Cool Companies

Dragon’s Den is a TV show featuring Canadian entrepreneur hopefuls pitching business ideas to angel investors called the Dragons. The question Cool Companies magazine wanted answered was: Is Dragon’s Den serious in offering real value to Canada’s entrepreneur community or is it taking advantage of want-to-be entrepreneurs for TV entertainment?

Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis are the co-CEOs of Canada’s superstar, Research In Motion Inc. (aka RIM), producer of the BlackBerry®. Mike started RIM in 1984 and Jim joined in 1992 to help grow RIM into the company it is today in 2007 with $3 billion in revenue and 7,000+ employees. This interview with Jim Balsillie was done in 2001 when RIM was a mere 1,000 employees. While the interview is now 7 years old, it is a treasure of rare insight into the ideas that have fuelled RIM’s past and recent growth. It’s an interview all true entrepreneurs will appreciate: it is Jim speaking candidly and at length about his approach to vision formulation, planning, organizational design, hiring and employee motivation.