A Prince George family recently came face to face with six dragons — business dragons that is.
They recently made an appearance on Dragons' Den, the popular CBC show where entrepreneurs pitch to business people (a.k.a. the dragons) and hope for a deal or an investment in their products.
Larry Fielding, along with his wife Corrie and two children Colton and Dylann, presented their book series The X-tails to the dragons in hopes of striking a deal for $50,000 in return for a 20 per cent stake in the business.
Although the deal didn’t go their way (spoiler alert), Fielding says the experience was extremely positive.
“Initially, we were definitely disappointed. We were hoping for a deal for sure,” Fielding tells PrinceGeorgeMatters. “At the same time, we knew it would be good exposure for us. The hardest part of our business so far has been spreading the word.”
Fielding says since their segment aired last Thursday (Nov. 22), their website has been flooded with traffic and they’ve been getting a lot of new book orders.
Fielding first came up with the idea for The X-tails seven years ago and has since published eight books in the series.
The books focus on action sports and tell the story of six main characters who navigate different issues and challenges.
“My goal has been to create these modern and cool books and...sneak in positive values and messages for the kids, so I have created the characters to be role models but at the same time these books are super engaging for young kids.”
He says he has always had a ton of support from the community in Prince George.
“Prince George has been so great to us and the response has been amazing. I am constantly hearing positive feedback and it makes me feel really good.”
The Fieldings' journey to Dragons' Den started back in March when Corrie found out the show was going to be doing auditions in town.
“She auditioned without me because I’m actually really shy,” says Fielding, adding they found out they were accepted in April and then worked with producers on their pitch before the segment was filmed in May.
“Although I felt like I was going to be sick, I knew I couldn’t pass up that opportunity,” he adds.
The family also had to keep the results of their pitch a secret for months and weren’t even sure their segment would air on TV until a few weeks ago.
Even though the dragons didn’t bite at their proposition, one of the dragons did offer to work with the Fieldings and give them some advice.
That dragon was Lane Merrifield, who sold his business Club Penguin to Disney at the age of 28 and then became one of the company’s youngest vice-presidents. Fielding says Merrifled followed through on his promise.
“He was true to his word,” says Fielding. “It was really good because he gave us some good feedback and he was open for me to ask him questions.”
Fielding says after their experience on the show they are even more inspired to grow their business, and he still wants to move toward one day creating an animated series and merchandise.
“It’s all baby steps to get there first and that is what we learned from the dragons,” he says.
“I’m a pretty shy guy so it was really good not only to get the courage to go on but to go on as a family and to represent Prince George.”
To learn more about The X-tails series, you can check out their website here.
