When you swim with sharks, don’t expect a dip within the kiddy pool.
Therein lies a lesson learned by some entrepreneurs who emerged from “Shark Tank” dispirited, broken and never only “dead” to the likes of Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary (whose standard send-off is, “You’re dead to me”) but deep-sixed in a business sense as well.
Probably the most recent example of entrepreneurs claiming to be bitten by a shark are Al “Bubba” Baker, daughter Brittani and wife Sabrina.
Founders of Bubba’s Q Boneless Babyback Ribs, they made headlines after alleging that Daymond John renegotiated their deal — allegedly taking it from $300,000 for 30 percent on-air to $100,000 for 35 percent off-air–and iced Bubba out of key business meetings.
John, in line with court papers, called the Bakers’ allegations a “smear campaign.”
A judge granted him a restraining order to stop relations from commenting on him publicly.
While restraining orders are extreme, the Baker relations aren’t the primary to lick wounds after a “Shark Tank” appearance goes lower than swimmingly.
In reality, despite all of the post-deal hugs, Forbes revealed that, from seasons eight through 13, 50 percent of 112 deals didn’t undergo and 15 percent of them got altered.
Shelly Ehler, 51, from Oxnard, CA, can relate.
When she appeared on “Shark Tank” in 2012 with her ShowNo towels, which permit kids to alter out of swimsuits in public while maintaining privacy, she had high hopes.
Especially since Lori Greiner, making her “Shark Tank” debut, made a deal with her, signed a check, on air for $50,000, and gave it to her.
Greiner even upped her offer on air to $75,000 for 25 percent.
O’Leary identified that no shark had ever given money spontaneously, without due diligence, and quipped: “You possibly can be an axe murderer.” Greiner hit back: “I do know you’re not.”
The following day, nevertheless, brought confusion, including over the check, Ehler told The Post. “My full name was not on it. I didn’t know if it was cashable. My lawyer said Lori should send me $75,000 and that I should frame this check.”
Over the months between the show being recorded and broadcast, the 2 got here to a latest deal, Ehler said, however it never went into effect.
“My lawyer laughed. He said that I’d never make cash off this,” Ehler said.
Ehler didn’t consider that Lori was serious in regards to the deal and it didn’t go forward.
Greiner’s spokesperson told The Post the shark had put huge effort in, manufacturing the towels, passing safety regulations, and getting them sold in Disney properties “which isn’t easy to do” and which cost greater than $75,000.
“Lori flew Shelly and her entire family (all expenses paid) to Disney World in Florida, from California in order that they may be within the ‘Shark Tank’ follow up,” the spokesperson said. (The follow-up was shown later in the identical season.)
“Lori and her team worked very hard for Shelly, as she does for everybody,” the spokesperson said, declining to debate specific details due to “mutual confidentiality obligations.”
The break-up between Ehler and Greiner was bitter, with the would-be entrepreneur emailing the shark, describing herself as a “desperate person on TV” whose “biggest dream” had died.
Ehler’s spokesperson shared a subsequent letter which Greiner sent the shark with The Post, through which the towel maker apologized and expressed remorse for what had happened between them.
As for Ehler and her towel business, she has moved on, and out of the world of the sharks.
“I don’t think Lori meant for this to occur and I’m not bitter,” said Ehler who now has a hypnotherapy practice. “It drove me away from being an entrepreneur. I like being a hypnotherapist.”
She holds no enmity against the show.
“Shark Tank” showrunner Clay Newbill — who told Forbes that dealmaking after the show is “between the entrepreneurs and the sharks” — asked Ehler “if I desired to speak to the show psychiatrist. I said I’d take free psychiatric sessions. They helped.”
As one entrepreneur told Forbes of the negotiations, “It was more like talking to a loan shark. The one time it felt like they desired to close was the handshake on TV.”
But not every deal gone south leaves the entrepreneur within the lurch.
Sometimes the shark lets an excellent feed swim away.
When Patrick Coddou and his wife Jennifer appeared with their Supply razors in 2019—he explained to The Post that the single-blade safety razors give great shaves and are cheaper than others—they received a $300,000 offer from Robert Herjavec.
“But our deal didn’t undergo,” Coddou, 37 and living in Texas, told The Post. “It’s more common than most individuals think.”
Nevertheless, appearing on “Shark Tank” had advantages. Inside a month of the show airing, the couple sold some $1 million value of products. Then, in 2022, they sold their entire company. “We still owned one hundred pc of it,” said Coddou, “which suggests that we got one hundred pc of the acquisition price.”
While the sum is undisclosed, he told Forbes that it was “definitely more” than they might have realized with Herjavec.
When Vladislav Smolyanskyy appeared on the show with his Pinblock, which is a a constructing blocks toy, things had a less comfortable ending.
At first, after striking a deal with O’Leary, he thought he had received a lifeline.
Little did Smolyansky know that the serious deal making goes down when the stage-lights turn off and the cameras stop to roll.
“I went on there asking for $100,000 for 20 percent of the corporate,” Smolyanskyy told The Post. “Kevin O’Leary originally offered to do it for 30 percent” – with, as O’Leary stated on the show, “a contingency of putting it in with a really large toy company.”
Smolynskyy didn’t initially bite on the offer and desired to see what would come from the opposite sharks. “Then everybody dropped out and the deal I made had me giving freely 50 percent,” continued Smolyanskyy.
“I used to be unhappy with the deal, but I made it. I needed the partnership [plus the cash that came with it] and was willing to do it. I assumed that was the tip, but the tip was me getting screwed all the best way down the road.”
A giant stumbling block was O’Leary’s demand that the deal will only hold if Smolyanskyy could get the product licensed to an existing toy company.
On the show, O’Leary said, “That is your one shot to get within the boardroom of the largest players on Earth.”
As Smolyanskyy remembered it, “The phrase he used is, ‘all of them return my calls.’” But he was told O’Leary went to at least one major toy firm by himself. “It was without me, and so they didn’t see the chance. I never got to go in front of the board.”
Kevin O’Leary didn’t reply to a request for comment.
True to his word, O’Leary dropped Pinblock.
But what really irked Smolyansky is that, beyond not getting the deal, he didn’t get O’Leary.
He claims to have never dealt directly with the Shark — which, he says, may need allowed him a possibility to salvage the situation.
As a substitute, he had all of his conversations with an O’Leary colleague: “He was not O’Leary and he was not the shark I struck a deal with.”