An Interview With the Den’s Most Successful Inventorpreneur

Posted on January 13, 2014 by institute B

Charismatic serial entrepreneur Kevin Lee Royes landed one of the most unique deals in Dragons’ Den history. Walking away with more money than he originally came for. As a result, the show selected the inventor of Kelvin Tools to host the Dragons’ Den Game Changers. Kevin stopped by institute B recently to give us the inside scoop on the show. And what he thinks will wake Kevin O’Leary up to a new way of being in business.

institute B: Tell us about the Dragons’ Den Game Changers.

Kevin Lee Royes: Game Changers was part of a Ford Promotion. They were introducing a new car, the Fusion, and their story was around game changers and eco-consciousness. I ended up interviewing twelve companies from around the country. All of who were socially conscious in some way, shape, or form.

What was the catalyst for launching it?

Ford wanted to focus on social change. No one decided to do a social consciousness edition, they just compiled a compilation of socially conscious business ideas that were pitched to the Den. The series was used to see how these socially conscious business ventures were doing since going on the show.

You were previously a contestant on Dragons’ Den. Why were you chosen to host Game Changers?

That just came out of the blue. The episode I was on was just a really exciting episode in that I was able to get more money than I was initially asking for. And when Ford came up with this idea for a promotion, they wanted it to be real. They didn’t just want some host; they wanted someone who knows the business. Someone who’s walked that plank. They thought of me and gave me a call.

It’s one of those things that just shows up and I guess it’s part of the game of entrepreneurship. Just do your thing and do it passionately, and other things start to show up. The funny thing about Dragons’ Den, is when I was a kid I was watching this business show. I wasn’t into business, I was ten. I was living in a single parent’s home on government assistance. What was I doing watching a business show? But looking back, I wonder, are we walking a path? And that has to do with bringing your soul to the game.

At institute B, we believe in business having a positive social impact. Does Dragons’ Den share this philosophy? Or is the theme of social impact being used just for ratings?

Dragons’ Den is a TV show, and its panel is five investors. They all have different priorities and Dragons’ Den wants to have good TV. Unfortunately, that sometimes means they put people on the show that aren’t ideal entrepreneurs, but that’s the reality of people out there. It’s hard for me to watch people crash and burn, but it does makes for good TV.

Dragons’ Den is all about entrepreneurship. Social enterprise is just one aspect of it. However, they are putting more and more of these socially conscious entrepreneurs onto their show.

Who has been the most impressive entrepreneur you’ve seen on your tour across Canada?

Barb Stegeman of 7 Virtues. She surprised me because when I interviewed her, it was on a Canadian military base. My whole life I was raised anti-military but here I was going to an air force base. But her perspective on the Canadian military is that “we aren’t about war, we’re about peacekeeping.” And what better way to keep peace than growing economies? She is just so passionate about being a peacemaker and using her company as that vehicle.

7 Virtues makes perfume. Her logic is we solve social problems through stimulating economies. She is buying oils from Afghanistan, from crops that would have otherwise gone towards producing opium. But she’s paying $10,000 per liter of oil and then using it to produce perfume. That helps people have jobs, which gives parents money for their kids to go to school. Her approach is to create change by stimulating economics that need help.

She made another blend called Middle-East Peace. Where half of the perfume comes from Israel and the other is from Palestine. She’s using her business as this vehicle to create change. She’s so passionate; she’s in the news all the time. She’s an honorary colonel. She’s on a mission. She’s working with governments to help create that change. Her energy is so powerful.

As a successful entrepreneur yourself, are there specific insights you would want to share with future Game Changers?

For me the first thing I look to is to find my passion for an idea That’s my first priority because passion is fuel and we need that when the going gets tough… and it does get tough. Second, be clear on what do you want to change about the world? And third, who is going to be super excited to buy what you’re selling. When those three things are worked out I believe you will have a business you love, that’s changing the world, and growing.

No matter what you choose to do, you’re stepping into the free market, and the free market has two people in it. There is the seller, and the buyer. And the buyer is the one with all of the power. If the buyer is not interested, it doesn’t matter what the seller is trying to achieve.

Although we’re trying to express ourselves as entrepreneurs, it is critical that we are solving a problem for the customer. In this exchange, that is the magic moment. You have to wow people, you have to be incredible, and you have to have a reason for people to decide to buy what you’re selling. You have to solve the customer problem first, because if you don’t, then you cannot make the change that you want to create.

When you wow people, that’s when your company takes off. First know that you can wow people then look to see how to include your change-making aspect into your business model. But if you do not wow people with what you have, then I’m sorry, you’re never going to make the amount of change you desire and the world needs.

Are there personal traits among the entrepreneurs that braved the Den that you’ve seen as being synonymous with success and positive impact?

The biggest thing is passion. When you have passion, you are better able to overcome those obstacles. Social entrepreneurs are definitely the most passionate entrepreneurs. There’s so much more they have to do. And they have to care. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in this line of work. So passion is one of the most important characteristics. And through your social ventures, you can feed your passion like a flame.

You have to be unreasonable and so determined that you are going to figure this out. No matter what comes up, you have to be determined. That’s why I think a lot of these business schools, where people go to learn to be entrepreneurs, don’t work. Because they don’t have the passion for anything in particular yet. So they gain the knowledge of how to start a business, but they still are without that passion. Someone who is a passionate entrepreneur will accumulate this knowledge because he has to - in order to keep his business alive. Which is scary. Learning to be an entrepreneur by putting your money in and risking it.

Given the success and popularity of the special, will Dragons’ Den be hosting future episodes of Game Changers?

I really hope so. The fact that they launched Game Changers shows that social entrepreneurship is entering the mainstream. But that was just a compilation of socially conscious ideas put forth throughout the show. Could you imagine them launching an entire episode exclusively on social entrepreneurs?

They are getting more quality applicants. More and more entrepreneurs are getting interested in pursuing this kind of work. And consumers are buying ethical products more and more. And Dragons’ Den is about good TV. So maybe they could do that; an ensemble of social entrepreneurs.

What do you hope to see addressed in future seasons?

I think the biggest thing we need to do is bring this message of social entrepreneurship to our youth. Entrepreneurs create jobs for other people. People go to school to get jobs. But there’s no curriculum in school to create entrepreneurs. Since kindergarten, we’re being trained to take jobs, but there’s no training for the job creators. So what happens is a lot of us that decide to become entrepreneurs, end up failing.

What I think is important, is that we teach entrepreneurship starting all the way back in kindergarten. And if it’s coming through a school system, people are going to be able to practice how to start and run a business. In addition, we can have ethics inserted into that curriculum.

If you want to be a hockey player, think of all the practice that you’re put through before a game. Can you imagine, if we had students dabble and practice running lemonade stands or little weekend enterprises? People could come up through a curriculum of entrepreneurship similar to how school prepares us for other things. But right now there is no practice for entrepreneurship. And if you lose, you lose your money, you lose your friends money, and you lose your families money. If we taught entrepreneurship in school, we would have so many more successful entrepreneurs. Then there wouldn’t be a jobs crisis.

Advocates of socially responsible business say it’s possible to be both profitable and socially conscious. But are there tradeoffs that have to be made when balancing profitability and social impact from what you’ve observed on your tour?

It is 100% possible. But a lot of people come into the social entrepreneur business with the desire to solve a problem as their first priority. Because they’re not thinking about what customers actually want, a lot of their efforts go into solving a problem. But if customers do not want to buy what you’re selling, then you end up not being able to solve any problems at all. I feel it is extremely important that you have something that customers are going to want to buy, and then think how social consciousness can be embedded in this.

Your first priority should be a sound business model. If customers don’t want what you’re making, it doesn’t matter how profitable you are or what problem you’re trying to solve. If customers don’t want it, you’re dead.

What would it take for Kevin O’Leary to take a greater interest in socially beneficial companies?

There is a funny story about Kevin. There was a great company I interviewed for the Game Changers called Ethical Ocean. They are the ethical version of Amazon. Great group doing great work, and Kevin straight out called them “A stain on the face of capitalism”. That was a few seasons ago. Maybe Kevin has had a change of heart by now. Being profit first is old school business. As social businesses prove themselves to be profitable more and more, even the hard core like Kevin will eventually be converted.