Into the Den
Truro dentist makes pitch on Dragon’s Den
He can’t reveal the outcome but Dr. Anil Makkar will say this – the upcoming premiere of Dragon’s Den is not one to miss.
“It will be an entertaining show, I’ll tell you that,” chuckled Makkar, a Truro dentist who is also a dental consultant and co-inventor of the performanceenhancing athletic mouthpieces produced by New Age Performance Mouthware.
Makkar, along with company CEO/owner Ron Charlton and co-owner Pete Czerwinski – a Canadian competitive eater and YouTube sensation known as Furious Pete – did a taping for the show in April at CBC’S studios in Toronto. The session is to be aired during the show’s season premiere on Sept. 28.
Makkar has been involved with creating performance-enhancing mouthpieces since 2005 and said the opportunity to make a pitch to the CBC dragons has been on his bucket list for the past four years.
After arriving at the CBC studios at 7:30 a.m., the trio spent some time going over their presentation with, and receiving some tips from the show’s producers prior to the start of their taping session around 9 a.m.
“You do not see any of the dragons at all until you actually physically present in front of them,” he said. And, then it was nonstop filming until their segment was done.
“It was very, very intimidating because there’s six dragons this year and that’s all you see is six dragons. And you see bright lights
above them,” he said.
“But as soon as you get into it, it’s almost like you don’t even know the cameras are there. Like, they made you feel that comfortable.”
Many of the New Age Performance clients are body builders, weightlifters and competitive strong men, including American Brian Shaw.
Shaw, who held the title of World’s Strongest Man four times (2011, ’13,’15 and ’16) also attended the taping session to conduct demonstrations by lifting a heavy dumbbell, both with and without a mouthpiece.
“He kind of stole the show because he is so massive,” Makkar said. “The dragons were just in awe of how big he was.”
One of Makkar’s goals in doing the session was to have fun in the process. And that’s one of the biggest pieces of advice he would offer to anyone else with a likeminded goal. That, and ensuring you are well prepared.
“If anybody really wants to go on the Dragon’s Den, number one, you’ve got to have the entrepreneurial spirit. You’ve got to be able to answer those questions that they are going to throw at you,” he said.
You also have to be passionate about your product “because it’s got to show.”
You also have to make sure your product valuation is not too high because that is something “the dragons just don’t like.”
And, don’t go in with a make-it or break-it attitude. Makkar said he and his partners went with the attitude that if they got a deal, great, if they didn’t well … “we’re going to be on the show.”
“It was a good experience,” he said.
Makkar is contractually restricted from revealing whether he and his team were able to strike a deal with dragons. But he did say that anyone watching it will see one of the dragons do something you never thought they would do.
So, expect to be entertained. “It was a good experience,” he said.