The Netmums Podcast - S15 Ep6: From Dragon's Den to family life: Sara Davies on the joys of parenting

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

In this episode of The Netmums Podcast, Wendy Golledge and Alison Perry welcome Sara Davies MBE, renowned for her role on Dragon's Den and her new BBC series, The Big Idea Works. Sara shares her parenting journey, navigating business and parenting life with two energetic boys. Sara offers her insights around the challenges of letting go as a fellow parent, reflecting particularly the differences between older and younger siblings. The chat delves into: - Entrepreneurial spirit: Sara's youngest son is already showing signs of business acumen with his plans for a YouTube channel. - Imposter syndrome: Sara opens up about her own experiences with self-doubt and how she learned to embrace her achievements and authenticity. - Luxury vs budget camping holidays: Sara discusses her philosophy on travel and the importance of instilling values in her children through experiences rather than luxury. - Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: Sara provides valuable tips for parents with innovative ideas… Stay connected with Netmums for more parenting tips, community support, engaging content: Website: netmums.com / Instagram: @netmums  Proudly produced by Decibelle Creative / @decibelle_creative

You're listening to the Netmoms podcast with me, Wendy Gollage, and me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... I say this to people a lot who suffer from imposter syndrome. I'm not the one who made the decision as to whether or not I was good enough to be on Dragon's Den. That was not my call. That was an executive producer that was signed off by a commissioner, that was signed off by the head of BBC. You know, they are the people who decide who's good enough to be a dragon,

and they decided I was good enough. So my job is to just go and live up to that expectation and go and be the best version of me that I can be. Hello, folks. Welcome to another episode of the Netmoms podcast. Now, Alison, I am in deep turmoil because... Oh. I am in deep turmoil because on Friday, my daughter, who is 13, goes to Italy on a school trip for a whole eight days. And I'm absolutely, pardon the language, folks, shitting bricks about the fact that she's leaving me.

Like, she's 13. Am I being an overprotective parent or is this perfectly normal i think it's normal i think it's totally normal i mean yeah my my eldest is 14 and i think if she went away went away for a week i would be slightly on edge well she did a night or two in primary school but it was i was gonna ask that down the road at a scout camp. This is Italy. Is she feeling okay about it? Is she feeling quite confident? Oh, she's over the moon. She's so excited.

She's like packing and repacking and deciding how many bags of sweets she can fit in her bag versus knickers at the moment. Then I think, Wendy, my advice to you is just to go with it. You need to just, you just need to get through that week without panicking, wearing too much and just focus on the fact that she's going to have an amazing time she's going to come back probably with an italian boyfriend i mean i'm not going to worry you okay listen our guest today has got children in the same sort of ballpark as this so you introduce her and we'll

see what she says well our guest today wendy is right dragon, but I promise that I'm not being rude because Sarah Davies is a well-known face from Dragon's Den. And now her new BBC One series, The Big Idea Works, features everyday people who have come up with a clever idea for a new product, but they just don't know where to start in getting it made. We've also seen her twirl around in sparkly frocks on Shrickley and she is someone that you and I Wendy would quite like to go for a wine with. Sarah welcome to the Netmamas podcast. Oh hey when we getting that wine in that sounds right up my street. I'm in, I'm in. It's midday it's past the yard on. We could. No one would mind. Totally. She says drinking a Barocca as we're going. But you've got to prepare. You've got to prepare. So you've got two boys. Is that right, Salva?

I do. Our Oliver is my oldest. Butter wouldn't melt. Nothing's a problem. Perfect little, you know 11 year old and then second child syndrome i've got a charlie who's eight and i need i see anymore we have had this conversation we both have a younger one and in allison's case twin younger ones and they're halidans compared to the older ones i just think it's you just as a parent life hasn't prepared us to deal with what that is and and I always remember me and my friend me were one of my best friends she was the same as me we were the older child and we both had a younger younger sibling and we used to joke about how we were the perfect children and how our parents clearly didn't know how to cope with our younger

siblings and I used to laugh about that when I was a teenager. And now I'm like, oh, my God, it's true. I totally know. You just, you've got no idea. So what is family life like? Is it muddy boots by the door and balls everywhere and games consoles? Is that kind of like home life in your house? All of that. The two boys are absolutely obsessed with football. And I mean, I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit, I still don't really understand the offside rule. And all of us just started playing the offside rule. So I get a little bit excited on the sidelines. I'm like, oh, it's going to be a goal.

Oh, it's offside. Oh, what's blooming offside? So I've got no idea with all of this. We don't play it at our Charlie's age. So I can just be the excitable mum on the side of the pitch when my husband has to tell us to pipe down a little bit. They love school, which is brilliant. I try and get them to do, the whole world would be football given the option, but I try and get them to do other stuff.

So, for example, they both do karate. And believe it or not, my mum, sorry, I'll translate for the rest of the country my mom um used to take them on a monday night to their class uh when i couldn't make it and they don't like that she couldn't go in the dojo which is just a fancy name for the sports hall um and oliver was so nervous that he couldn't see her so my mom joined the karate class so that she could be in the room with them. She's amazing. We call her Kung Fu Sue. She's a brown belt now.

She's a brown belt. My mum, she's been going to this karate class now for four years. And she's like, let's be having you. And is she actually doing the class? Yes. She's a brown belt. That's amazing. So, so yeah at 62 year old so i'm very proud of her so so yes so the boys yes a lot of football bit of karate and and cricket

i'm trying to get them into cricket because you know i was into cricket when i was younger that's how me and my husband met so i'm trying to teach them the whole world doesn't revolve around football um and then yes they're at that age whereby all they want to do is play on the games consoles and I'm I don't want to be that man that just bans them from doing it when all their friends are allowed but I also don't want them sitting on there for hours and we're at the age where they're desperate to have mobile phones and I'm like oh yeah that says no yeah so yeah so that that's the stage that we're in. It's a tricky stage, isn't it? Also, we chatted to quite a few boy mums on here and a lot of them say that they've been asked lots

if they always really wanted a girl, especially if they've got a couple of boys. Is that something that you've been asked a lot? Do you, when they were younger, were you kind of asked, are you going to try for a girl now? Do you know, I think every, I guess it's always the dream. People seem to want, one of each would be perfect, wouldn't it? And then you get both flavours.

And so I've got two boys and ironically, my sister's got a little girl and she's pregnant with a second, who's also another little girl. And I'm like, yep, that's just right. You know, I'll have two boys, you have two girls. So I kind of get the girl thing with my little Gracie. So I get to be an auntie, which is almost as good as being a mum to a little girl. And of course, I think everybody, I would have loved to have done all the ballet classes.

And actually, I say this, our little Gracie, she's just joined karate with me mum as well. And she's at football classes too. So, you know, and I make sure my boys do plenty of arts and crafts and mum as well and she's at football classes too so you know and I make sure my boys do plenty of arts and crafts and everything as well so I'm not having this stereotyping of the girls do this and the boys do that but um I must admit now that now they're getting a little bit older and I see what some of my friends mums are dealing with with girls you know when they're going into the big school and and all of that and i think oh wow i don't i don't know if i could i don't know if i could cope i don't know five girls between us so we're fully in the girl mom teenage

girls or cowbags stage i didn't want to say it but that's what it looks like yeah yeah and teenage boys i feel like i mean this is generalization but i feel like looking around teenage boys just seem a little bit simpler whereas teenage girls are a bit more complex and a bit trickier to parents, shall we say. I think you've hit the nail on the head there, Nathan. Yes, it is not lost on me that my biggest worry is how dirty the muddy boots are. That is not lost on me as a boy mum at all. So you've talked a bit about ensuring these that your boy's feet remain on the ground is it true that you do camping holidays rather than the lavish five-star

holidays to keep things a bit real at home i do and it's it's um i'm a firm believer that i am the way i am and i'm and and i've got the values that I have because of the way my parents brought me up. And when I was little, we didn't have much money. So we had to go on camping holidays because we couldn't afford to go abroad. But I think that really shaped who I was as a person. And it gives you an appreciation for money. And it's really hard because on one hand, I work really, really hard so that we can afford to go on wonderful big family holidays. But at the same time, I don't want my kids to only have those experiences so that they don't appreciate the value. So we try and get a balance.

So, for example, it was just over a year ago, I decided every couple of years I'm going to do a once in a lifetime amazing big trip and teach them some amazing cultural stuff. So we went to Japan and we did Tokyo and we did the Old World Kyoto. We also went to Disneyland and things like that. But, you know, I wanted them to experience the culture. But then also last week I spent two weeks touring around the Scottish Highlands with them in the camper van, which is a... I don't want to be derogatory to my dad, but it's not a top-of-the the range camper van, let's just say. It was a clapped out old van that had done its 150,000 mile

that we picked up for five grand. And then my dad got a caravan for the tip from 500 quid and he retrofit all the bits out the caravan into the camper van and was very proud of himself for pulling the whole thing in for 13 grand. So the irony of it all, I got asked to go on million pound motorhomes. So you're there and you see the big million pound motorhomes and then he's me and my dad. My dad's like, yep.

And I did them solar panels for two grand and I pulled a blind in there. So, but I wanted the kids to, that's the childhood I had, you know, and I love it. And I want them to appreciate that the beauty of that isn't the money that we were spending. You know, it can be just as exciting to stay in somewhere that's 30 quid a night as a hotel that's 300 or even more per night.

Yeah. Now, when you read articles about you, your 35 million pound fortune is quite often mentioned. Do you feel any pressure? Like, for example example when it comes to like the pta school fair and buying rattle tickets or like making donations like you know if to fix the school roof or whatever do you feel like all eyes are on you like come on love cough up i'll tell you what the worst is is when we get invited to go to like charity events and there's no yeah and i just not i sit there and i'm thinking they're just all expecting me to bid a lot of money to buy some footballers shirt that's signed that I've got no interest in having that I'll have to put up in my house because I paid all that money for so yes I feel

the pressure then do you know when I use it to my advantage though um people really quite intimidated by me often and I hate that because if you meet me I'm the least intimidating person in the world but if you haven't met me or you don't know me just the fact that I'm a dragon and I'm quite a big personality but I tell you what I use it to my advantage if it's like the fundraising for the football club or the cricket club and I always say give me the raffle tickets and I'll go around and I will relieve you of your money so I'll see someone I say um how many raffle tickets would you like and I'll see them get a wodge of cash out and your money. So I'll see someone and I'll say, how many raffle tickets would you like? And I'll see them get a wodge of cash out and they'll go, oh, I'll have five pounds worth, please.

And I'll go, do you know what? You might as well have 20 and then I don't need to worry about the change. I love it. I'll go, well, you want 10 or 20 pounds with a raffle ticket? 10, when you knew they were only going to buy two. So I'm brilliant at that sort of thing.

So I use it to my advantage as well as it being a negative thing. at 10 when you knew they were only going to buy two so I'm brilliant at that sort of thing so I use it to my advantage as well as it being a negative thing I'm always curious when people who are celebrities who are in the public eye get involved in the school whatsapp group do you stay well clear of that or do you get well stuck in no I just for me and i love a good whatsapp group i run my life on whatsapp but i can't cope with the volume oh my god the voice like right i mean there's one of the mams i must admit she's she's also a little bit like me can't cope with the volume we're sick of the whole um does anybody have so-and-so's pa shorts they haven't come on tonight so what are the spellings for this week that's one on ours the spellings are terrible so i just

i have to mute them um but i will nip in you know just just to show my face every now and again because i don't want them to think oh that dragon girl she doesn't comment so but i can't become i can't read everyone and what i did was i made really good friends with the receptionist and i said to her if there's ever an issue like if there's ever anything i need you know What I did was I made really good friends with the receptionist. Clever. And I said to her, if there's ever an issue, like if there's ever anything I need, like if they need to wear yellow socks this day for such and such or whatever,

or they need 50p to buy a cake or whatever, she just drops us a little email now. So now I don't have to worry about remembering all this stuff. I just know if there's something important going on, she drops us a little email. And then she gets a really nice bottle of wine at Christmas. That's the way it works. And the rest, I even made her a handmade card. She's right.

I bet you did. I bet you did. Before we go on, Wendy, have you got a new magic drill somewhere in your house going on? It's very annoying. It's the washing machine, which somebody put on my husband, and it is decided to take off in the other room. So I've been trying to mute myself so that you don't all have to listen. It should shut up in a minute. I'm really sorry.

It's on the spin the cycle. It's so noisy. Anyway, sorry. I just love that that's real life, isn't it? That's what we do. We do a podcast, we garden, we juggle in this. I've got to get the stuff ready for skiing. That's the problem. This is it. This is it. Now, Zara, are you seeing any entrepreneurial sparks in your sons do you think they're going to follow in your footsteps oh yes yes i certainly

am so one of the things i really struggle with is um i keep the kids out of the public eye and it's really difficult and a big part of me doesn't want to because I want to I want to be a role model for the working mams and I want to show you how I juggle it all and that part of that's the reality of juggling the kids but it scared the bejesus out of me when I did Strictly and there was like reporters hiding in the bushes outside my house and that so it freaked me out something chronic so we just took the kids off all social media. And now I'll show them, but like from the back, so you could never see their faces.

And that's how I kind of do it, right? That's the way I get away with it. However, my youngest wants to be in there. So for example, I said that million pound motorhome show when we did a little segment, I wanted people to see that I was away camping with the kids. So I just had the kids like like, cycling off in the background. But Charlie kept coming up to the cameraman and going, is it my turn on there now?

You know, because he wants to be in front of the camera. So he came home from school a couple of weeks ago with a business plan. He'd drawn out... He's obviously heard me talking about it, because we watch The Den sometimes. So he's drawn out a business plan. And his business plan is he wants to start a YouTube channel, as do so many eight-year-old people right but he's got it sussed right so he's coming with his business plan and he's like mommy i've got a business plan for my business i don't

need you to invest i'm going to do it right so he said so i'm doing it with elliot and zander and the reason why he's doing it with elliot and Xander is because Xander's mummy works in marketing so she could set up a YouTube channel and Elliot's big brother has an iPhone 15 that we're going to borrow. So he's worked out his workforce for all of our reasons. He's got this and he's worked out how many subscribers he's going to get and all of this. I didn't want to ask him what his commercial model was

because he had no idea of how he was going to make money. But do you know what? We've made a good start. So I was really pleased to see that what his commercial model was because he had no idea of how he was going to make money. But do you know what? We've made a good start. So I was really pleased to see that little entrepreneurial spark. I love that. Well, your new series, The Big Idea Works, is all about helping people turn these ideas into reality. And is that the biggest stumbling block, do you think,

for wannabe inventors, the actual getting from, I've got this really good idea to actually doing something with it totally so I mean the the premise for the show is I remember when I first started out I had this idea everybody made handmade cards in my industry but they could never get the right size envelope to fit the card so if I could take one of our card folding boards and fudge it so that it would make envelopes instead. That would be brilliant. And my dad's an engineer. So my dad helped us actually how to do that and turn that into a working product and a working prototype.

Once I had the prototype, I was flying. I was off applying for my patent, launching the business. I see so many mums, I think a big time in people's lives is when they're on maternity leave and they have a baby and there's all these baby products but then they come up with all these ideas of wouldn't it be brilliant if there was something that did this or something for that and we have all these ideas but people have no idea how to go from having an idea to making it into a product and actually on the show we had quite a few mums coming up with ideas for products within their life that would really help them which could be a way for them to launch a business as well i think it's because we're

desperate i need something to make this work this is it when actually when i was on maternity leave with my eldest who's now 14 i remember iphones were quite new at the time they'd only been around for a few years and i came up with a couple of really good app ideas that I reckon would have made me a small fortune but I didn't have a clue how to get them made so I just had the idea I thought I wish someone would do that and then didn't do anything about it and then they have actually been developed by other people since then um what's your advice to any parent thinking that they've got an idea for a product or a business and they haven't a clue how to even begin getting it off the ground? Yes. So the first thing I always say to people is, do you want to run your own business?

Because I think that's a really big consideration because I always say it's a lot different to just having a job. You know, running your own business isn't a career choice, it's a lifestyle choice. There's no line between, and you guys will know this, even running the podcast, there's no line between where the business finishes and your life starts. It all just merges into one. And not everybody wants that in their life.

Not everyone's cut out for what comes with that. You know, I'll have other mums say to us, oh, it must be great, you get to work your own hours, fit around the school runs and the childcare needs. And I think, yeah, you've got no idea. You've got no idea of the sacrifices and the hard work it takes and everything. OK, but so if you're through that and you think this is what you need, this is this is the route you want to go down. The idea is often the easy bit.

It's getting like you say, you've got the idea. How do I get that idea made into a product? And then commercially, how do I launch that? You know, it's once you've got the prototype, are we licensing the product to somebody else? Are we going to fund it ourselves? Are we going to get an investor? Are we going to use a bank overdraft? How are we going to start and launch the product? How are we going to build a business? And I get loads of people follow me, actually. I do like

a little series called The Six Minute Entrepreneur on my YouTube. And it's just, they're just little six minute nuggets of advice for anybody who's wanting to start a business or is running a small business. Kind of know where to get started as it was so what was your favorite invention on the program then oh it's like asking about me kids isn't it uh so um we we did have a one that i think that's quite quite exciting so you know when right and it was a kid's invention so you know all these people have invented uh suction plate things so that when you're feeding your baby and you put your suction plate on, the baby can't pull it up. Right. But they only go, they only work that way. Let's face it. They only work that way on the IKEA high chair, don't they? When it's on that really smooth surface. They all say that. But you can't put it onto some wood or another surface like that no chance because it hasn't got the plastic on plastic suction right so this woman came in with this and she'd she'd come up with this idea this invention of bopping it in the middle so where you would push down and and it would form a suction and then it would stick right brilliant idea so

our inventors managed to make her prototype but they also took it to another level, whereby they'd worked out by mixing some substances together, they created a new type of mat, which is a really, it doesn't feel sticky, but the type of molecules in it, you would lie the mat down onto any surface, then put your suction plate on the top. And even on wood, I can remember we were in the studio, which is like workshop and we had a wooden stool so at a wooden surface try to put the boppy plate on the top lift straight off put this material down put that on the top doesn't matter how hard you lift it we were lifting up the whole stool and it was like magic and as a mother, I'm like, and I could not understand how it had worked, but I was just absolutely fascinated. And that's the end.

We've all peeled Weetabix off the walls for the reason that those bowls don't work. We have. So when you started your business, what was the best bit of advice that you were given? The kind of the one that stayed with you that you pass on? Yes, brilliant question. So it was my university tutor. So I started my own business and it was while I was at university and I was in my last year at uni and I needed a website. So I went off to see this tutor at university to ask him if he could tell me where I could go and take night classes to learn how to build a website.

And because that's back in the days before you had YouTube and stuff to learn and I remember he said to me he said don't build your own website he said I'll give you a piece of advice now focus on the stuff that you're really good at and the stuff that you're not pay the best people you can afford to do that and I said I don't think you understand mate I haven't got any money so I can't pay anybody to build me a website which is why I'm having to go to take night classes to do it and he said no there's always more than one way to skin a cat he said you're looking at all these big web design companies who are going to charge you thousands of pounds he said there's a lad in the year below you at university does this sort of stuff for fun he says bung him a couple hundred quid he'll build you one and it was that mindset of you know yes going even though i didn't really have any money to

pay anybody thinking outside the box led me to another solution and it's always that have an open mind there's always another way to skin the cat trust me and always get the best people you can to do it now now i pay big people lots of money to build me websites, right? But then when I was a small company, that it was so bad. If I'd spent eight weeks going on night classes to build a website, which let's face it, would have been rubbish, right? And I would have wasted hours and hours and days and days, whereas actually 200 quid, kid in the year below did it and it was brilliant. So if Sarah from today could go back and give Sarah back then some advice, what would it be?

So I think the thing that I would always love to have told little Sarah is, and you'll get this, especially as women, I think I was always trying to be, I just suffered from imposter syndrome so much in my 20s, and I was always trying to be good enough to be in whatever room I'd been invited into, you know, and I was always trying to be good enough to be in whatever room I'd been invited into you know and I was always trying to pretend I was something I wasn't to justify where I'd got myself into whether it was on a board or whether it was in to go to a big meeting or

something and so I never felt like I was good enough I felt like I was always having to try and pretend to be somebody else to be there and then you know once I got into my 30s I stopped feeling like that and I started just having the self-confidence and self-belief to think that room is bloody lucky to have me in it and mind you know I'm not good enough to be there so I just think I'd love to tell little Sarah that she was good enough. What was it do you think looking back that that allowed that shift to happen because I think so many people listening and probably myself and Wendy included suffer from that even now like you know we're in our 40s so what did you do back then to have that shift happen in your head do you know I think the Dragon's Den thing was a big part of it so I remember when I got to go on Dragon's Den feeling like oh my god I'm so lucky that I'm on

Dragon's Den and I'm sitting next to Deborah Meaden. She's like, she's Deborah Meaden. And I've got to be Deborah Meaden or Peter Jones to be able to be here. And so I was, I was trying to overthink everything. And then I don't know what it was, but I eventually had this realization of if they wanted another Deborah Meaden, they would have hired another Deborah Meaden. They didn't, they hired me. And they knew that what they were getting,

because I was really honest in my interview. And I was like, do you know what? I'm not as dragon-y as the other dragons you have on there. I don't know if this is right for you. And if it's not, then I'm going to accept that it's not. So yeah, I think it's that realization of, you know, they hired me. And also, and I say this to people a lot who suffer from imposter syndrome, I'm not the one who made the decision as to whether or not i was good enough to be on dragon's den that was not my call that was an executive producer that was signed off by a commissioner that was signed off by the head of bbc you know they are the people who decide who's good enough to be a dragon and they decided i was good enough so my job is to just go and live up to that expectation and go and be the best version of me that i can be and be

myself in that chair and i think the difference is I sat in the chair on the first series thinking I'm so lucky to be here and then I sat in the chair on this last series six years later thinking they're so lucky to have me here and it's that it's that self-confidence you know it just comes with time and but you've got to have the self-belief. And in those six years, is there that one that got away, the business that you wanted that you still feel irked about? Do you know what? No, because I won't allow myself to sit there and think that way. So what we do is we film about 100 pictures for a series.

And at that time, you know, sometimes if it's been a big day and there's one investment I've gone for and one of the other dragons has got it and I'm absolutely good at that time, you know, sometimes if it's been a big day and there's one investment I've gone for, one of the other dragons has got it and I'm absolutely good at that night or whatever, next day is a new day, we'll get another investment. So after I finished the series, I've generally acquired about a dozen new businesses to work with. And I put all my energy and focus into those businesses, which means that by the time the actual airing of the series rolls around six months later, I've forgotten about the 90 that I didn't get. And I'm focused on the 10 or so that I did.

But then you do watch the new series and I think, oh, I forgot about them. They were a good one then. But again, I'm thinking about it that night. And then the next day I'm on to worrying about my own businesses. So I just don't let myself focus on what if or the negatives. I always focus my time on the positives. I love that. Finally, Zara, we know you've done Strictly

and we love watching you on that. Would you do any other reality shows? I mean, I'm thinking you'd be really good on Celebrity Traitors. What do you reckon? Well, we love Traitors in our house. But I watch this and I think, oh, would I go on Traitors if you asked me?

Hell yes, I would. Looks like so much fun, right? But then would I be any good as a Traitor? I think I'd be rubbish. I'd be a brilliant faithful. I think I'd be rubbish as a Traitor. I'd be no good in the jungle because I'm frightened of snakes. I'm actually frightened of the dark as well.

40-year-old, I'll admit that. That's why you'd be excellent in the jungle, though. That's why you definitely need to do it. For us, not for herself. You should be excellent for us all laughing at her. I'd be terrible. I'd be terrible. I can't ice skate, so I'd be no good on that other ice skating,

dancing programme. So I bake, and I love to bake. I'm hoping they might ask me if I'll do that one day. They keep asking me to do Celebrity Mastermind, and I'm like, this is really not a good idea, guys. It's not going to work. It's not going to bode well for the BBC or for me. I think we should just call it quits at i lie to you celebrity would i lie to you yes

that would be really good that would be good oh sarah thank you so much for joining us today it has been so fab to chat to you i have thoroughly enjoyed it i could talk all day especially about the kids and the challenges of parenting thank you bye-bye bye-bye don't forget you can get in touch with us on all social channels instagram facebook tiktok just type in netmoms and you'll find us and if you liked what you've heard today we'd love for you to give us a five-star rating press the follow button and share the podcast on all your socials