Creative types tempt CBC’s Dragons
Cher General is brimming with ideas. Ideas she hopes will get her an invite into the dragons’ lair.
The former St. Catharines resident was among dozens of people who attended an audition for the popular CBC television show Dragons’ Den on Saturday at Scotiabank Convention Centre in Niagara Falls.
“I’m not really like a lot of the people here,” General said before she pitched her ideas to producers from the show.
“I don’t have a business plan. I just have ideas and want to know if my ideas are something worth pursuing.”
While one of her pitches was for a key fob that can be used in place of quarters on grocery carts, the aspiring entrepreneur’s main goal was to win over the Dragons with an idea for a mobile app that links people with native culture, specifically native food.
“I want people to be able to feast from the forest,” General said with a smile. “I want a platform to connect people with native food because, right now, there’s nothing else out there.”
The app, to be called Native Tra’Dish,’ would be a platform for videos and recipes and could be expanded to include other aspects of native culture.
General, who lives on Six Nations near Brantford, came up with idea of the app while working at her family catering business.
“We don’t have business cards. We don’t have a website. It’s all word of mouth and it’s a very prosperous business. My mother, grandmother and great-grandmother are very traditional. They don’t like to boast but I realize that we need to change with the times.”
Using the latest technology to share traditional native dishes with the world is the reason she auditioned for Dragons’ Den.
“I’m not tech-savvy,” she said. “I need their assistance. They know how to get things done.
“I’d compare it to back in the day when we had Thanksgiving and the pilgrims came and natives fed them and cured them of scurvy,” she said. “Well, today I’m coming to them and I want them to teach me their ways, just like our people did with them back in the day.”
The auditions were open to all ages and inventions and ideas at any stage of development. Many in the crowd travelled from outside Niagara to participate in the auditions.
Successful applicants will be invited onto the show to face the scrutiny of the Dragons, said producer Bernice Kim.
“If we find someone who has something we think the Dragons would like to invest in, then they go on to the next stage,” she said.
Niagara Falls was one of the last stops on the 36-city audition tour of Canada.
“We’re looking for people with high energy and we’re looking for anything new and exciting that we haven’t done before,” said producer Kerry Cuthbert.
People selected to be on Dragons’ Den will pitch their business concepts and products to a panel of Canadian business moguls — Jim Treliving, Joe Mimran, Michele Romanow, Michael Wekerle and Manjit Minhas,
Previous auditions in Niagara have seen people pitch such things as hemp snack food and glow-inthe-dark toilet seats.