The Most Successful Shark Tank Deals and Products | Kirk Minihane

[Music] Good, so you're live now on the Kirkman the Hand show. Uh, nice to meet you. Normally, normally, I said this earlier, I am podcast wonderful, but I'm gonna hand that over to you today out of respect. I think you've earned that; you've earned that right. Either that or pay me a royalty. What do you want to do?

Oh, I would love to pay the royalty! I would love to negotiate that. I want, uh, one dollar a mic until fifty thousand mics sold, and we'll call it a day. That's why they call me Mr. Wonderful.

Really? So explain to me how, so just how the show works, and I'm a huge fan of the show and of you. You're my favorite shark by far. How are you guys going to pull off a live edition of the show? Because I would imagine the average pitches take forever.

No? Yeah, you've nailed it. That's going to be the big issue. So, you know, the key to this is to realize in a pitch now in a live show, you're probably going to get about eight minutes. Normally, a Shark Tank pitch is about 45 minutes to an hour and 10, and then it gets edited down to eight minutes. Right? So these contestants are coming into a whole different format, which I think is going to be really interesting.

We've been rehearsing it, and what I love about it, it's just sheer chaos because you're on live TV. You got a hundred million eyeballs including syndication. Don't screw it up, because there's no way to edit it. You screw it up? Sorry, it's over. And so I look at it and say this is going to be the toughest pitch they've ever done in their lives, and no matter how many times you rehearse this stuff, because I've seen this happen for 14 years on Shark Tank, you're sitting in front of a mirror for months getting ready for your big moment. But this is a whole different deal. I mean, you're going to walk out there, 26 cameras, a live audience. I think the shit's going to hit the fan! I think this is going to be fantastic TV.

What is the longest, if you may know this, what is the longest pitch you guys ever had to sit through? Has there been one that's been three hours, two, four hours?

No, no. The longest pitch was one hour and 43 minutes by a real [ __ ], and you know, it's so frustrating; just brutal. But the product had merit; that guy was an idiot. So that was the problem.

Which one was this? I assume it made air.

It was a product called Toppers, and it was basically a very simple idea. You know, you finish your meal, your steak's half eaten. Yup, and you want to stick it in the fridge till tomorrow, which is what every millennial is doing, you know, in their condo, particularly during the pandemic. Right? This guy had designed a vacuum-sealed topper. You just stick it right on the plate; it fit ninety percent of your plates. Yeah, and it was a great idea.

And he had a huge order from Walmart, just a huge order. But his valuation was just stupid. It was just stupid because at the end of the day, it's going to get knocked off, and you know it's not high-tech; it's just a piece of plastic; it sits on a plate. But it was a good idea, and that's what we find in Shark Tank. You know, you just don't know what's going to walk through that door. You have no idea. We don't get to see it beforehand; we have no idea what's going to walk through there. We're in discovery, like you are as the audience, and sometimes the craziest ideas make hundreds of millions of dollars.

Sure. Do you get as angry? I know you do. I mean, I get—now I am very into the show; I get very angry. So when somebody comes in, the music starts playing, I'm all excited. I'm watching with my— with Harry Minahan, my son; there's a huge fan, a huge fan of yours. He's—he's 10 years old. Um, he doesn't swear, but he wants to be able to swear, so give the impression of you calling Manish an [ __ ] and telling him [ __ ] you. He loved that; that's one of his favorite moments.

I don't say that on live TV; that's not family values. I understand that. But you did say it to him on the episode, so I appreciate that, but he's not saying—oh, that they believe they beat that.

Well, that guy was a total dick, 100%. That was one of your best moments of all time, though and you said, "You're an [ __ ]. Get the [ __ ] out of here!" Great moment, right?

I did say that, yes, I did say that. And all of it was true; he was an [ __ ] and he should bring the [ __ ] out of there. I agree.

When somebody rolls in there though, and I'm watching and the guy comes in, or the woman comes in, or the couple comes in and they say, "Hey sharks, I'm whatever, we're from wherever, Greenville, Ohio. We have this company, and we want uh, eight hundred thousand dollars for two percent of the company." Get the [ __ ] out of here with that! Like, at that point in your mind, you are, you already crossing them off? Or are you thinking, do you still have an open mind, or does your mind close immediately when that happens?

So here's the risk they've got. If they're asking for eight hundred thousand dollars, we have no choice but to give them eight hundred thousand dollars. Now, if the company's doing 10 million in sales or 20 million sales, there's room to negotiate. So you can't go—you, so Kevin, you can't go lower than that?

You can't. No, no, that's the platform rule, and it's been in place for 14 years. And that makes the entrepreneur really think through that negotiation and have a plan ahead of time. I've invested way more than 800,000 in deals, but they're real companies that basically have sales, and I don't have a problem doing that. But if you have no sales, it's just an idea, and you think it's with 800,000 cash? You're screwed; no one's going to do that with you.

Right, what's the overall—I saw somebody ask Cuban this on one of these YouTube shows—overall, would you say you're in total investments? Are you up? Are you down? Do you have any idea?

Yeah, no, I believe me, I track it. So, you know, we have a whole team that manages this portfolio of over 57 private companies. And here's the thing we've all learned on Shark Tank. Okay, we're in the middle of season 14 right now; I'm going to be shooting next week back in LA. I don't know what I'm going to see, but it's going to be amazing because each year, the deal size gets bigger because people really want to tap into that massive social media platform. You know, 100 million plus eyeballs when you go through syndication, eight minutes of prime-time television to a third of the country. That's pretty powerful in terms of getting a product out there, and it reduces customer acquisition cost a lot.

But whatever I think is the hot deal of the season, whatever I think is the number one winner that I bought and I put 300, 400,000 into, whatever, that's never the one that makes me back my money. I wait two or three years later, and it's some crazy piece of crap product that I thought was just a joke that ends up being a monster. And I'll give you an example. Just this year, there was a deal a few years ago called Base Paws Cat DNA. I remember this. Yes, you stick a swab up your cat's ass, and you send it in, and it tells you, you know, what to feed it so you can extend its life by 30. What a stupid idea! You can buy a new cat for five bucks; why would you pay 29 for a DNA test?

So I bought into it because it was so crazy, so dumb, so stupid. I thought the company just sold for over 50 million cash last month. Jesus! Because who knew that pet DNA is smoking hot? There's 110 million cats in America, and the entrepreneur, the woman, was spectacular in building up this business. She got bought out by a biotech company that wanted to have her database of DNA, and it turns out that millions of people pay 29 bucks to extend their cat's life. I'm not one of them, but who cares? It was a fantastic investment.

My point is you just don't know, so you need diversification in how you spread your bets out there. So I'm a huge fan of the show. I like personally, and maybe I'm in the minority, I don't know, I like when it's just the sharks. To me, I don't need the A-Rod; I don't need the Gwyneth Paltrow. I like when this—am I—do you do you understand where I'm—I'm in the—watch, I'll watch for sharks. I like it, but I like the— the sharks are you, Barbara. You guys are my family. I don't need Gwyneth Paltrow coming in and taking Robert's spot. I get upset.

So you know, the whole idea of a show that's lasted 14 years, which is unprecedented on television, that's like one percent of shows made. You got to hand it to the producers for Disney, ABC, Mark Burnett, Sony—all this; the alchemy of all these people coming together, and then the original sharks. But the challenge we have is sharks when you get a guest shark on you—and I used to care about this; I don't anymore—you want to be nice to them. They're guests; they're sitting there; you're trying to help them out on their first deal.

Now, I don't give a [ __ ] about any of that. If they can't handle it, if they can't handle it, screw them! I'll eat them alive anyways; I don't care because, yeah, you gotta change it. Yeah, you gotta treat Gwyneth Paltrow like she's Barbara, right? Like it's—you're—she's on the show, so if she's on the show, you gotta treat her that way.

Listen, I welcome her like anybody else, but I'm going to eat her alive, so she better get ready for that. Who is the, uh, who is the—so I think the other thing I like about the show is it does seem like—I'm sure it's not this agreement you guys had—but everybody is comfortable breaking each other's balls. You can kind of dump on each other, but it's in a good-natured way. Has there ever been anybody in the show, of the core group, that took a while for them to understand that? Or was it kind of good from the get-go?

You know, this is one of those classic situations where we don't love each other as much as we used to. I mean, you know, we spend more time together than we do with our own families. By the time this thing is over, at the end of the day, we're competitors. We respect each other; you have to respect the fact that everybody there is a self-made millionaire, billionaire, whatever it is; they did it on their own in different sectors of the economy. So I respect that.

We don't have to be friends; we don't have to do another dinner together. We did it for 14 years already. So no social relationship with any of them off there?

Oh no, no! Listen, every time in New York, I go to Barbara's place; she cooks me dinner. That's what happens; I'm happy to do that. We're friends.

Okay, but when we're in that moment of competition, you know, here's what happens. We've been doing this for so long, we don't see the cameras anymore. We're back in the Shark Tank; we're doing business. We have millions of dollars to put to work. We want the winner deals, and we're willing to compete.

And so look, sometimes if it's clear to me that I can't get the deal myself, I'm going to cut a deal with Mark or somebody else because we're bidding the price up. We're better to go in together than we are to go crazy and drive the price up. Sometimes that's not the case; sometimes the entrepreneur, as you say, know us like family; they know which shark they want, and so they hone in on that shark and see if they can kind of deal. It's all over the map on this stuff, which I think makes the show so compelling. I mean, you just don't know what's gonna happen, and though we start our day at five in the morning, and by the time we get back to the hotel at eight or nine at night, we're like, "That's hard work, man!" That's right, and we get up at five o'clock and do it again.

So it—I admire the whole team with 250 people that put the show together. We are like a family. I mean, Mindy Casting, the woman who cast every deal since the beginning of time, I don't even know her second name; I know her as Mindy Casting, and she has looked at hundreds of thousands of deals and chose which ones go on Shark Tank. So there you have it!

Well, forget I—congratulations! I was—250 people, but the only person that matters right now is you because I'm talking to you. You're Mr. Wonderful, and this is why I respect the royalty thing so much because what you're saying to the entrepreneur is, "Well, do you believe in yourself?" Because if you believe in yourself, the royalties—the royalty is an easy deal.

Yeah, of course, but the royalty is about return of capital. We don't all agree on deal structure, but America has learned as we—as sharks have done over the decades that there's all kinds of different ways to structure a deal. You can do debt; you can do venture capital in straight equity; you can put a warrant on it; you can put a preference share; you can do all kinds of structure. In the beginning, we never talked about that; now we do very complex deals.

America has followed us. I care about return of capital first, not return on capital. If I never get my money back in a private deal, what's the point of doing it? So my structures tend to involve royalties. But I'll tell you one thing that everybody's figured out: I'm a unique investor. I've got millions of followers on social media. When I back a product and put it out there on all my platforms, I can drive customer acquisition costs down to zero. Most companies got a business within 18 months because they're never able to get their customer acquisition costs online below the lifetime value of the customer—a fancy way of saying they go bankrupt advertising. I changed that metric.

I'm able to get out there with my team and tell you the story of this product, this company, this entrepreneur, and change the whole dynamic of the business. Now, I don't do that for free. If you want Mr. Wonderful, you're going to pay for it. That's how it works.

If you had made a deal that the Ring people had wanted, how much money would you have made?

Oh, don't make me sick! I mean, you know, I'm sorry! Now listen, having said all that, Jamie and I are now friends. We host a dinner every July 5th in Nantucket where we get our families together, our friends, and we celebrate what we both created together, but he should have taken my six hundred thousand dollars.

I would—I would have made about 300 million on that deal.

Is that true?

Yeah! Yeah, because remember my deal was debt and warrants. I was going to get equity, and the secret sauce to my equity? It couldn't be diluted because he kept raising money, but I was going to keep my points no matter what happened. But he was a greedy pig, and he didn't listen to me. And look what happened; he sold the business for 1.1 billion.

But, Jesus! Listen, I'm willing to make amends, and so we're friends.

That's good. Mike, do you have any questions for Mr. Wonderful?

I do. Because you were talking about confidence earlier, and the one thing that bothers me when I watch Shark Tank is every once in a while you guys get, uh, someone that at the end of their pitch, maybe it's not going well or whatever, and they break down and cry and talk about how hard they've worked and everything like that.

Well, Mr. Wonderful, by the way, is a sneaky crier. He can cry; he's like Meryl Streep; he can cry on command! Yeah, sometimes too, and that's one thing wonderful. I call him—you're the top crier on TV today, I think!

And I just think—I'm not heartless! I sometimes—I really get moved, you know? I get caught up in the story. Remember, I don't see the cameras anymore. I'm just sitting in my seat listening to the pitch.

Yeah, the thing is, if you can't get through the tank, if you're going to break down and start crying, you're [ __ ], because the real world is going to be what you're saying!

That's such a hard answer for me; there's no—it's true! One of the worst public speakers I've ever looked at, watched in my life, all right, and he's a billionaire, obviously, Facebook, everything, Metaverse; like, he's a dummy! He couldn't walk through the Shark Tank; you get eaten alive! There are so many of these entrepreneurs that in the conference room are just idiots and sound like [ __ ]! Myself included! But then, sure about you—money, for sure.

It could absolutely make you—that's a daunting experience! You know, the way you got to look at it is money has no emotions; it doesn't care if you cry. It goes to the path of least resistance; it can't stand weakness because it means uncertainty! So all of a sudden, all you can do is say, "Please, please give me money!" And you start crying? Why would I ever do that? That's nuts!

Do you find it—do you find that that—does it annoy you at all when somebody comes in and you know they're targeting Cuban or Lori or somebody, or do you not care?

No, I don't care. I mean, look, there's only one Mr. Wonderful. Damn right on that! You know, and that's the bottom line. I mean, you know, everybody asks me, "Who's your favorite shark?" I say, "Mr. Wonderful!" It's the only guy I want to do business with; he's fantastic.

Well, who's your second favorite shark?

Mr. Wonderful!

Yeah, that's fair; that's fair. Who's your least favorite shark?

Oh, come on! I mean, you know, I don't want to say, but I got to tell you—no, I won't say.

Have you picked up on the fact that contestants' least favorite shark is Robert?

Like, no, this is Mrs. Mike's theory; he will offer them the world, and they're like—

I mean, what is Mr. Wonderful or Cuban enough to say, like, "I don't really care?"

It does get very annoyed, though. I like Robert!

Yeah, look, you really have to understand the way the chemistry works is we're just in the moment. I mean, we're just in the moment; it's not years and years and years ago. You know, I don't know, 12 years ago when Shark Tank, you know, for the first three years—Disney there’s—oh, there's a story about this. Iger! Bob Iger was the CEO of Disney that owned ABC, and here's what I heard through the grapevine because I—I will obey—is his wife, and William Broadcast?

Yeah, yeah, Broadcaster, focus on business. Okay, so the story I heard, and I believe it to be true, is in season three when they canceled it, they said, "Okay, Shark Tank—Shark Tank's not working, let's cancel it!" Bob goes home, talks to Willow and says, "We're gonna cancel that show, Shark Tank." She says, "No, you're not! Our kids love that show; it's family values. It's about business; they're learning something! Get back on the phone and put it back on!"

There you go! And I'm sure that's exactly what happened because out of the blue, I got a phone call from Mark Burnett, and he says, "You're back!" I said, "Really? How'd that happen?"

He says, "It doesn't matter; get your ass to Los Angeles!" And so that kind of thing, that folklore, usually is true with the smoke this fire because she basically understood what was starting to happen in America because we were going through the 2008 recession, and people started to believe in themselves as entrepreneurs. She caught the wave; the next season we exploded! We had tens of millions of people watching us, and that's remarkable, and it's never stopped!

I mean each year, and in 42 countries! I was in Switzerland the other day; my stepfather lives in Geneva, and I got on a train to go to Zurich because I was going to fly to Abu Dhabi. And on this train, this couple comes up to me and says, "Are you the guy on Shark Tank?" I said, "Yeah." And they said, "You're the most hated man in Austria!" I said, "What?"

Yeah, you're so mean! I said, "Well, what are you talking about? I don't even know that they're showing the tape in Austria!" And she says, "We're just getting married; we're on our way to Zermatt. Can we take a picture with you?" I said, "Sure! But I'm the most hated guy!" She says, "Hey, just take the shot!"

So it was really interesting to see how global the platform has become. The American tape—going all around the world! We're number one in Dubai on Friday nights! Who knew?

Well, now you guys are all sharks; you all have deals with ABC. Do you make more money or less money that you guys negotiate together? How does the pay—I know you're all executive producers—how does the payment work? How much do you make a year on that show? How much the other—

It's not—that's my—you know how much everyone's making?

Yeah, I know, but it's—it's not the payment per app. That's not—this is a different kind of show because here you are as a venture capitalist. We were all investors before we started Shark Tank. The hardest challenge we had was deal flow.

So there's two things to understand that why that scene on Shark Tank's so powerful for an investor because every guy in his dog wants to get on Shark Tank now. Everybody, you can't believe the number of celebrities that I get emails from saying, "Listen, I want to be a guest shark next year!"

I mean it! Okay, great! But the bottom line is I have 100 million eyeballs watching my products and services. I've got money to invest; they're consumer goods and services. Very often we get all our money back the night it airs, okay? Because people love the product so much!

And the secret, which nobody talks about but this is my metric—when I'm doing a deal on Shark Tank, and we're shooting it, we're in our 45th minute, the pitch is over, and let's say I did the deal, and I watch the cast and crew steal all the product, come running up and grab it, I got a winner right there! Right there! Because if all the samples get scooped up like they come running onto the set, you know, they say "cut," and it's all gone! Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Right there!

And that's the worst!

How I do it, what's the worst product you've ever seen get a deal on Shark Tank?

This woman came out once and said she sang to a five-gallon container, you know, like a water cooler container, and she puts it in a tent in her backyard, and she spends 20 minutes singing to it in the tent, and it separates into three separate elixirs—one that reduces jealousy, one that helps you fall in love, and the bottom third makes you rich!

She said she sold it online for 25 dollars in a tiny vial that you put around your neck like, you know, Jolie had blood in her thing and all that kind of crap. So that sounded so stupid, I mean, just unbelievable!

And so I, of course, said that's stupid! She said, "Oh yeah? If I was 110 years ago and I came out here and I had some molasses, I poured cocaine in it, and put it in a bottle, would you invest in it?" I said, "No, that's ridiculous!" She said, "That's Coca-Cola, bozo!"

So you just never know what you got! Now, I don't think selling BS elixirs to people is even legal, so of course I didn't invest in that, but that's the kind of stuff that you got to keep your ear open to because you don't know!

I remember Lori with that piece of crap sponge, "It's a Smiley Daddy!" or um—her and said, "Do not invest in this! This is a piece of [ __ ]! You got to be out of your mind!" She said, "No, it's not a piece of [ __ ]; I'm going to sell a ton of it!" 50 million dollars later, so I buy a lot of plastic crap too.

Now, what's the current relationship between you and Mark Cuban?

Yeah, I don't see you guys interact much during the show, and you kind of seem like— I don't know about you, Mike—they seem like the two alphas on the show without a doubt. It feels like there's a—not a rivalry, but I'm not sure what's the current state of the relationship.

You know, we have many deals together. I have a lot of respect for—I have a lot of respect for Mark. We don't agree on anything, and that's okay because we don't do structures the same way, but we get the same number of deals done.

There's a deal I'm working on right now with Mark that we're going to go into together on because he—imagine you’ve got an MBA owner that has a whole different channel of distribution, and then there's the channels I have. I'm in every retail store in America and overseas as well. We both have powerful channels of distribution. Sometimes, on a deal, it's better to work together because particularly, you know, Mark and I looked at many different beverage deals, wine deals, things like that because I'm willing—I'm not a greedy guy—if I think I can make something 10x with Mark or with Lori or with Damon, I've done deals with everybody: Barbara, if we think we can work together and enhance our probability of success, we're going to do it! We're not stupid!

And we have so many deals; I mean, no one deal is going to make or break me anymore. I've got a massive portfolio of companies, and each year—and I'll tell you what's interesting—even today, this happened today—every morning I get a call of total catastrophe from one of my companies.

Oh, we're going bankrupt; we're getting sued; I'm going out of business; please help me; yada yada yada. It's just brutal! And 15 minutes later, I get a phone call like baseball saying, "We're going to get acquired for 55 million bucks!" Same hour! So it's like a passion play of stuff rolling out every day!

I've gotten used to the idea that this is a portfolio of just random outcomes; you just don't know what's going to happen. And you've got to just realize good, bad, and ugly: poopoo happens! That's what occurs here! But you stay the course, do the deals, find the best entrepreneurs, back them up.

And one other thing I'll add, which is really remarkable, over this 14 years—75% of my returns have come from the companies run by women. And look, I don't want to start, you know, gender warfare with a statement like this. I give money to a goat if I get a return, but women kill it on those Shark Tank deals! Let that Base Paws deal—that was Anna; that's a woman! Right? Blue Land—that's another woman, Sarah. These women are killers! You know that old adage: you want something done, give it to a busy mother, right?

Your cupcake company, right? Oh, killed it! We just sold it to Hickory Farms! Killed it! Killed it! I mean, that was the best return in Shark Tank history! I got my money back in three weeks, and it never stopped selling for years! It was incredible!

It's been years now; it's been—I think TV shows, they tease like Sam and Diane, you remember? Jim and Pam? You and Barbara had that kiss a few years ago. Are we going to have another passionate kiss between you two this year that will get people, I think, erotic and fired up all over America again? Can you promise that this year?

I can't do it! It took me 36 months to come back from being a piece of stone! Remember? [Laughter]

Uh, so, Friday—so what, three weeks from—is that right? When's the date, Dave? The season premiere?

It is Friday, September 23rd.

Friday, September 23rd! So find one before we let you go. So how—so you tape all your episodes. You guys take like five or six in the day, two in the day?

Oh, no, no, no, no—one in a day! We've done as many as 14 in a day! It takes a day and a half—not episodes, remember! Remember a picture?

Yeah! You gotta—when you—we try and do 12 pitches in a day, but you just don't know what's going to happen. So you've got all these people from all around America that flown in. There's—because of COVID protocols— they're sequestered in a motel; they can't go outside. They're waiting; their big day comes; they get onto the lot.

So let's say six of those deals are sitting in the morning; after lunch, another six deals, and then we start! But we don't know what's going to happen! Some pitch may last 20 minutes, some won't last two hours—you just don't know! And the last guy may get bumped to the next day!

So he just—because after, you know, after eight o'clock, we're like, "God, we're done! We're cooked! We've been awake since—and the women have to come in for hair and makeup at, you know, five in the morning, four in the morning! I don't have a hair problem here, so I can come in a little later! So you know, that's how it is! But that takes time too!

But then there's the pitches, so we try and do the whole thing, and we have a guest shark; they may be here for a day or two. We try and do all their pitches because if we're going to get a guest shark that's big in clothing or in makeup or something like that, they're probably going to see a bunch of makeup deals in that because it kind of ties to them! But you just don't know!

And so every day is completely random, and then at the end of the day, even though we've had a wicked fight, you know, I'll say, "Okay, where's dinner?" And we'll all end up at Avra or something outside on a round table and have dinner and then go to bed. I mean, we hit LA every night; it's a lot of fun.

So sorry! So September 23rd, season 14 of Shark Tank premieres! Kev—Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful—release the heart and soul of it! Really, is the heart off television today my favorite TV character today, the great Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O'Leary! Hopefully, we can come back and we'll talk to you again!

Okay, thank you! Take care, guys!

All right, Kevin, good talking to you!

It is really like the number one show I could think of that kids and parents watch together. What else is the best family? Stranger Things, I think, is one of those shows! Like, I'm not saying, obviously, it's different content, but it's like—it is TGIF now!

Yeah, it's—and there's no—like, there's no sitcom or family-friendly show that people—not that sit down and watch anymore! Nothing! I know about—I kind of watched like Family Matters or whatever with my parents—not really! Yeah, really! But I watched TGIF, I think, with my mom and brother!

Yeah, right? Yeah, but that's—it's just interesting how, like, it is—he's right! Like, it is a business show; you're learning things at a young age on it! And he's like, by the way, he's now like Suzy Orman! Like, he's like, he is the personal finance guy of—oh, he's playing the great—the world like unbelievably well played! Great!

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