EVERY week millions tune in to Dragons' Den and The Apprentice, TV's latest hit shows.

Some walk away with nothing but red faces after their money-making scheme or innovative product has been declared daft or useless, or they have been told "you're fired."

But others make it big. And it seems East Lancashire is keen to embrace this entrepreneurial spirit and is becoming a region of ideas.

Stephen Robinson, director of Pierce Corporate Finance Ltd, the Blackburn-based chartered accountants and business advisers, said more entrepreneurs are coming forward to seek business advice than ever before.

He said more firms have flourished in the past 20 years as the area reinvented itself after its textile and manufacturing past.

Mr Robinson said: "We are seeing a distinct increase in corporate finance activity in the Lancashire area, in particular companies looking to raise money for new ventures.

"We are also seeing more owners of family businesses looking for an exit - to raise funds by selling their companies and moving into new fields.

"To us this indicates that entrepreneurialism is alive and well in Lancashire.

"Historically the stigma of failing in owning a business is disappearing and a more American model of building, selling, and starting a new business is starting to become more common.

"However the hardest thing is still making that first venture a success."

Locally, firms including Radal Technology, winner of the Lancashire Telegraph's Innovation and Design award in its 2006 business awards, have done well from unusual ideas.

Radal, based in Burnley, designs and manufactures cigarette detection equipment.

It was started in 1997 by Brent Dunleavy, and now has agents in Canada, Australia, Italy and Scandinavia.

Probably East Lancashire's most successful businesswoman, Helen Colley, founder and managing director of luxury pudding firm Farmhouse Fayre, Clitheroe, started her business in the kitchen of her family home.

Last year she sold the business for a reported £10million.

Another woman who has made a name for herself with a unique product is Julia Birch, founder of Works With Water, Grindleton, which was set up in 2004.

The range of bottled spring water which has clinically proven health benefits is now sold in supermarkets including Waitrose, Tesco, Morrisons and Booths.

She said: "If you have a firm business idea or experience and knowledge of your chosen field, market or product and some good contacts, then starting a business could be the way forward.

"There are problems to overcome. Mine was cashflow which is the main problem common to most businesses - but particularly start-ups.

"East Lancashire is definitely seeing a resurgence with new businesses flourishing. This is a great area and people are beginning to realise this."

Mike Damms, chief executive of the East Lancashire chamber of commerce, said the area was experiencing a "renaissance" which the county's two universities, including a new campus in Burnley, could help to nurture in the future.

He said: "The more popular programmes like Dragons' Den become, the more people realise that if they have an idea there probably is going to be a way of finding finance.

"We have never been short of people with ideas in East Lancashire and people are starting to realise the money men will follow where the ideas are."

But if a budding entrepreneur has an idea they are convinced would make a successful business, should they be nervous about finding the necessary investment and taking a decision which could affect their professional careers?

Mr Robinson is convinced that now is a good time to start up.

He said: "Banks are keener to lend money to young businesses than previously and the economy overall is growing strongly.

"I can't think of many times in the past when it would have been more advantageous to do so.

"Personally I think Dragons' Den is more about publicity and profile for a product or business than actually raising money.

"The style of meetings held and the confrontational style the dragons take with potential investees bears little similarity with my day-to-day dealings with equity providers.

"Dragons' Den is more a demonstration of the growth in entrepreneurialism than a cause of it.

"Many people start their own business because they want to be their own boss, without realising that it can be very lonely running your own business and sometimes very difficult to know what the best next step is.

"I think most people realise that starting a business is very difficult but because they go into it for a negative reason - such as the desire not to be told what to do by someone else - they lose sight of what will make their business a success: the strength and uniqueness of its offering."