Q: What do you hope to achieve with Dragons’ Den?

A: The Dragons’ Den com petition, kindly sponsored by Allied Irish Bank will give people the opportunity to:

Q: What are the categories for entries?

A: The three categories are:

a) An initiative/business for breeders aged under 30

b) Best start-up serving the thoroughbred industry

c) Best established small-to-medium enterprise (SME) serving the thoroughbred industry

Q: How do I enter?

A: Email icrosse@itba.ie for an application form and the terms and conditions. Alternatively you can call the ITBA on 045 877543.

Outline in no more than 500 words your business, concentrating on the following:

a) Your success, achievements and plans for growth

b) How you use innovation or innovative thinking in driving your business

c) Give clear business performance targets and measurement

d) Outline your sales and marketing plan and how it has or will contribute to growth of your business

e) Finally, you should demonstrate the long term vision for your product/business outlining strategy and business model for sustainable growth

Q: What do we mean by innovation/innovative thinking?

A: Those words can be off-putting for people when in actual fact it is better to keep things simple.

If you can tick any of the following boxes you should enter the competition – new, novel, fresh, unconventional, unorthodox, off-centre, unusual, unfamiliar, unprecedented, avant-garde, experimental, inventive, ingenious, advanced, modern, modernistic, ultra-modern, state-of-the-art, futuristic, pioneering, ground-breaking, trailblazing, revolutionary or radical.

Why not give it a try?

Q: What happens after my entry is lodged?

A: A panel of judges will assess all entries and a minimum of one from each category will be selected by January 17th to appear before the judges on Saturday, January 27th.

A panel of four judges, headed by entrepreneur Sean Gallagher, will listen to a 10-15 minutes sales pitch and ask questions before picking three individual winners and an overall winner.

Q: What will I win?

A: Each category winner will receive €1,000 with the overall winner winning an additional €2,000.