Julie Meyer, 42, is one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs and is among the 30 most powerful women in Europe, according to the Wall Street Journal.

She is a “Dragon” for the online version of Dragons’ Den, where entrepreneurs try to persuade her to invest in their start-up companies.

She is best known for founding First Tuesday, a networking forum for entrepreneurs, which she built into a $50m (£32m) business in two years and sold to Yazam, an Israeli private equity company. Today she is the manager of Ariadne Capital, an investment and advisory firm with a particular focus on media and technology.

Born in California, she has worked in Paris and now lives on her own in South Kensington, west London.

How much money do you have in your wallet?

About £180. I hate being caught out without cash. I typically take out about £200 at a time. I tend to use cards where I can.

What credit cards do you use?

I have an American Express and a Visa card. I’m hyper-organised — I divide things up so I have cards for business and others for personal use. I pay off my bills in full each month.

Are you a saver or a spender?

I’m very goal orientated, so I save in order to spend or invest. I’ve made some commitments to invest through Dragons’ Den. You don’t have to invest in anything on the show but it makes it a lot more fun.

Didn’t the dotcom boom put you off?

No. The promise made by the dotcom boom was immense but the reality was much less. I don’t think the same kinds of claims about technology are being made today. We are seeing a bedding-down of technology this time round. If you look at the iPod, for example, it’s more about user interface than super-advanced technology. Things are cheaper now, too. You can set up a decent website company for £500,000 compared with, say, about £5m 10 years ago.