Swimming in the Shark Tank, Looking for Loot

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I often say that television is better now than it ever was. That’s because reality TV is just more fun than anything scripted. Last night was a perfect case in point, I watched a new ABC show called “The Shark Tank” and I loved it.

Six savvy multimillionaires sit in chairs and young eager entrepreneurs come out and try to impress them into giving them $150K or more investments in their companies. The back and forth about how much of a percent of owner ship they’ll give up and how much either one or a combination of the sharks will put in is all negotiable. And that’s the fun part.

A guy named Kwame came in with a pretty neat idea: He buys gift cards from people who have them lying around for about 65% of face value, and he sells them on line for 90% of face value. He asked the Sharks for $150,000 and offered a 25% stake. They countered with 150 and 45%. He had a track record and was making money, and the entire business seemed sensible and seamless. They bought in, and expressed confidence that this African entrepreneur would do well.
Then a woman came in who was selling trinkets about happiness. One of her items was a sandal that made a footprint of some sort of slogan about following happiness. The rub? She’s only made $35K in two years, and wanted them to put up $150K. No way, they said, practically shooing her out of the room, despite her good intentions.

Another guy had patents on the words “coffee, latte and cappucino” and wanted to sell teddy bears and mugs with those words on them. The sharks asked him how many of the items he’d sold…’None, yet” he answered meekly. He was pummeled by the gang of sharks, who said get lost until you’ve actually sold anything, Í’m out!’ We are not going to invest!