The rest of the Dragons seem to spend their whole lives defending me,” says Deborah Meaden when asked if she’s the victim of harsh editing. The holiday park millionairess and solitary female on BBC’s Dragons’ Den has no qualms about the way she’s represented on the show, but admits it probably only portrays her harsher side.
“I recognise the person I see in the Den, despite it not being the full rounded me,” she says. “But I’m there to decide what is and isn’t a good investment, not to win a Miss Congeniality contest.”
Is there a trace of misogyny attached to her austere reputation? “I do sometimes think the same words coming out of a woman’s mouth can sound harsher, but I try to avoid the gender issue,” she replies. “I spend as little time as possible wondering what people think of me.”
Meaden sold her final stake in Weststar Holidays, her “career business”, in 2007 after two decades at the helm, resulting in a final price tag of £83m. Her time is now split between her investments, both in and out of the Den, and striving towards an ambition she shares with her husband: to become self-sufficient. The couple own a farm in Somerset and haven’t bought meat or veg for the best part of a year.
Independence day
The idea of self-sufficient living is one that Meaden’s mirrored in business, despite making her name running a company her parents started. Before taking over as operations manager in 1988, she had enjoyed a varied and somewhat unexpected career far removed from the security of the family firm.
Meaden grew up in a household that “constantly talked about opportunity” and from an early age, the idea of working for someone else was an alien concept. After graduating from business school, a short stint as a sales room model in a fashion showroom reinforced the notion that she simply was not made to take orders. But as with everything else she recalls from her past, regret doesn’t get a look in, merely an acceptance that it led to where she is now.
Meaden applied for the job to be with a boyfriend in London, despite knowing she didn’t fit the bill, but managed to talk the employer round even though she was five inches too short. Hating it from the start, she stuck it out for a few months, but when some friends asked her to come and stay with them in Italy, she jumped at the chance. It was there, at the age of 19, she embarked on her entrepreneurial career.
With no start-up capital to invest, Meaden made the most of her surroundings. Impressed by the range of Italian ceramics and glassware, she decided to set up an import agency.
“I walked into the manufacturers’ offices and asked if I could be their distribution agent in the UK,” she recalls. “Some laughed, but four of them didn’t.”
With these clients on her books, Meaden secured deals with some of the biggest names in retail, including Harrods and Harvey Nichols, but after the first load of stock was delivered to the UK, the interest from the Italian manufacturers dried up. With relationships with some of the UK’s best-known stores established, the Italian companies started selling to them directly, cutting Meaden out of the equation.
“I had grounds to take legal action, but I decided it wasn’t the best use of my time,” she says. “I hadn’t really lost any money and I realised the sensible thing was to shut the business down. I’ve always been practical in that way.”
Franchise queen
Meaden returned to the UK and set up one of the first Stefanel franchises with a friend. The fashion brand provided her first real education in the process of running a physical business, and gave her valuable insight into the nature of seasonal trade patterns. The venture was a financial success, but the honeymoon period ended quickly. The franchise model was ultimately unsatisfying, and wanting to take on something she could feel more in control of, she sold her share to her business partner for £10,000. “That was the first time I actually had any money,” she recalls.
With one failure and one success story under her belt, Meaden turned her hand to the industry that would eventually allow her to make her mark – the holiday park business. She ran a bingo concession at Butlins – an “extremely customer-facing business”, which taught her to recognise exactly what the punter wants and how to give it to them. “I did it all,” she says. “I collected the cash, I cleaned the machine and, yes, I called the bingo numbers. I underestimated it at the beginning, but that job taught me more about business than I’ve learned in the rest of my life.”
By this point Meaden had remained outside the family business. Although she had spent a few months working with the family after college, her fierce independent streak had won out, and it wasn’t until she’d gained her own experience that she felt ready to return. Today, she credits much of the business’ success to that decision. “When I came back, the relationship was totally different,” she explains. “I had lots of options, so it was a negotiation between me and my parents. You need that gap. If you go straight from education into a family business, your parents see you as their child and won’t judge you on your business skills.”
Taking control
Meaden took the family business from an amusement arcade and a few retail and food outlets to a multi-million pound holiday park empire. She became concerned early on with the concession model her parents had fostered. As with the Stefanel franchise, her strong need for personal ownership kicked in. It wasn’t enough that the concession outlets were profitable. Meaden needed complete control, and the purchase of the company’s first holiday park provided just that. Over the next few years, the concessions were phased out, and the Weststar brand emerged, quickly taking on more sites.
