Sara Davies: Dragons' Den star on what entrepreneurs need to succeed
Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Channel 4 News
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Entrepreneur, investor, and former Dragon’s Den star Sara Davies has spent 20 years building businesses and helping others do the same. She started her company, Crafter’s Companion, while still at university and turned it into a global brand. But as she tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy, success isn’t just about strategy - it’s about mindset.
It’s a theme she explores in her latest book, The Six-Minute Entrepreneur, which distills the lessons of her own journey into advice for anyone looking to succeed.
In this episode of Ways to Change the World, she reflects on the challenges facing small businesses, what she’s learned from Dragon’s Den, and why the UK needs to celebrate its entrepreneurs more. As she steps away from the Den, she also shares what’s next for her and why she remains deeply passionate about backing businesses that make a difference.
Produced by Silvia Maresca and Ka Yee Mak.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World. |
| 0:03.8 | I'm Christian Giri Murphy and this is the podcast in which we talk to extraordinary people |
| 0:07.8 | about the big ideas in their lives and the events that have helped shape them. |
| 0:11.5 | My guest this week is the entrepreneur, investor, star of Dragon's Den, Sara Davis. |
| 0:17.2 | Sarah was the founder of a crafting business, which has become incredibly successful, |
| 0:22.5 | and she now invests in other people's businesses through Dragon's Den. But she has just announced |
| 0:26.6 | that she's leaving the BBC show for the time being. And it's also been announced that she's |
| 0:31.7 | going to become the presenter of a new ITV quiz show. So, Sarah Davis, how would you change the world? |
| 0:40.6 | So you'll not be surprised to hear that I personally think the cornerstone of any successful |
| 0:47.2 | economy is small business. |
| 0:49.0 | And so for me, to want to change the world for the better, I think the more we can do to make those small |
| 0:55.6 | businesses successful, that in turn will have a knock on impact of the economy being more |
| 1:00.2 | successful. That will lead to everybody being more prosperous, will have a better world all |
| 1:04.7 | around. You've got a unique sort of perspective really on small business because of Dragon's Den |
| 1:09.9 | and everything that flows from that, I imagine, and that you've got a lot of sort of fingers in on small business because of Dragon's Den and everything that flows from |
| 1:11.3 | that, I imagine, and that you've got a lot of fingers in pies, but also you get to see and talk |
| 1:16.0 | to a lot of people. How would you say the environment feels right now? I mean, is it harder |
| 1:22.3 | to be an entrepreneur now than it was when you started? Is it always the same? No, so I've been in business |
| 1:27.3 | for 20 years and I can tell you, in the same? No, so I've been in business for 20 years |
| 1:28.2 | and I can tell you the last few years coming out of that post-pandemic world have just been tough. |
| 1:34.0 | And I know for a lot of business people, you know, sometimes you just question, well, why am I doing it? |
| 1:39.1 | Life would be so much easier if I just went out and got a job. And I think that the thing with |
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