Swimming in the Shark Tank

Who would turn down a 250,000 dollar capital infusion?

I saw this with my own eyes while watching “Shark Tank” August 9th. It was the fifth and final pitch of the day. These young men made the mistake of overlooking a few intangibles, as well. (More about that later).


In a money-filled "Shark Tank" -- broadcast on ABC, a half-dozen or so budding entrepreneurs are given an opportunity to "swim" with five successful boot-strapped multi-millionaires.

The first guy up actually had a profitable business. He had failed at his first venture and started over – actually not a bad thing. We can learn a lot from failures. He is now ready to expand the business, so he was on the show asking for just under half a mil. Yet, I found myself wondering why this man – with experience operating a viable business, failed to analyze the contribution to margin of his product lines? Mr. Tod’s Pies markets 30 different pie flavors, but just one flavor represents nearly half of the overall revenues. He knew that much, but did not know the contribution factors of the line overall.

Another guy had poured money down a Dream Pit for an electronic gadget called WiSpots. Why could he not see that his business model was shaky, at best? He had spent over half a million of his own money, risking literally everything. He had quit his job to work in his business full time. You don’t do that when you have no resources and a family to support! Get investors – early – if your idea truly has potential. It was heartbreaking to watch him get five “no’s” to his proposal. He should have had a “no” several hundred thousand dollars ago...

The other key intangible with the Shark Tank was the opportunity to be mentored by whichever of the Shark Millionaires decides to buy in. As one successful requestor cited: “Her mentorship is gonna be the best part.” This came from a young lady from Auburn, Georgia – origin of Emmy the Elephant: A cute idea, with pretty good market potential. The college guys -- who turned down a $250 K offer -- should have recognized the value of advice from people who've been where you want to go.

The show illustrated so well the value DMMI Associates LLC brings to its clients – especially those with untested ideas. We help people to think through and plan the how of getting from idea to viable business. I have personally had to tell a few clients that they should not invest time, energy, and money in their ideas. We provide the research to back up both the thumbs-up and the the thumbs-down recommendations.

So, how can DMMI Associates LLC help you to get from ideas to profitability? We’ll assist you with…
Information
Diligence
Expertise
Analysis
Solutions
...that can help you and your business to achieve your business growth and development goals.

E-mail us for help getting started.
DMMI can help you through the quagmire of decisions about growing your business and help you to map out your next steps to success.

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