The Sharks Didn't Mince Words When It Came To This Entrepreneur's Pitch From Shark Tank Live
The sharks of the popular reality entrepreneur program "Shark Tank" have long been comfortable making deals and setting records inside their own private domain, like their actual namesakes under the sea. But even the most fearsome sharks have to come out of their caves eventually, and so it was with the recent "Shark Tank Live," the show's first ever live broadcast complete with a live audience.
The show followed the usual "Shark Tank" format, heated moments and all – but with adjustments, specific to the realities of live TV. And this new format puts additional pressure on the sharks themselves — Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Kevin O'Leary — to make quick business decisions without the aid of the editing room.
If you watched the show, you likely remember the final pitch to be made, by Tate Koenig, for a special collapsible container for leftover pizza. And after the show was over, the sharks had some particularly harsh words for this evidently lucky entrepreneur.
The sharks were in a new situation
The sharks sat down with USA Today after "Shark Tank Live" was over and done with to discuss their experience. And as you'd be within your rights to expect, they didn't mince words about their reaction to pitches that might not have fared as well during a traditional "Shark Tank" episode.
Tate Koenig is the inventor of the Pizza Pack, a collapsible and microwaveable container for the storage of leftover pizza. If you watched the show, you saw Lori Greiner take him up with a 13% stake in the company for $100,000 in funding — and you also heard the audience chanting Koenig's name before she made her decision. Greiner didn't say she regretted her decision, but she did admit that she would've hit him a lot harder on costs and pricing had it been a normal episode, while Barbara Corcoran was a little harsher in her assessment. "We would have thrown him out with his godamn pizza slices," she said.
Mark Cuban added that he would have liked to have pressured Koenig a bit harder on some of the details of his pitch, such as the decision to not warm up the pizza beforehand. This appears to have been a sticking point, as Kevin O'Leary went a step further in his assessment of the actual pizza: "By the way, the pizza was terrible," O'Leary said. "I had a bite. I nearly choked. It was awful."
Thankfully for Koenig and his business, he wasn't selling pizza, but merely a container for it — and he had a live studio audience on his side.