Thread by @MetroUK

Things are firing up on #DragonsDen, as tonight, viewers will watch as entrepreneur @SteveBartlettSC takes his seat for the first time.

Who’s ready for this? 👹

At 29 years old, Steven Bartlett is the youngest person ever to become a Dragon, having co-founded social media marketing agency The Social Chain in his early twenties, which is now valued at more than £300million.

Despite the increased attention being placed on the businessman due to his age, while speaking to Metro.co.uk, he admitted that he personally doesn’t ‘really pay attention’ to how old he is.

‘To me, I felt deserving of being there on my own merit and I felt like I knew what I would be bringing to the show in terms of a new perspective, being able to speak more relevantly to my generation.’

Having watched Dragons’ Den for years, Steven revealed that he already aspired to join the show before he was asked, having emailed his team saying that he wanted to become a Dragon six months prior to being contacted by the BBC.

So what has the competitiveness been like between the four returning investors and their new peer?

‘I think me and Touker (Suleyman), we had several heated moments, where he would shout at me and I’d shout back.’

‘He’d shout at me, ‘What do you know about business?’ and then I’d shout back at him. But then we walk off, he’ll tell me about something that’s going on in his life and we’ll chat.’

Having gone for dinner with some of the other Dragons before he began filming, he said they were all ‘really willing to help me in any way they could’, adding: ‘I got this really clear impression that they all just wanted the best for me.’

Steven becoming a Dragon is a full-circle moment for him, having applied to be on the show a decade ago with his first business Wallpark, which he acknowledged ‘probably wasn’t a good idea’, having ‘heard nothing’ in response.

While it sounded like a no-brainer decision for him to join #DragonsDen, he revealed that he was actually in the process of launching his own TV show on a different channel when the opportunity came up, meaning that he had to choose between the two.

As for whether he’ll ever return to his own series or star on any other TV shows, the entrepreneur admitted that he probably wouldn’t – although he is interested in exploring a venture on Netflix in future.

‘I’ll be honest – I don’t particularly want to be a TV personality. I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a businessman, that’s what I do, that’s where I get my fun – building businesses, creating things that don’t exist and putting them into the world.

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metro.co.uk/2022/01/06/dra…