‘I went on Dragons’ Den and found out my son has a half-sibling’

Zoe Chapman, 39, captured the nation’s heart and the Dragons’ investment with her award-winning portable toilet business. She tells Maira Butt that her TV appearance didn’t just win earn her £50,000 in funding, but also a new family member

‘She said the name of my child’s father and that’s when I knew. It was true. But still I thought... Is it a trick?’ (Sherrie/Supplied)

It was a few months after the BBC showed my episode of Dragons’ Den that I got the call that changed my life. I’d been working through the night as I usually do, and I was doing a final check of my emails at 4am when I saw it. It was a message from a woman I didn’t know. “I know this is going to sound really weird,” Jess* wrote, “but I’ve seen your story, and I think our children have the same dad.”

Immediately I wondered, “Am I delusional? Am I really tired right now?”, I couldn’t believe my eyes. She said the name of my child’s father and that’s when I knew. It was true. But still I thought, how has she come to this conclusion? Could it be real? Is it a trick? The woman told me she had a three-year-old daughter. My son is 12 and had always wanted a sister. I was in shock, but I replied saying, “Thank you very much”. We arranged to meet.

I was 27 when I got pregnant with a man I’d known for years. We’d been friends since we were teenagers, but I’d been in a very difficult and abusive relationship with someone else. Some years after that ended, we spent more time together. It felt like it was meant to be. It happened very quickly and just felt right for the first time in my life. I’d never been in a relationship where I was treated properly.

But he started to show signs of being too domineering. He became obsessive, always needing to know where I was. I was working in nightclubs at the time, and he would get very jealous. He covered up his low self-confidence with this massive bravado of flashy cars and being “The Man”. I saw the red flags and got out; I’d learned my lesson. But it turned out I was already pregnant by that point. At first he was happy, and he went to a scan with me. But within two weeks, he’d completely switched. “You can’t have this baby,” he told me. “You have to get an abortion. I don’t want to be a dad.”

I, though, wanted to keep the baby. So we cut ties, and then my son was born. I was also caring for my dad at this point – he had a stroke when I was 19. Both he and my potty-training toddler had toilet issues, and what I really needed was some kind of handheld portable toilet, which didn’t seem to exist.

For years, I had the idea for the invention in my mind, but it never came to fruition. Until 2020, that is. I had spinal surgery just before lockdown, and I remember asking myself what it was that I’d wished I’d always done, and it was to start this business. By this time, my dad had also passed. I had to give it a go. I launched the product, which I called Whizzer, in 2021 on literally nothing but credit card debt and a social media account. Within a year I was winning awards.

One day, I got a message via my website from a researcher for Dragons’ Den. They said they had found me on social media and liked the story behind the product. They asked me to apply for the show. Dragons’ Den is a very drawn-out process. I don’t think people realise just how long it is. They approached me in February 2022, and I had to go through a lot of due diligence. You’re never sure if you’ll make it to the next round, and then suddenly you do.

In May, they asked me to come and film the show with one to two weeks’ notice, if that. I went to Manchester and stayed in a hotel they booked for me and spent the time preparing.

If I hadn’t done ‘Dragons’ Den’ I would never have found out. As soon as our kids met, they were obsessed with each other

I felt confident in my business, but everyone is scared of numbers and that was one of my biggest fears in presenting the pitch. I have ADHD, so my brain has trouble with things like that. I was also nervous because I was essentially bringing a toilet onto the programme. Was it going to be made into a joke? I’d also spoken about my mental health and bipolar disorder. I didn’t want to become some kind of laughing stock.

Luckily, though, it was received really well. The sales from the show saved my business and changed everything for me. Steven Bartlett and Sara Davies both joined forces to invest in Kiddiwhizz. The show aired earlier this year and that’s when I started doing interviews. From there, an online group for single mums called Frolo asked me to write a blog post on my experience. And it was this post that Jess saw when she reached out to me.

We met up in the park while my son played football. She was so lovely. But everyone had warned me to have my wits about me. I had so many questions. When she read my story, she said the similarities stood out to her straight away. My son’s father had done exactly the same thing to her. He’d told Jess he wanted her to get an abortion, and used my son as an example of a child he already had and didn’t look after. She said there were even more of us.

If I hadn’t done Dragons’ Den I would never have found out. As soon as our kids met, they were obsessed with each other. We started seeing one another on odd weekends and we’ve since had our kids stay at each other’s houses. Although the children have a different ethnic mix, you can see the similarities, the same eyes in particular. If you saw them together you would assume they were siblings. My son now picks his half-sister up from nursery when he’s free as we don’t live far away from each other. We’ve got this incredible bond because of our shared experiences.

Although it’s been difficult at times for me and my son, I look at the life I ended up with and think we’re really lucky. We’ve come through a lot, and we are who we are as a result.

* Jess is not her real name