Youngest female founder ever to get five yeses on Dragons’ Den reveals why she walked away

When you picture dragon slayers, you probably think of knights in shining armour on horseback wielding razor-sharp swords. 

What you likely don’t imagine is a teenage girl with a razor-sharp business mind, and yet 17-year-old Cat Black might be about to change that

Because when she entered Dragons’ Den, when she was 16, she managed to enchant not one, not two, not three, but all five of the dragons, becoming the youngest ever female founder to get a clean sweep of offers.

Cat, along with her sister Honor, 18, managed to negotiate a £50,000 investment for a 25% stake in their business (then valued at £200,000), Maiden Cricket, which makes cricket equipment for women. 

It’s a mammoth undertaking, going into the fiercest and most public pitching room in the business world, but Cat has now told Metro that she didn’t actually have much going through her mind at the time.  

‘I’m being honest, nothing was going through my head,’ she told me. ‘I was so nervous that I wasn’t thinking about anything; I was just like. “Oh my God, oh my God, it’s actually happening.”

Of course, Cat’s doing herself a slight disservice here, as she admitted to me she’d spent the night before revising her pitch, going over her lines, and she was determined not to get in her own head. 

‘I was more thinking about how I can do that, how I want to present myself,’ she explained. 
‘I was just trying to not stress myself out.’

And Cat did have a pretty good reason to be a little stressed, as the looming appointment with five business boffins wasn’t the only important date in her diary. 

‘I had my Spanish GCSE the day after Dragon’s Den,’ she laughed. ‘So, it was like, oh, we’re going on Dragon’s Den, and I need to focus on my GCSEs.

‘So, even on the train up to Manchester, I was doing GCSE revision notes and flashcards, and then Honor said: “We need to look at the pitch,” and I realised I hadn’t even looked at it. So Honor and I were awake until 2 am revising and learning the pitch.’

Clearly, it was time well spent, as the sisters dazzled the Dragons, who Cat explained weren’t quite as fearsome between takes. 

‘The only thing that you don’t see [between takes] is how the Dragons are outside of their persona, cause in reality, they are so lovely, and they’re really encouraging.’

When we discussed the Dragons, though, Cat refused to play favourites, admitting that when she entered the den her goal was to get one of them on board, adding she didn’t have one specific investor in mind.

That said, I did admit that she’s a ‘big fan’ of Deborah Meaden.

‘She’s so iconic,’ Cat said. I would love to be her when I’m older; she’s so cool.’

Cat also revealed she admired Peter Jones for starting his business as a teenager like she has, and she was interested in what Gary Neville, as a sportsman, would think of Maiden. 

However, while Cat’s admiration for the Dragons was clear, the BBC’s strict wellbeing rules, which prohibit 16-year-olds from taking part in the QnA section of the competition for wellbeing reasons, meant that after the pitch she had to leave the den.

Cat’s absence meant Honor and Nicole Muller, a mentor and business lead at Maiden Cricket, had to get down to the tense negotiation.

Unsurprisingly, this left Cat feeling a little anxious. 

‘I did my pitch and left,’ she explained. ‘I obviously had no idea what happened until my chaperone said: “Oh, the Dragons want to meet you. They want to congratulate you.”

‘So I thought, “OK, so clearly we’ve done something right.” It was “Dragons”, plural, so it’s not just one. 

‘But then we get into this backroom stairwell thing, and all of them are there going, “Congratulations, well done,” and I was like: “Oh my God”. ‘I heard little snippets of “we’ve got a Dragon or two Dragons”, but never all of them.’

Perhaps what makes this story so incredible, though, isn’t that Cat and her sister managed to get investment; it’s that they ended up turning it down. 

Yes, Cat and Honor decided after agreeing to the deal on camera that they needed more money than the Dragons were offering and decided to walk away from the £50,000.

This, however, is not unusual. 

According to the BBC, nearly half – around 50% to 58% – of all deals agreed upon on Dragons’ Den do not go ahead after the cameras stop rolling. But it’s still a bold move from the young business owners.

‘I personally think that it was the right decision,’ Cat said when I asked her if turning down the money worried her. 
 
‘A lot of them didn’t have a lot of knowledge in women’s cricket, or women’s sport for that matter, and I think the only useful kind there was Touker Suleyman, who had a factory in Bangladesh, and we could use it. 

‘So in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think it was such a big loss, and lots of other opportunities came up for us.’

Cat’s not wrong. The Times reported this year that Maiden is on track to generate about £400,000 in sales this year alone.

So, what does the future hold? 

‘I hope I’m running Maiden, she said. ‘I hope my dad (Oliver, who chaperoned his younger daughter during our interview) is fully out of it at this point, ‘cause I feel it’s really stressing him out. 

‘Hopefully, my sister and I are running it; we don’t have any arguments,’ she laughed. [I hope] it’s an amazing business, and it’s international, and everyone knows about it; I just hope that Maiden will be big and that we can help lots of girls out.’

Oh, and Steven Bartlett, if you’re reading, Cat says her dream is to be in the Diary of a CEO, so if you can, make it happen.  

Dragons’ Den airs on Thursdays at 8pm on BBC One.