Den!

If you ever need to be brought back down to earth, I recommend doing it on national TV in front of millions of viewers.  I’d particularly recommend having Peter Jones annihilate you to the point that you start crying in the lift, which, by the way doesn’t even move.

It was a huge learning curve for me, and here’s the top three things the experience taught me…

1 – Sometimes you need to be told no 

If you are running a business and things are going smoothly, everybody says yes and nobody challenges you, you’re probably living inside your comfort zone – and we all know that nothing grows from there. 

Having people tell you no will make you try harder, fight more for what you believe in, and ultimately make you raise the bar. 

2 – You can make a positive out of any negative situation 

No, I didn’t get the investment, but I did get exposed to a mass audience meaning that I not only gained a load of really supportive followers, I also got offered a whole host of opportunities.  I’m still dining out on the fact that I appeared on the show and it’s so many years ago! People still recognise me from it (I blame my huge curly blonde afro for that) and opportunities still come in the back of it. 

3 – It’s so rewarding to prove people wrong 

My company, House of Coco, is living proof that the Dragons didn’t get it right with me. As the third largest seller out of 4000 titles on newsstand.co.uk, stockists that include Harrods and Selfridges and now available on Readly to their nine million subscribers, we’re doing pretty good! 

It’s a platform that has allowed me and #TeamCoco to live our best lives in every single country around the world, and gain experiences that I could only have dreamed of back then.

The best bit?  I did what people told me I couldn’t. 

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