DCU Dragon’s Den 2023
At the end of semester two, our final year classes from Bachelor of Business Studies and BA in Global Business had a capstone ending to their degrees, The Dragon’s Den.
294 students, from various backgrounds of marketing, finance, human resource management, management of operations, and economics, have been working in teams since September on a module known as New Enterprise Development (NED). The purpose of New Enterprise Development is to allow students to combine their learnings about business and entrepreneurship from their degrees to create their own enterprise venture. From idea creation, feasibility analysis, digital marketing, financial planning, to ultimate business plan proposition, the students have been carefully and creatively developing their concepts since initial ideation. We have had some really innovative ideas being crafted by our students, even students working on enterprises that they had already founded! The students crafted ideas related to real life experiences they have encountered, trends they have seen in the market, or potential gaps in the market for them to enter. From a simple to use plaster dispenser for the hospitality industry, a safety device to easily detect users in distress at sea, to insertable washing machine sleeves to catch microplastics.
Ahead of submitting their final business plans, students were given the opportunity to showcase their enterprise to a ‘thunder’ of dragons from industry. We had 36 esteemed dragons over the three days from a wide array of businesses, such as Google, eShopWorld, Circet, Morgan McKinley, and PeachyLean, to name but a few. The students had only 7 minutes to pitch their enterprise to the dragons before being open to questions and receiving invaluable feedback from the dragons on how to move forward with their businesses.
While nerves were high throughout, it was fantastic to see how excited the students were as they left the board room. Smiles, high fives, and jumps for joy were plentiful! Students were extremely relieved the see that their hard work paid off and their presentations went smoothly, but most important they were highly appreciative of the feedback they received. Some students are even thinking of pursuing with their enterprise concepts following completion of their degree. We hope to hear great things of them in the future!
Written by Senior Teaching Assistant, Paul Anderson
