Austin isn’t close enough to the Gulf of Mexico for sharks to be circling the city. But thanks to the ATX TV Festival, several sharks were spotted downtown. Specifically, Mark Cuban, Daymond John, and Kendra Scott. I’m talking, of course, about the hit ABC series Shark Tank, which recently concluded its 14th season on May 19th. In a presentation titled “We Have a Deal: Inside the Business of Shark Tank presented by Sony Pictures Television,” fans of the show got an inside look at the show’s recipe for success. Mark, Daymond, and Kendra were joined by executive producers Clay Newbill and Yun Lingner, plus Shark Tank success story Justin Fenchel of Beatbox Beverages.
Despite having reached its 14th season with a 15th on the way, Shark Tank wasn’t actually an instant success story. Mark Cuban joined the show in Season 2 for just a handful of episodes as a guest shark and never dreamed it would still be going today. Daymond John recalled how other celebrity entrepreneurs were wary of the concept and didn’t have faith in it. Season 3 is when things really took off, with audiences getting wrapped up in moments where tough business financiers' tough exteriors were chipped away by new entrepreneurs with heartfelt stories.
Part of the secret to Shark Tank’s success has been its inspirational and aspirational message. Kendra Scott, who recently joined the series as a guest shark, recalled watching the show with her whole family while trying to get her own business off the ground. She talked about her failed pitches to local Austin investors and learning from Shark Tank success stories to create her fashion empire. The show premiered in 2009, and Kendra opened her first physical retail store in 2010, landing an investment of $1 billion in 2016 off the air.
Justin Fenchel appeared on the show in 2014 during Season 6 to pitch a party-sized boxed wine product. Mark Cuban quickly invested, joking that it was in part because the sharks were offered samples and were not aware that each box was 11% alcohol, so his mood was quickly elevated. Mark invested $1 million in Beatbox Beverages, which is projected to have $105 million in revenue this year. As part of Season 14, a 10-years-later retrospective was produced for the show, which highlighted the ups and downs over the years, including a few times that it seemed like the company would go under. When Beatbox Beverages works on attracting new distributors for its beverages, they still use footage from Shark Tank in their sales pitch.
Since its launch, Shark Tank’s investments have amounted to over $8 billion dollars in retail sales. While the sharks don’t invest in every pitch they get, sometimes just having exposure on the show is enough to give a hopeful entrepreneur some free publicity. Such was the case this past season with Samuel Taylor’s company Long Table Pancakes. As Clay Newbill recalled, Samuel’s submission (one of 20,000) stood out for three reasons. The first was his story – a Midwest theater owner who struggled to put food on his family’s table during the pandemic and got creative, making a pancake mix out of popcorn. The second was that Samuel had a celebrity friend who was a fan of the product and agreed to be on the show, Friends star David Schwimmer. While Samuel walked away from his pitch without a deal, Clay touched base with him shortly before the episode aired, which was about four months later. Samuel had produced a lot of inventory by that point in anticipation of an increase in sales, which Clay warned him could be disastrous. Thankfully, it wasn’t. In fact, Long Table Pancakes sold out of inventory ($250,000 worth) before the hour-long episode was done airing on the East Coast!
Just like the entrepreneurs who appear on the show, the producorial team has had to get creative over the years. During the pandemic, Shark Tank was the first TV show back in production, following the NBA’s bubble model, an idea that Mark Cuban first pitched to the team (he revealed that they began negotiations with Walt Disney World, but ended up filming in The Venetian in Las Vegas). Yun Lingner discussed Season 14’s biggest challenge, shooting the show’s first live episode. Each series is typically filmed over the course of two weeks, with each entrepreneur getting 45-60 minutes to pitch to the sharks. That footage is then edited down to give each 8-10 minutes of screen time. For the live show, this meant that the entrepreneurs could only have about 8-10 minutes of time with the sharks, which was also a challenge for the investors. For this reason, fans shouldn’t hold out hope for another live episode, although Kendra Scott shared that she was in the audience in case she needed to sub in for one of the core sharks and that the energy in the room was ecstatic.
Clay and Yun are currently screening applications for Season 15, adding their optimistic vision for the show to continue for at least another 14 seasons. For any aspiring entrepreneurs, they touched on the three qualities they’re typically looking for when narrowing down the typical 20,000 applications to just 60 pitches per season. A unique angle, a charismatic spokesperson, and a powerful story behind the product or business. Among the investments their most proud of, Mark Cuban and Daymond John both agreed that Bombas was their best co-investment. The sock company had a humanitarian angle, gifting a pair of socks to homeless shelters for every pair sold. As the company expanded into other apparel items, that philanthropic mission expanded to include shirts and pants. Mark Cuban was also representing another one of his philanthropic investments, a t-shirt from Be a Better Human.
Past episodes of Shark Tank are available to stream on Hulu. Stay tuned for news about the upcoming 15th season on ABC.