This past week Quench Buggy was fortunate enough to participate in the 2011 version of Meaford Dragons’ Den at the Meaford Hall. This was our second kick at the can and after the first time we were excited to be able to go back. The Quench Buggy was set up outside the hall for people and judges to see. Judges this year were from the area and have some big accomplishments under their belts including the President and CEO of Sobeys’, former chair of the Canadian Olympic Committee and a developer to name three. After presenting our pitch and listening in on the others we had high hopes that the Dragons’ would see Quench Buggy as the only real proposal that could offer the area any form of economic development. Unfortunately the Dragon’s didn’t see it that way, and we were left out of any funding from the Dragons’. Luckily for us we still had a shot at the new award for this year, the Audience Choice award. When they announced the Audience Choice Award we were relieved to hear that we had won that award and apparently as I found out later it was by a wide margin.
I appreciated all the people who came up to me after saying “they couldn’t understand how I didn’t win”, “how did the Dragon’s not get your business” and “apparently the majority of the audience supports your business”. We truly believe that we had the only realistic shot at creating any economic development for the area. In our opinion the others(while good business ideas) will only ever be home based businesses. We will keep our head high and continue to build on our success of last year.