{"id":93727,"date":"2025-10-22T06:39:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T06:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/93727\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T06:39:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T06:39:09","slug":"sara-davies-of-dragons-den-people-always-underestimate-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/93727\/","title":{"rendered":"Sara Davies of Dragons\u2019 Den: \u2018People always underestimate me\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

At six years old, Sara Davies was already working, helping out after school in her parents\u2019 decorating shop in Co Durham. By 12, she\u2019d started her own business: knocking on doors to collect \u00a32 a week from elderly neighbours living in sheltered accommodation \u2014 then, once a year, for the \u00a3104 they\u2019d paid her, they\u2019d get a room in their home redecorated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would buy the wallpaper and paint cheap off my mum and dad, pay the decorator \u00a350 and make about \u00a320 profit on each house,\u201d Davies says. \u201cI was doing sales; I was learning to manage money. About eight weeks in, I had enough money to pay the decorator to start the first house, so I was managing cashflow.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an adult, not entirely surprisingly, she became an entrepreneur. \u201cI learnt the entrepreneurial skills within the home, not in the education system,\u201d she says. \u201cWhy are we not teaching kids about cashflow and profit and loss, and how to run a business? We need to show them how to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not least, she believes, to face a future in which the workplace looks wildly different. \u201cWe need to teach people how to make their own money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies, 41, will be most familiar to fans of Dragons\u2019 Den<\/a>, where she has spent the past six years hearing pitches from hopeful contestants alongside Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden<\/a> and Steven Bartlett<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Sara Davies: \u2018I built an extension to house my shoe collection\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

With investments totalling more than \u00a32.3 million, as a Dragon Davies has been drawn to innovative start-ups \u201cwith impact\u201d, from a bank card for people with dementia to spiritual wellness brands and edible greetings cards for dogs.<\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT001031737344\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent years being who I thought I should be, wearing navy blue Karen Millen business dresses\u201d<\/p>\n

JUDE EDGINTON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE<\/p>\n

But the present series will be her last. Davies is stepping down from the show to focus on shoring up her own business, Crafter\u2019s Companion<\/a>, which she started 20 years ago in her university bedroom and bought back three days before Christmas last year, rescuing it from administration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When she joined the BBC series\u2019 line-up at 35 \u2014 the youngest Dragon until Bartlett\u2019s arrival \u2014 Davies admits she had extreme impostor syndrome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d always been either the youngest person, the only woman or the only person with a strong regional accent \u2014 or at least who hadn\u2019t tried to lose their strong regional accent \u2014 in the room. I always felt that I was lucky to be there, and I learnt to deal with the eye-rolling and the feeling that I stuck out.\u201d<\/p>\n

But more than just building her public profile and broadening her investment portfolio, she credits the long-running show, now in its 22nd series, with helping her \u201cfind\u201d herself.<\/p>\n

\u2022 10 best investors on Dragons\u2019 Den \u2014 the top dragons, ranked<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d spent all my time being who I thought I should be for others. I\u2019d spent ten years wearing structured black or navy blue Karen Millen business dresses, because that\u2019s what I thought I had to do,\u201d she says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

A year into Dragons\u2019 Den, she consulted a branding agency, which interviewed her family, close friends and employees and produced a presentation for Davies about Davies. \u201cIt said \u2018northern and proud\u2019 and I thought, yes, I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m a sucker for a bargain\u2019<\/p>\n

I meet Davies in London in the early afternoon after a morning in which she\u2019s done the school run (her sons are 9 and 11), before catching a train from Darlington. Long gone are the conservative Karen Millen business threads; she\u2019s just changed out of a pink trouser suit she wore for the photographs and into a denim jumpsuit to chat.<\/p>\n

And while she may be worth a reported \u00a337 million, Davies has brought her own packed lunch \u2014 salmon and quinoa in a plastic container \u2014 which she tucks into as we talk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a sucker for a bargain,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I go into a shop and there\u2019s a sale on, I always head for the discounted stock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"501114,Dragons'<\/p>\n

From left: Steven Bartlett, Touker Suleyman, Deborah Meaden, Davies and Peter Jones on Dragons\u2019 Den<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n

She is warm, funny, chatty, nobody\u2019s idea of a stereotypical, ball-breaking boss bitch. This, she says, was flagged in her final interview and screen test (after months of many) for Dragons\u2019 Den. An executive producer told her, \u201cWe think you\u2019re great, but it\u2019s Dragons\u2019 Den, so maybe be a bit more dragony. You\u2019re just a bit\u2026 nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am. In business I am nice,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t compromise on that. I can still be fierce \u2014 people have learnt not to mess with me \u2014 but I\u2019ve got loads of empathy with it. That\u2019s the biggest skill I think I\u2019ve had in business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, she says, there\u2019s also the nature of her business. \u201cPeople ask what you do and as soon as you say \u2018craft\u2019, they picture their grandma knitting. It wasn\u2019t sexy. I wasn\u2019t running a technology business in Silicon Valley. If you said you were making somebody a Christmas card, they thought you were cheap,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople have always underestimated me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s easy to start a business\u2019<\/p>\n

Davies and her sister grew up in the village of Coundon, near Middlesbrough, where her dad had his own portfolio of businesses, including an ice-cream van, a mobile sweet shop, a double-glazing business and transportation \u2014 \u201cHe was a man with a van; well, he was actually a man with two or three vans and two or three other mans who also drove for him\u201d \u2014 along with the Wear Valley Decorating Centre, where her mother and grandmother worked too.<\/p>\n

From her teens, Davies planned to take over the family business, enrolling to study business at York University. \u201cI wanted to learn how to do business from a textbook so I could teach my dad this is how business is done in the 21st century,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

However, after a work placement in her third year at a small company supplying products to the craft industry, she spotted a gap in the market: handmade cards were booming, but there were no custom-sized envelopes to match.<\/p>\n

With the help of her dad she created an envelope-folding tool, the Enveloper, which she pitched to the shopping channel Ideal World.<\/p>\n

After her first demo, the channel ordered 8,000 units, and Davies roped in her friends to take orders over the phone while she was at tutorials. The newly launched business, Crafter\u2019s Companion, turned over \u00a3500,000 in its first year.<\/p>\n

In a moment of spiking unemployment and spiralling costs for students, Davies believes there\u2019s no better time for young people to start a side hustle. \u201cThere is no reason that anybody couldn\u2019t do it. If you really want to, it\u2019s easy to start a business,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can learn anything you want on YouTube. It\u2019s all there \u2014 you just need the belief and the passion, vision and drive, and to be prepared to make sacrifices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t going out drinking \u2014 I spent the whole of my last year at uni working all day on the business and studying at night. But that was my choice. That was my sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT001031487156\"<\/p>\n

With her husband, Simon, at Lords cricket ground in August<\/p>\n

SARADAVIESCC\/INSTAGRAM<\/p>\n

In her twenties and thirties as the business grew, expanding rapidly particularly in the US, she would sometimes clock up 150 flights a year, which brought new sacrifices. \u201cI remember one night the kids crying and saying, \u2018Why do you have to go, Mummy? Why can\u2019t one of the other people that work for you go? Why does it have to be you?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Well, Mummy\u2019s got to go and earn the pennies.\u2019 \u201d Her husband, Simon, is an accountant for the business. \u201cBut I\u2019m the primary breadwinner in our house and always have been.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 2019, Crafter\u2019s Companion was exporting craft supplies to more than 40 countries, had three outlets in the UK, an office in California and a worldwide staff of 200, with a turnover of nearly \u00a325 million. By 2021, when Davies stepped back from day-to-day operations, \u201cwe were knocking on \u00a338 million\u201d.<\/p>\n

Although northern, frugal and proud even in the glory days, Davies\u2019 one major indulgence was the \u201cfive-star villa\u201d they built in Spain in 2021. She admits she \u201cwent to town\u201d on the property, near Murcia. \u201cIt\u2019s my pride and joy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I said to my mam, \u2018Can I pay for you and your brother to go on holiday?\u2019 she wouldn\u2019t accept it. But because it\u2019s there I can say, \u2018It\u2019s paid for anyway. You may as well go, drink my wine and use the petrol in my car, and your flight there is 60 quid,\u2019 and she\u2019ll go. She\u2019s out there right now with her brother and her sister.\u201d<\/p>\n

With new and diverse strings to her bow \u2014 including a burgeoning television career and an eight-week stint on Strictly Come Dancing <\/a>in 2021 (\u201cI felt like it was the biggest opportunity of my life, and something purely for me\u201d) \u2014 Davies was still a shareholder at Crafter\u2019s Companion, but the investment company had installed a new CEO and, \u201cThey weren\u2019t running the business the same way I would and it didn\u2019t work,\u201d she says. Revenue had fallen by 21 per cent to \u00a329.9 million and in March 2023 and 2024 the company recorded pre-tax losses of \u00a35.1 million and \u00a36.7 million respectively.<\/p>\n

Three days before Christmas last year, Davies received news that the company, having already shed half its staff, was being put into administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in Spain with all the family and I said to Simon, \u2018I\u2019m going to buy it back. We can\u2019t let the business go.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

They bought Crafter\u2019s Companion for just \u00a3425,000, plus debts of \u00a316.7 million.<\/p>\n

What percentage of that \u00a3425,000 was an emotional purchase? \u201cOh, 100 per cent,\u201d Davies says without hesitation. \u201cIt would have killed me to let it go. It\u2019s exactly the sort of thing business books would tell you not to do \u2014 act with your heart and not your head \u2014 but it wasn\u2019t the business; it was the people. I did it for the staff. Some of those people have worked for me for 10, 15 years, and it\u2019s the northeast \u2014 jobs aren\u2019t easy to come by.<\/p>\n

\"NINTCHDBPICT001031737462\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s stable growth and jobs are secure, that is brilliant. I don\u2019t need to take on the world\u201d<\/p>\n

JUDE EDGINTON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. MAKE-UP: LYDIA BARNES USING SCULPTED BY AIMEE. HAIR: LISA DAVEY USING PLATINUM LENGTHS AND SAM MCKNIGHT<\/p>\n

\u201cThe brand would have lived on; someone would have bought it,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t think any of the staff would have held me accountable. But I would have held me accountable, because I was the only person who could do something about making sure they still had a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten months on, the business is more stable but turmoil has continued with Trump\u2019s imposition of tariffs. \u201cAbout 60 per cent of our direct to consumer business was in the US and that stopped overnight,\u201d says Davies, who scrambled to find a distribution warehouse in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have learnt more about business in the past year than I have in the 20 years before it,\u201d she says. \u201cBut you become more and more resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n

She has huge sympathy for smaller craft companies that cannot weather such bombshells. \u201cFor many small companies when hard times hit, they don\u2019t know how to cope. They just batten down the hatches and think, we\u2019re going to ride this out. It was the same post-pandemic,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to ride out; you need to adapt and change. There\u2019s no waiting for this storm to pass. You\u2019ve got to learn to dance in the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, she says, while Covid was bad for business operations, causing huge supply-chain issues, it gave crafting a boost. \u201cIt was already becoming bigger \u2014 the idea of making something, giving your time rather than buying something. Then the pandemic hit and everybody\u2019s crafting,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are \u2018crafternoons\u2019. People are talking about the mental health benefits of crafting. Tom Daley\u2019s knitting! And now it\u2019s cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies has deliberately decided to be publicly nonpartisan for the sake of her sales. \u201cI never gave my opinion on Brexit, and our crafting community in America is so diverse, I can\u2019t afford to be divisive.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously I\u2019m always going to say that businesses need tax breaks \u2014 any business person is going to say that,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I think about the scale of my business, employing 100 people, and then I look at my sister, who\u2019s running our family business now and employs 20-odd people. Even just the changes over this past year \u2014 with national insurance contributions and the minimum wage \u2014 have meant that there are two or three people they just can\u2019t afford to employ any more. So while I appreciate that we need a national minimum wage and I agree with the principle of it, I just don\u2019t see it being feasible for a lot of people to run a business. And if we want to get the economy moving, we\u2019ve got to make it really appealing for people to want to start businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

So does she trust this government with the economy? There is a long pause. \u201cI mean, you\u2019ve got to hope that what they are doing they are doing with the best intent,\u201d she says, carefully. \u201cAnd that there is a recognition and an acknowledgment that growth has to come from business, and they need to support business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Personally, she says, she\u2019s no longer chasing growth like in the past. \u201cAll I used to do was chase growth, because that was exciting,\u201d she admits. When she joined Dragons\u2019 Den in 2019, Davies declared an ambition to see Crafter\u2019s Companion turn over \u00a3100 million a year in ten years. Today, her hopes are more modest. \u201cThat business is now doing \u00a312-15 million. If we plan over the next three to five years to grow it to \u00a320 million, I\u2019d be thrilled at that. If it\u2019s stable growth and those jobs are secure, that is brilliant. I don\u2019t need to take on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she may be bidding farewell to Dragons\u2019 Den, she\u2019ll be a regular contestant on Gary Lineker\u2019s new ITV game show, The Box, in early 2026. \u201cI am a competitive person but this is definitely outside my comfort zone,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

And, having caught the TV bug, she very much fancies fronting her own show too. \u201cI just don\u2019t want to get pigeonholed. I don\u2019t want everybody to think, oh, she\u2019s just the one that does business. Baking is so big on the telly \u2014 why can\u2019t crafting be the same?\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody\u2019s shown people what teaching crafts could look like on the telly, and I can own that space.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At six years old, Sara Davies was already working, helping out after school in her parents\u2019 decorating shop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-93727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}