Is Getting Into Business With Family A Mistake? | New York Live

In America, 65% of our economy is driven by small business. It's the essence of where jobs are created, and most of those are family businesses. You know, you've got a situation where a mother is suing a daughter. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what that's like? And here we are in the money court trying to peel the onion and figure out what really happened here. It's really about men, women, and money.

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So, talk to us about Money Court. What is this concept? Um, you know, how did this idea come about and why did you want to take on these kind of cases?

Well, the genesis of the idea is rather interesting because I get pitched a lot of shows. I have an agent out in Hollywood, J. Surry's UTA. He hates everything! Hates everything! It's always “I hate it. We're not doing it.” I hate it; I mean everything. He's Mr. No. Then one day, a couple of years ago, I'll never forget—it was 5:30. I like to cook, and I was in the kitchen cooking. I had my white song on, and the phone rings. It's him, and he was giddy like a 12-year-old boy. He was so excited. He said, "I've just heard a format that you were born to do, and I want this deal. We should do it." And I said, "Okay, send me the script, send me the pitch deck."

You know, he said, "No, no, no; hang up the phone. In two minutes, Mark Hoffman, the CEO of CNBC, is going to call you and pitch you himself." And I went, "Whoa!" And he pitched it, and I immediately thought to myself, "Why didn't I think of that? It's a fantastic idea." You know, and so I have to give him credit. You know, there's a reason that guy's been around so long. Everybody—every other television executive—doesn't last five years. This guy's been around forever. He gets his hands dirty in the business; he understands production and creates shows.

So that's the journey of that one. It took a long time to cast it, a long time to really distill the format. We went through countless hours of casting to try to find the right team, and that's not easy to do. Casting calls take hours and hours and hours. We were doing it in the middle of the pandemic, but we came across Adam and Katie. Adam was probably the last person we tested; I'm not kidding. And I knew right away that she was going to be phenomenal, and Katie was also towards the end.

So it just shows you we went through a lot, and I think we put a great team together.

Okay, so if I turn on my television and I'm watching this, what will I see? Tell us how the show works.

You will recognize yourself in each of these cases. Everybody has a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, or a relationship in business that this has happened to. In America, 65% of our economy is driven by small business. It's the essence of where jobs are created, and most of those are family businesses.

And when you create a business in a family, and many of them are very, very successful, they grow on to do hundreds of millions in sales. There's always the tension between the business and the interpersonal relationships of family members or partners or brothers or sisters or large corporations and small vendors that are renting from them or whatever it is.

There's going to be a conflict, and Money Court attempts to solve that. Because when you think about what's happened in the last two years in America, particularly the last year with the pandemic, there's a massive logjam in the courts. None of these situations are getting resolved, and if you're in a business that has a money dispute in it, you're destroying value for sure. You've got to get that resolved; you've got to move on and continue to grow and compete. And that's really what this is about.

I think the television itself is very compelling to watch because it's a human drama. It's really about men, women, and money. Yeah, I mean, that says it all!

Now, is your ruling binding? Yes, it is. This is arbitration, so you are agreeing to do this in lieu of going to court and suing each other. Frankly, it's probably a better outcome. You know, you basically have to trust me as someone who arbitrates the case.

But what I find so intriguing, as summed up by one of the litigants, said, "I don't really like Mr. Wonderful, but I trust him." And so there you get it. That's the essence of it. He was willing to trust my ruling.

And so I've got the guidance of both Ada and Katie, who are in the legal system and can read contract law and tell me what the law says. But I'm going to find for the business in most cases because the business is the source of wealth for everybody. So if you're suing each other and you're destroying a business, you're destroying the relationship with your customers, your employees, the people you borrowed money from. You're destroying the whole thing, and I'm going to always try and solve for saving the business above the interest of any one individual.

Now, if I'm watching this show, I'm not only going to want to see these disputes play out and how you all decide to rule as a panel, as a court, but I also want to look for nuggets of you giving business advice too. Do you find yourself doing that?

I mean, people are going to want to hear that from you as well. Yes, there is a segment that was brought in as an idea to shoot in the pilot where you ask Kevin or ask Mr. Wonderful. I didn't think it was going to work, but I was wrong. It really worked.

And so I think we're going to be incorporating that in the show going forward. It's a chance to answer a question from anybody in the world and give sound advice. It's always about business, and I think, you know, I get that every day in social media. Hundreds of thousands of people send me questions all the time. This is a way to answer them.

For anyone watching this, like you said off the top, you know, everybody's dealt with this, for the most part, in some kind of way going into business, some kind of business with family members or close friends. What kind of advice would you give to anyone thinking about doing that?

I always tell people that if you're going to go into business, you have to be able to fire your mother if needed. You always have to decide where you are in the pecking order when you create a business.

And when you're taking your first dollar, you're no longer number one, even though you're the owner. You're no longer number one. Number one is your customers; number two are your employees; number three are the people you borrowed money from or you've taken money from to build your business with. And then you're last. You're at the bottom. But you're still the owner, so you have to serve all of these masters to be successful.

You further complicate it when you get family members working together because they have to have Thanksgiving together. You know, they have to be a family and a business partner, and that's very hard to do.

You know, you've got a situation where a mother is suing a daughter. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what that's like? And here we are in the Money Court trying to peel the onion and figure out what really happened here, because that's something that that relationship was broken a decade ago; something happened.

And in order to resolve the dispute, you've got to dig deep, and in doing so, that's a very hard emotional journey for the litigants and certainly for us as judges. I mean, it was brutal. But again, you know, I remember taping that sequence, and I remember taping it live.

And I looked over to the right in the middle of this, you know, gut-wrenching case, and everybody was glued to the monitors—just everybody in makeup and lighting and all the grips—everybody just glued. And I thought to myself, "They're not making television; they're watching it now." And that's when I knew we had a hit, and people are going to get drawn into these stories. They're very, very compelling, and you will recognize yourself in them.

You seem pretty comfortable in this judge's chair. Do you ever consider going into law in any way?

Law and politics are two things I've looked at, and I won't try that again. Very, very expensive. You know, you can think you're good at something; you have to stay in your lane, in your column. You know, you have to know what you're good at.

I don't think I want to be a politician; I don't think I want to be a judge. But I've been very happy to arbitrate business disputes because that's what I do all day long and have been doing that for decades.

And you posted some fun behind-the-scenes stuff from the new season of Shark Tank. Have you been saying yes to lots of people?

I have! You know, it's been interesting. People are intrigued by the show; they're all waiting for the premiere. I get it. Making a show like this is very time-consuming but also lots of fun. Meeting new partners like Katie and Ada—I mean, I've worked with all kinds of people on television. But I know with certainty you need the chemistry. It has to be there, and that was our challenge for a whole year.

We were trying to cast the right team, and I'm very fortunate. I've always been able to work with the top of the top of the pile producers and Mark Burnett and Clay Newball. These are multi-Emmy award winners; same with Eric Schatz, who's show running this show. Denise Conte, who has now taken over prime time at CNBC, they were all part of that alchemy.

You know, we spent countless hours together looking at casting opportunities, deciding on format ideas. It's real; it's really tough.

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