Rachel Lowe is a woman in demand. It takes months of phone messages, emails and missed interview slots before we eventually speak. But when we do, it's immediately clear why.

For some people, Christmas is a month-long jolly. For others, it's a quickly snatched couple of days for food, festivities and family time. For Lowe, it's the culmination of a year's work - deal negotiations, design stress and debts. Along with young children across the UK, Christmas is the most important time in Rachel Lowe's diary.

And Christmas 2007 is set to be her most successful one yet. Last month, she launched her latest and potentially greatest product - the Disney Pixar version of her board game, Destination. Much like the other 16 versions she now has in the market - which include Destination Paris, London, New York and South Africa - the basics of this new game are the same; a London taxi with destinations to visit, pickups to make, fares to collect, shifts to survive, fines to avoid and money to count.

In Destination Animation, however, it's all a little more quirky. The destinations are Pixar films such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc. and The Incredibles. "It's a journey through these films where you pick up film frames," enthuses Lowe. "It takes 12 frames to make an animation sequence which you then put in your magic lantern, spin it and watch it come to life."

With delays on licensing and artwork from Disney, and production go-ahead only coming in July, the pressure has been on to get Destination Animation out in time for Christmas. At the same time, Lowe and her team of 16 have been overseeing production runs for the other Destination games, following different supply procedures for each retailer, organising attendance at toy fairs for 2008, and working on prototypes for new Destination games - including a major one which will launch next year on the global games market.

BBC 2's Dragons must be squirming in their seats. It was only three years ago that Doug Richard, Duncan Bannatyne, Rachel Elnaugh and Peter Jones tore Rachel Lowe to shreds in the first-ever series of Dragons' Den, the TV show where people pitch their business ideas to a panel of successful entrepreneurs in the hope they will invest.

"The Dragons' Den experience probably prepared me for the worst. Nothing I've done since has ever been as bad. Now I'm Facebook friends with Duncan Bannatyne and have met most of the Dragons since."

Her plan wasn't very good according to Richard, she wouldn't get press coverage said Bannatyne and Destination couldn't possibly compete with Monopoly, insisted Elnaugh. They must have hid in the Den as Lowe went on to stock Destination in Hamleys, become their bestselling toy, beat Monopoly sales and appear in newspapers and TV across the country.

"I look back now and think the experience didn't do me any harm," she concedes. "But I definitely felt wounded at the time. I just had no idea what I was getting into because it was the first series. I was expecting us to sit around the table with a coffee and have a chat! I probably wouldn't have had the guts to go on if I'd known. But I've had huge support from the public since. And I've met most of the Dragons again, as well as being Facebook friends with Duncan Bannatyne. The experience probably prepared me for the worst. Nothing I've done since has ever been as bad."

Lowe's success is a fairy tale story in the world of business. Working nightshifts as a taxi driver in Portsmouth in 2002 (age 29) to support her two children, she first came up with the idea for Destination. Shortly afterwards, a university lecturer 'fare' persuaded her to go back to college.

She enrolled to do law with business in 2003 and, while there, entered her idea for Destination into the University of Portsmouth's 'Enterprise Challenge'. Winning outright, Lowe spent the cash prize making a prototype of the game and securing the rights to it. When she was turned down by companies like Hasbro to take the game under licence, she decided to try it herself. It was also around this time that she came across the advert for Dragons' Den.

What's endearing about Lowe is that the person Rachel Elnaugh called 'too nice for business' wasn't deterred by their comments. Despite the Dragons' insistence that she hadn't done her research (she wasn't allowed bring her business plan or numbers into the room), Lowe insists she had and began putting it into action afterwards.

"It's all very hard work. I have days where I wish I could just close my eyes and be back in my taxi. Life was simpler then. But what I've learnt over the last two years has been fantastic and glamorous at times!"

Without investment or a business background, she learnt the trade as she went along, 'making loads of mistakes'. Financing was one. Without access to a bank loan or investors, Lowe put her own money into the project and borrowed from friends (£115K of the £180K), then stressed about paying it back. Even when the show aired and she was inundated with investment offers, she still rejected them, worrying about the equity stake. She says now: "We're never going down the personal borrowing route again. We're doing things purely through the bank now for production, and selling shares to raise finance."

But finance continues to be a thorn in Lowe's side. "Although we now have a bank supporting us with production costs, in terms of working capital, you're always fighting the finance side. I can see how some business go under when they're about to take off big time. If we're producing large volumes for next year, we need the money to fund it. It might sometimes be better to grow organically and bit by bit, but when you've suddenly got an opportunity to take on the world, you've got to go for it."

Taking on the world has taken its toll on Lowe. "It's all very hard work. I have days where I wish I could just close my eyes and be back in my taxi. Life was simpler then," she admits. "But what I’ve learnt over the last two years has been fantastic, even glamorous at times, though there's a cost that comes with it and that's the quality time you have with your family."

The flip side of having an entrepreneurial mum is that both her daughters are more ambitious. "My six year old wants to be a cab driver because she thinks they make lots of money. And my 11 year old wants to own a bank!"

Lowe doesn't look like she'll be driving her cab anytime soon, with 2008 set to be 'the year RTL Games goes global'. If anything does happen however, she has a law degree to fall back on. "I could be a barrister and get paid to argue," Lowe laughs, referring to Elnaugh's 'too nice' comment in the Den. And prove the former Dragon wrong again? Tempting indeed.

Disney Pixar Destination Animation is available from WH Smith for £14.99. Visit  www.whsmith.co.uk for more details.

If you are interested in finding out more about Business Angel investing, visit  www.coutts.com/entrepreneurs to find out more about Coutts' Forum for Entrepreneurs Dragon's Den events.

By Barbara Walshe