IF YOU Want To Make A MILLION DOLLARS - WATCH THIS!|Kevin O'Leary

First of all, you know, I guess I should apologize. I haven't been back on the tube in weeks because I've been crazy busy shooting season 12 of Shark Tank in itself, which is an extraordinary feat. I gotta do a big shout out to the cast and crew on this because we've been doing this whole thing in the bubble. Obviously, you know, COVID-19 is causing chaos in the television production world, but we think Shark Tank's a really important platform because it's not your typical game show where you throw mud at each other or something like that. What I'm talking about here is funding businesses, funding companies, creating jobs, getting products to market that need to get there. That's what we do at Shark Tank. We're very proud of that. Obviously, we've been doing it for over a decade. This is season 12.

But in this particular situation, here's, here's, here's the challenge we've got. First of all, we've got over 265 people that work on that show and every single one of them, every single one has to be COVID-free. And to do that, that's an incredible logistics challenge. They live in different places. They're all going to go to one bubble, a location that, you know, has been kept secret for obvious reasons. Once they go in that bubble, they can't leave. But before they go in that bubble, they have to be tested. I'm getting tested every 72 hours, as many, many others are. But we want to make sure when we arrive into the bubble that we are COVID-free because we don't want to give it to each other. Once we're inside that, we're sealed off. We do not go back outside.

Now, just doing that and all the meals and all the challenges and all the logistics, you can imagine what that's like. But you know, we're halfway through now, we're halfway through shooting and so far so good. So, you know, we can't say success yet because we're not done. But the point is, I'm now on a break. I'm in isolation and a great time to talk to you and go through some of the thousands of questions I've gotten over the last three weeks that I've been off the air, so to speak. There's some great themes in there we're going to talk about.

But I will say a couple of things about Shark Tank. I haven't seen half the pitches so far, some big themes coming because, you know, America hasn't been idle sitting in their basements, you know, isolating and quarantining. Everything else, there's some incredible products. So number one, in the categories, all kinds of new foods, healthier foods, less sodium, less sugar, plant-based, vegan, you name it, we're seeing so many food deals. I mean, I don't know how many different ways you can make a hot dog out of chickpeas, but I've seen them all, I think. But the point is that's a big theme.

Number two, all kinds of digital services now. You know, America's going through what I call a digital pivot and it's reflected in the Shark Tank deals. In other words, nobody's walking in the tank right now saying, "Hey, I've got a great idea for retail." They're not even thinking about selling their product or service on retail anymore. They're focused on direct to customer. So, a lot of the entrepreneurs coming into the tank have very, very savvy skills on social media, on production, on photography, on really rich video, on storytelling. You know, the ability to take a new idea and tell a story in 59 seconds or 29 seconds or 15 seconds and putting it on all the platforms and acquiring customers and using digital to completely be the universe under which they sell. They're not even thinking about going to retail.

And so, that's another huge trend we've seen in the last, you know, first half of what we've seen pitched on Shark Tank. And then the other area which I find so intriguing is this new, you know, tell it the way it is truth. There's no BS anymore. No one's coming on, coming into the tank trying to string you a story. They're very honest about, you know, what they think is happening in the world and they're very honest about their ideas on how they're going to sell their product. They're very transparent about the pros and the cons of the product. Usually, when people come in and pitch, they're really, really hardcore selling. I'm seeing a more, you know, more empathy, more empathy for the situation we're all in together in this COVID thing, and it's a different vibe, so to speak.

But those are the three themes that are streaking through the Shark Tank production right now. And the products, oh my goodness, I mean wait till you see. I mean I've got some deals that just blew my socks off, just incredible stuff. And the valuations? How about 50 million? That's, I think, the biggest valuation anybody's ever said coming into a deal with Shark Tank. Yeah, we had one of those and I, at the beginning of the pitch, said, "What? This guy's nuts!" And by the time it was over, I was an investor. I mean, you know, sometimes you see an idea that's worth 50 million; I'm not against great ideas if they have. I'm not against crazy valuations as long as they're backed by really, really, really good ideas that have trajectory of sales so proven, which in the case of that deal it did.

But let's get to the questions. Okay, I just got a mountain of them and I'm trying to group them into categories, so which I think is helpful. All right, so let's start with one from Jesse. What qualities do you look for when you're hiring somebody? I happen to be looking for a job right now. List at least three qualities and red flag what would disqualify someone. No, I think a lot of people are looking for work, so it's a very, you know, good question, a good theme. So, here's what, you know, I've got a huge portfolio of companies and we're hiring people all the time and in our own working group, the same thing.

What matters to me the most now is, you know, first of all when they present themselves to me, have they done it in a way that's really succinct? Because if it takes more than three paragraphs on your LinkedIn resume, I happen to use LinkedIn a lot, and you can't tell me what benefits you can bring to me as an employee, I don't want to hire you. So, you should spend a lot of time thinking about what you say. I don't care where you went to high school, I don't care the name of your dog, I don't care about any of that. What I want to know is, you know, what can you do for me or one of my companies to make our job easier? I'm happy, you know, to pay you for that, but I want to know what you bring to the table.

And so, I generally find the people I hire are very quick to focus on why they're pitching me. I can do this for you, I can do that for you, I'm better at this than anybody else you've ever seen, here's why I think that's true, please give me a shot. Number one. Number two, they're willing to try out first. In other words, the idea of being an apprentice, coming in and working for a while with the team and being willing to do it maybe as an intern, maybe for 60 or 90 days. You know, if they're not willing to do that, I'm willing to do a contract for a period of let's say three to six months. So, it's a trial period because I really want to make sure that they're willing to integrate and it's going to be a successful integration because there's nothing worse than hiring somebody that nobody wants to work with.

So, if they're willing to do that, that's another attribute I like: either be, you know, an interim with a stipend or a contract worker for a period so we can check each other out. Lastly, I really like to see somewhere maybe in the third paragraph or somewhere in who you are that you embrace the arts in some way. I get business, believe me. I get business. I understand the binary nature of business: either you make money or lose it. But I love people that have a little chaos. You know, do they play guitar? You know, are they, are they into, I'm not going to do a concert, but I'm just saying, are they [Music]? Can't help myself. Are they willing to do something else besides just business? Are they into photography? Are they into the arts? Are they into something else? Are they into music? You know, do they play an instrument? That to me is a round and balanced person, so that's an attribute I like.

I like a lot. I think you should stick it in your resume because it tells me that you're more than just, you know, just focused on the binary nature of business. And I often thought that the yin and the yang, the idea that you're balanced, it makes you a much better, more effective. Now, what do I not like? If I smell [__] on that resume in any way, if you lied to me in any way, I just take that piece of paper and I never look at it again. So, do not talk about degrees you don't have or things you haven't done because before you get hired by anybody, not just me, they're going to check it out, and it's really easy to check out online. And I do check you out online and I have a whole bunch of people that do it too.

So, if you've got crazy stuff posted, probably not a good idea. I mean, I feel empathy for people that are dealing with drug addiction or alcoholism, but there's no place for that in the workplace because I don't want my employees to be affected by that. So that's a big negative, too. You know, it's just, and if you're dealing with that, you need to clean that up first before you go work for anybody. I know, you know, you could say, "Oh, that's not right," but it is right because when I bring you into an environment where other people are working, I want to protect them, too. Anything to do with, you know, issues, interpersonal issues in an office. I mean, if you can't conduct yourself professionally, and you know what I'm talking about, there is no way I'm hiring you.

So, if you take your love life, you do that outside of the office, you do not bring that into the office in the wrong way. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Anything like that? No way. My office is a place for people to work and they have to feel safe. That's what matters. So if you're, if you can't conduct yourself, you're asking me what are red flags? Those are red flags. But I want to end this question on a positive note. I used to say all the time there are three careers that I think, you know, are guaranteed safe if you want to get a job. Number one was engineering, number two is engineering, number three was engineering. And if you want a fourth option, make it engineering.

But since COVID, I want engineering still very important, but I want to tell you about another story here. I have been trying to hire photographers, photographers, video editors, people that can tell stories online, people that know how to do animations and graphics because the whole world is moving on in a big digital pivot and storytelling matters more than ever. So, you know, people that graduated in the arts, which I used to say, "Well, it's harder to get a job." People that are writers? "Oh, it's harder to get a job." People that are photographers or animators or artists or film school graduates? "Oh, it's hard to get a job." Not anymore! They are some of the most important people to actually employ now because they are the storytellers of society. They're the ones that know how to create content and I'm looking for those people. Those are the people that are taking content from all of my companies and I'm going to show you some later in this week's episode of how important that is and give you real examples of how to measure the success of them.

So, you know, Mr. Wonderful here has expanded my views about it's more than engineering, it's orange engineering with storytelling. And that means the arts are back, and they're back big time. So if you're in one of those programs, I think you have a great opportunity to really contribute to a team because teams have to figure out how to tell stories and tell them online. So, a great question. Let's move on here.

All right, oh yeah, so this one is interesting and I've bundled it with a couple others, so I'll read a couple of questions. I've recently inherited a decent amount of cash and I want to invest it, make it grow, but I'm nervous about how volatile the stock market is right now. What are the best and worst investments a person can make in these crazy times? That's Mark's question. And here's one from Michael. I'm 32 and I've managed to save up around 50,000 bucks. Like, wow, I didn't have 50 grand when I was 32; that's pretty impressive. Do I have a chance in hell of making a million dollars and having a million dollars saved before retirement? If so, how do I do it?

So, those are, I'm going to answer both of these questions. You know, let me start by saying, there's a difference between saving and investing. What do I mean by that? And I think this applies to anybody of any age, not just these two questions. When you save money, which is a good thing, and you need to have money, cash money for a rainy day or if there's a catastrophe in the family, that's cash. And today, cash makes basically nothing. After inflation, you're getting less than one percent interest when it's sitting in a bank. So that's saving, but that's not investing because you have to have a plan in your life for what's going to happen to you when you hit your 60s and 70s and 80s and maybe by then your 90s because people are living longer all the time. How do you get a nest egg together?

Well, the average salary in America is around fifty-eight thousand dollars. And so, I'm going to give it to you in a nutshell: you have to start saving in your early years, in your twenties, a 100 bucks a week minimum. But it's not just the saving aspect. You've got to invest that money. So, you have to take that hundred dollars out of whatever your activity is or you're going to start a side hustle. Maybe you're going to be a photographer, maybe you're going to be a writer, maybe you're going to do something else, a separate job where you can make at least, you know, 100 bucks a week after tax, and you're going to invest it. You're not going to save it; you're going to invest it. Saving is what you have in cash; investing is what you put into the market.

Now, the market is a volatile thing, as the first question, you know, made reference to. And when you invest in the stock market, what matters is diversification. You don't know which stocks are going to go up and down or when. You don't know which sectors of the economy are going to outperform the others; you have no idea. But if you look over a long period of time, what you see is a market, a stock market that returns around six to eight percent a year. And if you start to put aside a hundred bucks a week in your early years, you're going to end up with, you know, if the markets do what they did for the last hundred plus years, you're going to end up with about a million and a half dollars when you're 65. That is really important.

So, you know, to these questions, Michael's question about the fifty thousand dollars he's got, if that's just being saved, well, that's going to lose value each year as inflation erodes it because inflation's more than what interest rates in banks are now. And for Mark, you know, yes, he does have a chance because he has to start thinking about investing on a broad portfolio. Now, most people don't even know how to buy and sell stocks, and so that shouldn't stop them from becoming investors for their own retirement.

So, I have spent a whole lot of time working on something called Bean Stocks. Bean Stocks is an app in your phone, and there are many apps. Okay, there's many apps to help you start investing. Some apps gross up your credit card bill and put a few cents aside. Some apps let you trade stocks and bonds individually. Some apps let you go into the market and be a day trader. That's not what Bean Stocks is. I wanted to make something incredibly simple. I wouldn't have invested in this if I'd found something that could do it the way I wanted to. I wanted to create an app that anybody can use to get that hundred bucks put aside each week and invest it in the market really easily and really simply.

So, what Bean Stocks does is it lets you connect to your bank account. You can decide how much you're going to automatically withdraw each week, or you can put it in manually. You decide you want to at least put 100 bucks aside a week— that's what makes sense to me over a long time. But then it puts it into a portfolio that's already pre-designed for you using exchange-traded funds. Those are called ETFs, another way of calling that. They are baskets of stocks, baskets of stocks that are good holds because these ETFs are ones designed to put you into long-term investments, not speculative stuff. Stuff that is designed to provide returns, hopefully six to eight percent a year in most cases or many cases pay dividends, and then you reinvest those dividends. That's how you grow that nest egg.

But the key is to actually download it. It's free. You can get it from the App Store, no matter whether you've got Android or Apple, whatever you're using. Try it and then start to engage. The whole key to this strategy and the reason I made it so simple was the hard job for you is to get it in your head that you've got to put a hundred dollars aside each week. Now in the case of someone who's got 50,000, like the question we got just now, you want to put that into the market slowly. You don't want to put it all in at once. Maybe you do it over a six-month period because markets go up and they go down, and you want to average your way in.

But the point of Bean Stocks, and I keep saying Bean Stocks, is because if you don't know how to do this and you want something incredibly simple to use, that's why I created it. I wanted to make it really, really, really easy to do, and that's what Bean Stocks does. So check it out, download it, have a look at it. It's very transparent. It's a straight five bucks a month fee, no matter how much you put in. So you know exactly what it costs and you can watch exactly what's happening with that portfolio every day or ignore it and look at it every month or every three months. But the key is find a way to save a hundred dollars and put it into Bean Stocks and let it grow.

And you know, there's some crap you don't need to buy. I, you know, the way I, I want you to think about it, pretend I'm on your shoulder right now. I'm on your shoulder and you walk outside and you're going to buy some piece of crap you don't need. I'm looking at you, barking and saying, "Don't buy that piece of crap! Invest it in your future! Do not buy that piece of crap! Invest in your future! Do not spend that hundred dollars!" Go into your closet, look at all the crap you bought you never wear, look at all the junk around your condo that you never use. That money should have been invested in Bean Stocks so it could go to work for you. That's the whole key to success.

All right, enough said about that. But I wanted to talk about Bean Stocks a lot, and I will be because I've been working on it for a long time and I really want this to be the core of my financial literacy push I'm going to be doing this year and next year.

Okay, question four. You talk a lot about embracing failure and learning from it, but I find it hard to believe you failed a lot. Can you think of a time when you did fail and what you learned from it? And what was the biggest mistake you made? Well, I have failed a lot. Many failures. I can give you some. I just gave you one earlier. I lost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least on paper, for a long time shorting Yahoo. That was a big mistake. Stupid of me to do that. Then I started a business. You know, I started many startups when I was an operator that actually failed. One was involved with one of the giant cable companies, and I probably spent about 18 months on that. Made no money, lost a lot. I think in that case about 750,000. Ouch, that hurts! It really stung.

I've invested in other deals; some were friends, some were other business associates that went to zero. Generally, in a startup, I'll put up about 250,000 and wait and see what happens. Then put more in. And there was one that I put 250 into, and then within six months, they needed more money. Even though my gut was telling me, "Don't invest in it," I put another 250, and within six months, I lost another half million. I've made many mistakes, but I learn from my mistakes. That's the key. I am not going to be successful in everything I do, and I want you to embrace that idea. As an entrepreneur, you are not going to be successful all the time. You will make many, many mistakes, and it's okay. It's okay as long as you learn from it.

Now, I don't make the same mistakes anymore. I make new mistakes; I learn from those again. And that's what's called experience. The difference between when you start your career, when you get to the middle of it and the end is all the mistakes you've made and what you've learned from them. And the older you get, the more you've learned, and that's the whole idea. When I work with young entrepreneurs today and with my teams and my companies, I try and explain to them the mistakes I've made so they don't make the same ones. That's the whole idea.

But I've made millions of dollars of mistakes, and I, you know, I once, I once ran as a politician and lost millions of dollars doing that. Was that a mistake? Was that a learning experience? I'm still haven't decided yet, but it's sort of those experiences in life are made up the patina of life. The rest of life, the coding of life is all the experiences, not just the successes, but the failures you've made. Now, do I like losing money? No. Do I cry like a baby when it happens? Yes! Because I know how hard it is to make it really hard, and I hate to lose it, but I make sure that I distill the essence of that lesson. That's very, very important.

I just, I want to encourage everybody with a question like that to embrace failure. It's not that you alone have failed; it's that the idea didn't have merit. The attempt didn't work for whatever reason. The market wasn't ready for it. You know, even in relationships, maybe you weren't meant to be together in the end. I mean, there's a whole concept of life around karma and things that should happen and things that shouldn't, but should you fail? Yes, yes, yes, you should! Otherwise, you will have no experiences.

Okay, um, you know, that’s an important answer I think to the issue of failure. Now, this one is something I do want to talk about this week. I was watching you last week on an early morning TV show talking about your Shark Tank companies and what they were doing to survive during the pandemic. And you kept talking about a digital pivot. What did you mean? Now let me give you an example. I started giving an example. Here's one, you remember this deal? It's called Bertello Pizza Ovens. Here's the moment I closed it on Shark Tank. Have a look at this!

Chef Wonderful has found the best pizza oven in the world of Patello! I can't wait to get behind this! Everybody in America is going to be making incredible pizza! I just love it! I feel warm and fuzzy! 600 degrees! Okay, now are we going to sell a lot of pizza ovens when they're in retail? No! No! No! We had to pivot like everybody else, so what did we do? This is one example of working with your company.

Now, one of the things a shark is really good at and you know and that I focus my time and energy on with my companies is how can I use my social media platform to acquire customers for my companies? I mean that's the magic of Shark Tank! Shark Tank is the best venture capital firm in the world. Why? Because through syndication, 10 million people see the show. You can't buy that kind of exposure.

And then through social media for the millions of people that are following me, I like to promote my companies because I'm an investor in them, I believe in the entrepreneurs, I believe in the product or service, and I want them to be successful. So what did we do in the case of Bertello? We started thinking, "All right, how do we get this product to customers who are not going to sell it in retail?" Well, what happens to people that are quarantined during COVID? Well, they're hanging out in their backyards, they're hanging out in their balconies, they're hanging out with their families, and what better thing to do together than make a pizza?

It's fun; it's crazy fun! I have a Bertello! I use it practically every day! I love it! It's so much fun! And it's great with your family to make pizzas! And so we said, "How can we tell that story? How can we tell that story about the Patello pizza oven and who can we tell it to?" Then it hit me! Great partner of mine—QVC. Six million people watching QVC live. What about if we did a live pizza party on QVC with the Patello oven? What if I taped a 59-second video and did it and showed it live while I was talking about the pizza oven direct, maybe from my own backyard?

But you can cook a pizza in about 90 seconds. This thing gets unbelievably hot and will use either propane or wood or pellets from your Traeger or it can use charcoal. And it is an amazing way to cook your pizza! The stone gets super hot! And when you go to pull out these pizzas that cook in 90 seconds, this is the kind of pizza pie I'm gonna walk it over here so our camera can shoot down on it so you can really see that this is wood-fired pizza or propane-fired pizza or charcoal-fired pizza. It cooks literally in about 90 seconds! You have to turn it and rotate it, what, every 25 seconds? Yeah, about every 15 seconds, actually, Mary said.

So this is going to be perfect for you! What we want to do is show you Kevin O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, in action with this pizza oven! Here we go! Now, the moment of truth! Let's take one of these slices of pie with all the cheese dripping down! [Music] And [Music] oh, that is incredible! I see you're ripping me off on my idea with the olive oil! Actually, Dad, I'm pretty sure this was my [Laughter] idea! Sloppy and delicious! Crazy good! It's just beyond fantastic! This reminds me of Paris at night! I'm not kidding! It's romantic! The flavors are so spectacular! This could be the best pie ever made!

Now, I got to make a better pie! See you soon! Get your Patello and let's make pie! Kevin O'Leary is joining us live via Skype! Kevin, I know you're super excited about this pizza oven! We saw the clip on Shark Tank and which will show—I’ve seen the clip and I know we'll show it here in the presentation! This is an amazing way for you to have wood-fired pizza in your own backyard!

David, of all my Shark Tank investments, and I've been on the show for 12 years, I've never had more fun than with this pizza oven! The kids love it! The family loves it! Everybody loves it! And the only thing that stops creativity is your imagination! I've made every kind of pie known to man and I'm still inventing new ones! You can see what I'm doing right here! And not only that, David, here's a little secret—besides how—oh, I'm just—I just finished this beautiful pepperoni! Lucky! Oh my goodness!

I know, but wait, wait, wait! David, look at this! I made sweet potato fries on it as well! I go beyond pizza! This thing is fantastic! Oh my goodness! Hey, Kevin, I need to let everybody know we have only 350 of these to go around that we can ship out right now. When those sell out, we're going to go to an advanced order, but this is going very quickly, and it's free shipping and handling day! If there was ever a day for you to buy a pizza oven, it's today!

Now, real quickly, we're going to take a look at the Shark Tank clip and then we'll go over to Mary, who's quickly cooking pizzas away from me on the other side of the driveway here. But let's first go to our Shark Tank clip and show you what really turned Kevin O'Leary's head when he saw this in action.

"I also have an offer. Really? It's you, Eric, and a bunch of money required for inventory. And probably more optimization on digital that you've never done. Okay? But I want 30 percent." "Would you do it for 25 percent?" "Yes! Well, we'd love to take a deal!" "I don't believe it! I won't step in that, but I've got to be careful. Congratulations, guys!"

So last weekend in eight minutes, we sold a thousand Bertello pizza ovens! I mean, I couldn't think of a better outcome in eight minutes because we were able to do the digital pivot! We were able to tell the story, show the product, work with a partner like QVC, direct to customers that bought it! People love this oven! That's what I'm talking about! That's the digital pivot I'm talking about! And now you've seen an example of how it works. I don't just do that for Patello, I do it with all my companies. That's why Shark Tank is so powerful! If you can partner with a shark and you can start to do a digital pivot, you can sell direct to customers! Millions of them are out there watching! If you can get to them, how do you do it?

You have to understand how the social media algorithms work. You have to know how to tell a story in 15 seconds, 29 seconds, 59 seconds, in some cases, 2 minutes and 20 seconds, depending on which digital platform you're on. But that means great photography, great video, really good storytelling, fantastic animations—all of that comes together. And that's how it works! And now you understand the secret sauce of Shark Tank! And the Bertello! And by the way, if you want a great pizza oven, I'm always a salesman! I love this Patello pizza! And you obviously see that it's more fun than you can ever have cooking! It is absolutely great! And who's the best pizza guy in the world now? It's me! I can make a pie that you die for! [Music]