From a Living Room Sofa to a Shark Tank Chair: Steven Bartlett's Story

Steven Bartlett just got the call he's wanted since he was 12 years old.

He's joining Shark Tank USA. But the story behind that announcement matters more than the announcement itself.

His mother raised four kids in England after leaving school in Nigeria as a child, never learning to read or write. Bartlett struggled in school too, unable to sit still or focus, and by his teens he already sensed the traditional path wasn't built for someone like him.

Then he found Dragons' Den on TV. He and his mother watched it together, and something about entrepreneurship felt like a door neither of them had been offered before. At 12, he'd pause the show and argue his own investment case, like he was the sixth Dragon in the room.

He dropped out of university at 18 to chase his first business, which failed. Nine years after discovering the show that hooked him and his mother, Bartlett was sitting in one of those Dragons' Den chairs himself, as its youngest ever investor.

He built The Diary of a CEO into one of the most listened-to podcasts in the world, then raised his own fund, launched Flight Story, and became a recognizable name across business media. None of it, by his own account, means as much to his mother as Dragons' Den does. Six years into his run on the show, most of their phone calls are still 80% her verdict on his latest pitch.

Now that verdict gets an American stage too.