How the 'dragons' made their fortunes

Dragons' Den has been a huge hit for the BBC, but are the judges dragons or vultures?

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"I believe there is nothing more harmful to start-ups than the parasitic swarm of advisers that seek to 'mentor' small business with no experience to speak of themselves." The words of Doug Richard, one of the former 'dragons', who has opted out of the eponymous den for the third series of Dragons' Den, BBC2's business reality show.

And while Richard may not have had his former colleagues in mind, the predatory air of the five millionaires - fondling their piles of cash as they listen to the sometimes pathetic pitches of various wannabe business moguls - makes them seem at times less like dragons and more like vultures.

There is no doubting the success of the show, presented by the BBC's economics editor, Evan Davis, which has brought all the best aspects of reality TV to the previously dry area of profit margins, investment and turnover. But is it 'good business'?

"Dragons' Den is fine entertainment for people who like that kind of thing," says Graham Bell, who works with business start-ups with the Prince's Trust in Scotland.

"But does it teach people how to run a business? Categorically no."

Bell says that business advisers and potential investors - which is what the dragons are supposed to be - would never shout down a project after so little exposure to it, adding that it was important to try to really understand a concept before rejecting it.

"Sometimes the stupid ideas work," Bell says. And sometimes the really good ideas bomb, as Rachel Elnaugh would tell you.

Elnaugh is missing from this series of Dragons' Den, largely because her own business crashed in the middle of filming the last series, leaving most of the suppliers to Red Letter Days, her company, owed tens of thousands of pounds and many of her customers disgruntled that their plans for a trip of a lifetime had gone unfulfilled, and leaving them out of pocket, too.

When the company went into administration, it had losses of £4.7million. Elnaugh had started the business in 1989 aged 24.

It was hardly the example of thrusting entrepreneurship that the BBC wanted from its so-called "experts".