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Squamish woman a winner on Dragons’ Den

Throw and catch game a hit with four out of five dragons.

Finally, Squamish’s Monika Rogers can share her big secret.

Wednesday night, Rogers appeared on an episode of the hit Canadian TV pitch-show Dragons’ Den that was shot earlier this fall.

Family and friends gathered with Rogers, her husband and two children at the Howe Sound Brew Pub Wednesday night to watch the episode together.

“It is great,” Rogers said of the gathering moments before the show began. 

On the episode Rogers pitched her product, the throw and catch game Squap her brother invented.

Up until it aired, Rogers was sworn to secrecy about what happened when she went before the celebrity-entrepreneurs in Toronto. 

At the pub, when the show’s theme music played, staff raised the volume, catching diners’ attention.

When Rogers was seen on the screen, walking out to make her pitch, even diners who didn’t know the former international tax consultant turned toy distributor dropped their forks and put down their glasses to watch on the large TV screen.

A cheer went up at the pub when the onscreen Rogers proudly told the dragons she was from Squamish.

The room seemed to hold its breath while Rogers negotiated with four of the five dragons who made her offers after her pitch.

Ultimately Rogers’ accepted a deal from Dragon James Treliving of Boston Pizza and Mr. Lube fame for $30,000 for 10 per cent of her company, Allegra Toys Enterprises. It was exactly what Rogers had asked at the start of her segment.

At the pub, gathered friends, family and strangers gave a cheer. Rogers blushed at watching herself and the crowd’s reaction, but gave a big smile.

“We had long negotiations, actually for about 20 minutes back and forth, it is shortened on television,” Rogers explained, while holding her daughter Alia, 5, who nodded as her mother talked, “but then in the end I decided to go with Jim Treliving,” said Rogers. He had given her exactly what she wanted, after all, while the other dragons had tried to negotiate for royalties without giving Rogers the cash she wanted for marketing the toy.

“Since then, I have worked with his management,” Rogers said of Treliving.

“So he has helped me a lot already to get contacts to get into different stores. With any questions, I can go to his management and they help me out.”

Rogers said her company and Trevling are still negotiating terms and conditions of her deal, but even before signing on the dotted line, Treliving’s team has been helping her.

Rogers said it was a relief to not have to keep the secret anymore, but for the most part, Squamites she encountered who knew she had been on the show respected that her lips were sealed.

‘The family knew, but after awhile [other] people didn’t ask anymore because they knew I wasn’t allowed to tell, so it wasn’t too hard,” she said.

The next big step for Rogers and the company is to take Squap to the New York Toy Fair in February and then to sell the game throughout the United States.

To watch Rogers’ episode go to: www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/episodes/season-9/episode-10-season-9.

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