All this talk of Dragon’s Den got me thinking about Job Loft, a map based job website for the retail, food service, and hospitality industries.

For those of you who don’t know… Job Loft made a great pitch on Dragon’s Den, was offered $200,000 for 50% of the company, and had a bad first date with the Dragons, who by the end of the meeting tore up the $200,000 check. The clips are embedded for your viewing pleasure after the jump.

All’s well that ends well… and despite the Dragon’s Den debacle, Job Loft is doing great.

After one year in business they have already sold over 12,000 job postings – targeting industries with 67% turnover was a good idea. Job Loft is expanding across Canada – localizing the site into French to conquer Quebec. And a new hosted / embeddable job site has been added to the product mix. What about funding you ask? Well after the check was torn up on national tv, a number of investors came knocking – with a much higher valuation.

An exception to the Dragon’s Den Curse? Maybe. I would attribute it to their positive attitude. From their blog: “So what did we do the day after that boardroom meeting? Business as usual.” And sure, Job Loft is in a monstrously competitive industry, but a laser focus on being “the #1 destination in Canada for online recruitment within retail, food services, and hospitality” has served them (and their customers) well. My guess is that the dragons are kicking themselves for not investing in Job Loft.

Contact: Chris Nguyen, Director of Business Development