Most small businesses would reject an offer from the Dragons

An interesting survey of small business owners suggests that investment offers on Dragon’s Den represent poor value for money.

I’m slightly surprised read that more than six out of ten small to medium sized enterprise (SME) owners say that they would turn down a deal from one of the Dragons on Dragon’s Den.

The research, carried out by UK based accounting software company KashFlow revealed that business owners do not believe that the deals put on the table by the Dragons represent good value for money and would instead turn to banks or private backers for a more reasonable rate or split of the business.

Just under 750 business owners took part in the research and KashFlow also discovered that when it came to reasons why small business owners would accept an offer from the Dragon’s 36% said it was for the experience they would bring to the company.

A further 27% said they would accept in order to try and grow their company, 24% said they would only accept because of the positive public relations opportunities, 6% said they would only accept if they had no option and a few jokers said they would accept an offer from Duncan Bannatyne just to get a discount off his gym fees.