The two new additions to the Dragons' Den panel have praised the fact that the new series features the highest percentage of female entrepreneurs in the history of the show.
Eleanor McEvoy, CEO of Budget Energy Ltd said "it's great to see the girls coming through" on the show where budding entrepreneurs vie for finance for their business idea
Her fellow new Dragon Alison Cowzer, co-founder of East Coast Bakehouse agreed saying that having more female entrepreneurs "normalises the whole process", and said that "we need to get to a point where business is the same scenario where we have a good representation of men and women".
However both women are adamant that 'Dragons' are not all breathing fire and have promised lots of laughs on the new series which returns this weekend.
"They're really going to enjoy seeing us laugh on Dragon's Den. I believe that everything in life, whether serious or not, is always less painful when you're around good people, and the Dragons are really good people", said Eleanor.
Alison and Eleanor will be breathing new fire into the Dragons Den panel
The canny investor, who has set up and sold two multi-million euro businesses, said she is "very excited" to join the show as it's "a great opportunity to share with the rest of the country how everybody can be an entrepreneur if you really want to. When I was growing up there weren't many role models male or female and I'd like to think that other people will look at me and say 'If she can do it I can do it'."
Her top advice to budding business people is to "be open and honest with people when you're dealing with them and then they will always trust you", adding that she only competes with herself, as she's "a big believer in compete with others you become bitter, compete with yourself you become better."
Alison said she was glad to offer her expertise to the show as start ups can be "very lonely", saying she liked the "idea of having a mentor who can bring you through that whole process, not necessarily give you all the answers, and certainly not run the business for you, but really giving you a bit of back up".
This year the Dragons will invest a massive €930,000 of their own money
Cowzer said there was "genuine competition" between the Dragons, but that at the end of the day they "just got all very well. I know you want to hear that we were scratching each other's eyes out but we weren't", she joked.
"It was great fun, some of the investments were done with maybe two Dragons involved with a particular deal, which was great. We had fun every day, we worked hard, we asked a lot of questions, but asking the questions is a lot easier than answering them so the entrepreneurs did all the hard work."
Dragon's Den returns on Sunday RTÉ One at 9.30pm.
