Why I love Shark Tank so freaking much

Everyone has a favorite show, whether that’s a Netflix series or reality. I am no different. My favorite show of all time is Shark tank.

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you can’t help but love this show. Entrepreneurs pitch a business idea or a startup they have been working on and raise funds. Business giants like Kevin O Leary, Mark Cuban, and Daymond John invest in these businesses if they like it and strike a deal with their partners.

However, it is important to note that if you are a new company, you have to grow a thick skin because in many cases these entrepreneurs are humiliated by the sharks.

Lessons to learn from shark tank

1. Do your Homework: The smart entrepreneurs who come on the show definitely do their homework by looking at the companies the sharks have invested in and what is the maximum valuation they can present. One of the most valuable skills you can learn from this show is negotiation. Always go for the highest number so you could close the deal at a higher number than what you expected. However, your valuation must be a reasonable multiple of your sales, otherwise, the sharks would get annoyed and immediately turn you down altogether.

If you have a mind-blowing product and great sales, you are most likely to walk out with a deal from shark tank.

2. Focus on solving a problem: As entrepreneurs, we’ve always been told to be focused on solving a problem. By the way, the formula actually works. If you look at the biggest companies in the world, their primary objective was to make the world a better place and the money followed.

But there is something that personally didn’t sit well about that advice at least for me. I would say 99% of the world’s problems have been solved and big ideas have been taken. I had this mentality until I started watching Shark Tank, which leads me to my third point.

3. Be Innovative: So many entrepreneurs present such creative and innovative solutions to problems we face every day. It doesn’t have to be revolutionary necessarily, you can just take an existing product and make it way better.

Being on the shark tank show is an amazing accomplishment for every entrepreneur. Even if they don’t strike a deal with the sharks, they get amazing feedback and millions of eyeballs on them which promotes their brand.

Kevin O’Leary’s biggest mistake

The entrepreneur Jamie Siminoff who founded the doorbell company Ring was rejected by four out of five sharks when he came to the show. The only shark who made him an offer was Mr. Wonderful but as a loan and a little more equity than he wanted to give away. He refused to take the offer and six years later, Amazon acquired the company for more than a billion which made Jamie hundreds of millions. Jamie later returned to Shark tank as an investor and is a true inspiration to millions of entrepreneurs around the world.

Here is another important lesson from Shark tank; don’t let the sharks rejecting your idea discourage you from carrying on to building your empire. At the end of the day, what matters the most is how firmly you believe in the product and when it does become wildly successful, just stick into the face of the investors who rejected it.

To sum up

I firmly believe that Shark tank is a very inspirational show for people who want to become business owners. Along with funding companies, they are also teaching people the tools and principles needed to build a successful company. It is important to keep in mind, however, that a normal pitch takes around an hour or so and there are a ton of things that goes on behind the scenes that the audience is not aware of. This fact has actually been admitted by the shark Mark Cuban in the SDR show and in other podcasts. That being said, not everything that we see on TV should be taken at face value.

There is a fine line between ambition and practicality, let me explain.

Entrepreneurs aim for the stars, and in my opinion, they should. But at the same time, too much ambition can actually kill your happiness, especially in business. Since entrepreneurship is such a thorny, lonely and difficult road, you can only succeed in building something meaningful if you truly love it. I believe the Shark tank show does a great job of illustrating that.

Many startup people who come on the show get told to pivot in their business because the market isn’t responding well to it. This means reducing their valuation and that is very difficult to do for someone who has put their blood, sweat, and tears into building something. Ring was an exception because Jamie was an extraordinary salesperson, but my point is that the Sharks in many cases are right. Being pragmatic can lead to a successful business, maybe the valuation you’re thinking of is a little too crazy.

Hope you got some good value from this post, see you in the next one ✌