Shark Tank

 Shark Tank 

Jack Miller

Many of you know or have seen the show Shark Tank, but for those of you who haven't, it is a show which includes investors worth millions called the “Sharks.” The Sharks are Mark Cuban, Lori Greiner, Barbra Corcoran, Daymond John, Robert Herjavec and Kevin O’Leary. Every investor in this group has a net worth over 100 million, and Mark Cuban has the highest at roughly $4.5 billion. In Shark Tank, they hear pitches from business owners that want funding in exchange for some ownership, or equity, in the business. Many of the deals that have gone down have made these investors millions, but the potential deals the Sharks missed were their biggest mistakes.

In 2013 Jamie Siminoff walked onto the stage of Shark Tank trying to snag a deal. The product he presented was a security camera system, at the time called Door Bot, now widely known as Ring. His pitch was $700,000 for 10% of his company. This took the Sharks by surprise with many of them seeming to be upset thinking at the evaluation. One of the Sharks offered a $700,000 loan, he gets 10% of sales until it was paid off, and 7% royalty and 5% in company equity. Jamie Siminoff quickly denied the offer; he wanted something more than just a loan. As debates went back and forth, eventually none of them could come to an agreement. Little did they know, Ring would be one of their biggest regrets for not taking this deal. Just 2 years later, Ring was flying off the shelfs and became a huge business known around the world. The company eventually went on to sell over 1 million units. In just 5 year, Ring was sold to Amazon. The amount was never publicly said, but officials are estimating the sale to be between 1.2-1.8 billion dollars. If these numbers are correct, the sharks could have made over 100 million dollars before taxes if they struck a deal. 

The next big miss by the Sharks was on a dating app called Coffee meets Bagel. In 2020, when going onto the stage, this dating app had around 350,000 users and $270,000 in sales within the first 5 months on the market. The three owners, all sisters, traveled to the sharks ready to get a deal. They asked for $500,000 for 5% of the business. Many of the sharks seemed really interested initially. Debating went back and forth for a very long time, but no deal seemed to be working out; the sisters weren’t budging because they thought their business’s future was promising. Then, out of nowhere, Mark Cuban asked, “if I offered 30 million dollars for the whole company would you take it.” The sisters all looked at eachother and jaws dropped, they ended up talking and decided to decline the offer because they weren't willing to sell the whole business yet. So the sisters ended up leaving the show with no deals. Just a year later, the estimated value of Coffee Meets bagels is estimated to be around 150 million dollars.

Overall, the Sharks have been very successful throughout their years on Shark Tank generating millions of dollars in profits each. But even with all the success, they failed to make a deal with Ring and Coffee Meets Bagel which they must strongly regret. 

Work Cited 

“Shark Tank Cast and Guest Sharks + Net Worths.” Shark Tank Tales: Life After Shark Tank Updates, 15 Sept. 2021, https://sharktanktales.com/shark-tank-cast/. 

“The Shark Tank Cast Are Worth Billions – but Who Is Worth the Most?” South China Morning Post, 25 Aug. 2021, https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3131800/whos-richest-shark-tank-cast-member-net-worths-ranked-nba. 

Taylor, Andrea Browne. “8 Shark Tank Fails That Turned into Big Successes.” Kiplinger, Kiplinger, 22 Feb. 2019, https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/business/t049-s001-8-shark-tank-fails-that-turned-into-big-successes/index.html.