Road To The Dragons' Den

Godson on Dragons' Den? Yeah I know, pretty weird scenario. But it happened. Before hearing about any auditions, I knew a little bit about the show, not like some of my buddies who knew the the show inside & out. I've seen episodes here and there and thought, man these guys can be pretty brutal. Fast forward to today and I went through that gauntlet of Dragons'.

When auditions were held in Yellowknife, I didn't think for one second about auditioning. I mean, what was I gonna do? I didn't invent anything, I don't have a multiple million dollar empire that needs some partners. If it wasn't for the power of Twitter, I never would have went. Big shout out to Tanya Croft for convincing me to at least show up. So on the day of auditions, I finally decided at the very last minute, "yeah what the hell, let's do this. What do I possibly have to lose".

So I went down to the Yellowknife Inn where the audition was held. Of course I was one of the last ones to go. Went in with zero game plan. Now the funny coincidence about this was just the day before, I was attending a "Business Of Music" workshop which was all about handling yourself (the artist) as a business. The audition was held in the exact same room where the workshop was held. That screams "meant to be" all over it. Ha ha. So there I met Molly who was the producer who came up. She was super cool, it made the audition much easier. So I just did what I thought was my business which was myself, Godson. Spit a few rhymes, told my back story. Then I had to fill out a form about how much I would ask the Dragons' for. Instinct told me this was just a blank check given to me, all I have to do is fill in the numbers I want. So of course like any noob to the whole Dragons' format, I put down $100,000. Yeah, that was pretty funny. I thought yeah, that's a good number. Then I read down the page and I had to explain what I would do with the money & I also had to back up why I would need this number. Good thing this was not set in stone because I definitely have to do more research.

So it was a couple days later, I was sitting in my studio & got the phone call that I was picked to film in Toronto in front of the Dragons'. I was pretty excited, the wheels started turning & realized, I have to do some homework about this show. The thing is, when I was in school, I was one of those people who waited until the last minute to finish up homework. Lol. So from that point on, I had about a month and a half to prepare my pitch to them. I started to watch episodes online just to get a feel for what mistakes and what successes previous contestants had. After a couple of episodes I realized the success rate of "talent" as opposed to businesses weren't great. That didn't hinder me, I was gonna give it 100% anyway. Plus this would be great exposure too. 2.5 million viewers, not bad at all.

So my focused then turned to how can I make an impact on this show. I have to be different, if I don't grab their attention in the 1st couple of seconds then I've lost them. I've performed for large crowds & small crowds, but a crowd of 5, that's pretty small. But then when you think of it, 5 in front of you, but also 2.5 million that I can't see, so I had to draw the energy from somewhere. I'll draw it from the music. There was a rapper on that show before, he chose to do it acapella, so I didn't want to go that route. I had to do it to music. It had to be funky, it had to be upbeat & it had to tell my story while addressing the Dragons'. So I wrote an original track which I thought would kinda be like a pitch & an introduction to myself.

Fast forward to just a couple of days before I had to fly out. Jeromy of True North Rotary (which I'm a part of) had the idea of holding a mock Dragons' Den before I go. I thought this would give me great practice since I never really revealed how my pitch was gonna go. So we did the mock one. I was so glad I had that practice because it was apparent I had some flaws in my pitch, but they also helped me in what can strengthen my pitch.

So off to Toronto I went, I have to say, in the days leading up to it, sleep was not in the cards for me. I was staying up till 4am watching more episodes, googling Dragon info, etc. It was getting pretty stressful. Not only was I to memorize my pitch, but I was still struggling to memorize my lyrics too! The 3 & a half hour flight from Edmonton to Toronto gave me enough time to stamp this lyrics into my head. Thank goodness, although I may have pissed off the passengers around me as I played the same instrumental about 150 times in my headphones and had it pretty loud. Ooops. Ha ha.

So it was off to the Royal York Hotel which was where most of the "pitchers" for the Den stayed in. It was only a 5 minute walk to the CBC building so it only made sense that I stayed there. It was a pretty fancy hotel I must say. There was a lot of really cool places to eat but for some reason I stuck to what I knew (not to mention a budget) Timmies was just around the corner. Lol. You would think that I would have spent some time to do some sight seeing, check out a couple of hot spots, but I couldn't risk it. I was there for one thing and one thing only, business. So I basically stayed in the hotel for 3 straight days.

Monday rolled around which was THE day! I had 3 alarms all ready to wake me up that morning, cause I was still on Yellowknife time. I walked down to the CBC with my iPhone as my compass just in case the Concierge was trying to give me wrong directions so I would be late. Lol. When you walk by the CBC building you see giant pictures of CBC icons like Mansbridge & Strombo. Pretty cool. So I walked to the Dragons' Den registration table & there were a ton of other "pitchers" there. Some in big groups, some on their own. I noticed I was the only one without some type of signage or prop. So we got a tour of the set and a run through of how everything was gonna go down. The set was unreal. I mean you see it on TV, then when you are actually in it seems crazy.

My mood started with tons of energy that day. I arrived at noon. Then the waiting game came into play. That's when the mood turns to calm & collected. We were put up in a holding room which had some snacks, a nice view of the city & of course Dragons' Den reruns on the TV. At this point I was starting to get anxious. I've never paced around as much as I did before. I just wanted to do my thing while everything was fresh in my head. When you have time to kill, that's when your mind starts to second guess things. But I wasn't gonna let the waiting game get to me.

I finally get the call that it's time for Godson! That's when the adrenaline starts to go up! What's happens next? Well we all have to wait & see when the episode airs! The new season starts in September so it could be anytime after that. But don't worry, I will let you all know when it will air.

The only thing I can say is, I had a blast! Until next time :)

Godson

P.S. Don't forget to vote :) http://www.moartist.com/godson