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Limited Supply
S12 E1: Entrepreneurship, Creative, Crowdfunding, and More (with Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank)
00:32:05
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- [00:01]
Nick Sharma
Welcome back to season 12 of limited supply, the only commerce podcast with unfiltered and refreshingly hot takes. I'm your host Nick Sharma and when I'm not recording, I'm behind the scenes scaling your favorite celebrity and consumer brands. Let's start talking all things direct to consumer. I'm going to tell you about a software that my agency, Sharma Brands uses. With our fastest scaling brands historically, last click advertising channels, think Facebook, Google or TikTok. They take too much credit for what they do. As a result, it's reduced confidence for brands to effectively scale their upper funnel structure strategies, which puts them in a pickle of higher CPAs. A few years ago without Prescient, I would have said there's no real way to track what channels like YouTube TV or even newcomers like Applovin are doing. But with Prescient, you can now look at daily multi channel forecasting and optimize your paid media without any bias. Prescient allows you to see the halo effect that is usually unrecognized with top funnel channels and allows you to measure those down to the campaign level. See the impact your upper funnel media really has on E Commerce, Amazon and even retail stores. Plus, once you go live, since it's not a pixel based platform, you'll have data and results populating within a week. Try it out and go to prescientai.com limited to learn more. Mr.
- [01:18]
Kevin O'Leary
Wonderful.
- [01:19]
Robert Herjavec
This is great to be here.
- [01:20]
Kevin O'Leary
So full circle. I remember as a kid watching Shark Tank, you had the big table in front of you when you started.
- [01:25]
Robert Herjavec
Yeah, with money on it.
- [01:26]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah, with money on it. And now. And then there was no more table. Why did they take the table?
- [01:29]
Robert Herjavec
More money. Because they changed the format in season two. It got canceled three years in a row. Except this crazy story. Bob Iger's wife, Willow Bay, they had kids that just loved Shark Tank. And every time he'd come home and say, oh, I canceled that show Shark Tank, she said, no you didn't. Our kids love it. And she kept it alive. This is the rumor for the first three years. And then it went geometric in year four.
- [01:53]
Kevin O'Leary
Wow.
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Robert Herjavec
Because entrepreneurship got cool. And here we are in season 17. It's on in 54 countries all around the world. It's been a passport for me everywhere in the world.
- [02:02]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah, I remember at the Tatari conference, I think it was last year when Robert was the keynote speaker, he said that whatever country he travels to, he's just the biggest celebrity because of Shark Tank.
- [02:13]
Robert Herjavec
Until I get there.
- [02:14]
Kevin O'Leary
Till you get there. I love that. Okay, so I've got like six or seven segments I want to jump through quickly.
- [02:20]
Robert Herjavec
Sure, let's go.
- [02:21]
Kevin O'Leary
All right, so the first one is creator brands. So you have come up as a creator or celebrity influencer, however you want to say it. You know, we've been a part. My company's been a part of brands with the Kardashians, with Selena Gomez, Mr. Beast, et cetera, and some flop and some are unicorns. And I'm curious, like, you've seen this kind of rise happen from. As you've just been sitting on Shark Tank. What are your thoughts on creator brands and do you have a thesis on where they're going or how they've just basically fully vertically integrated the entire, you know, enchilada?
- [02:53]
Robert Herjavec
I have a thesis and I believe it to be fact. The reason many celebrity bands, and I would say the majority of them, don't work, is they're created on a false premise that this person that was paid a lot of money actually gives a shit about the brand. And they simply don't. And it's not part of their DNA. They don't use it every day. It's not part of. Of their life. People smell a mile away on these influencer brands, and they've gotten used to seeing 80% of them just complete. You know, they have nothing to do with authenticity. And I'll give you an example. You know, I spend my whole life blending wines. Everybody knows that about me. So when I bring out a brand like O Fine Wines, there's no BS there. I've been doing this since I was 14 years old. The wine, it's a phenomenally successful brand. And it we sell almost this year we'll do more than 3 million bottles of it. Because it's really what my family drinks. Everybody knows that. And I post it and I show it's. You know, my daughter likes the shards and my wife likes the cabernets and all that. That's what works. And so when you get a great brand working, this influencer brand is because that individual that backs it is passionate about the product or the service. And I've learned that the hard way. I never lend my name to anything that I don't use myself. And so I have many brands now of products and services. Wonder Ads, which we're talking about here is a product that I use in all my companies. And, you know, Wonder Engine is AI for all of my company's social media. Wonder care about to launch that in Geneva next week. Watch insurance products I use. And so generally they're successful because they're real.
- [04:45]
Kevin O'Leary
So something like wonder ads, if we dive into that. So that's a partnership with Tatari.
- [04:50]
Robert Herjavec
Yes.
- [04:51]
Kevin O'Leary
And you know, from going to the website, basically wonder ads, it looks like it's no BS for founders. You plug your ads in all your ad channels and you can upload, spot a creative in one spot and basically distribute it. How did this partnership come about?
- [05:04]
Robert Herjavec
I used the product I was forced by the market demand to find Atari and use them during a very large campaign in one of my companies. We were spending 2 million a month and we were buying on Facebook previously or. Well, I didn't know who Tatari was, but. But we made the mistake of buying from a network directly. Big mistake. And we didn't have the tools to measure any of the results we were getting. And so I heard about them. I reached out. I'd actually met the CEO as a keynote for him three years prior. And I, I went back, yeah, great guy.
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah, awesome.
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Robert Herjavec
And, and I, I, you know, I, I went back and scrolled through my calendar to get his name, and I, I think I cold called him, saying, look, I got this company. We're spending a ton of money. Let's test it. Within weeks, we're into a very defined campaign. And after I saw the success there, I said, wait a second, why can't we offer this to all of my companies? Why don't we form a. A product that's designed for five to 500 employees? So if your spend is $50,000 a month or more across any advertising, you have to try wonder ads. You have to test it. And that's what I've told all my CEOs, and many of them have come on board, including some of the ones that are here, because it works. It's the thing about wonder ads and Atari is it's not just one sliver of television. It's all of television. There's so many services say, oh, we'll just do streaming. You know, this is all of tv, so why would you not want all of it if you're going to test it? And that's what we do. And it's made it simple. The dashboard really works. It's measurable. And most of the CEOs that tried to say, hey, look, this CAC, in the end, it's about CAC and ROAS. This CAC is competitive to my digital spend. I'm going to take 40% and move it over onto under ads and do television because it works. And I'm going to be talking about that today in our panels. This is a very important development because the cost of digital now and social media has skyrocketed due to algorithms changing so much in the last two years. And you have to test this.
- [07:08]
Kevin O'Leary
You know what's funny is, like, people can think that you're just the face of this, but they don't see that right before this, you set up your own camera here to make your own content. Yeah, yeah.
- [07:17]
Robert Herjavec
No, listen, I'm an editor. In fact, I cut every week at least one of our posts to keep my chops up on Premiere Pro. Yeah, And I shoot a lot of stuff myself. And I used to be a commercial photographer and I was a cameraman, Ari 16, you know, shooting documentaries in the old days. I'm very proud of that heritage, but it's full circle. So when I see shitty creative and I see a jump cut, drives me crazy. I go back to the editor and I have my own editors now saying, that's jump cut there. Yeah, like, fix that. Or the sound quality's crap on that track. Go fix that. Put it through a filter. They hate me for it, but they love me for it. Because nobody's as anal as I am on the content we put out, particularly with my brand or one of my companies. And our content is good for what it does, but we shoot a lot of 15s and a lot of 30s as part of our whole wonder ads campaigns. And I've done the full budget multimillion dollar ads right down to, you know, very viral verticals on a cell phone. And the remarkable outcome is sometimes the really gritty shot on a cell phone stuff works better than a $500,000 shoot.
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah, fully agree. The shakier the better.
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Robert Herjavec
It's weird, but I've seen it myself. And so now I blend it. I blend it. I say there's room for a highly produced commercial, but there's also room for something visceral and authentic.
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah, and there's also. There's so many ads that you also run from your own inst handle or a Facebook page. Is that something you also advise founders to do is, like, leverage themselves for content?
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Robert Herjavec
Storytelling is crucial. What makes your product real is its story. And it better be real and authentic and no bullshit, because the minute you get called out, you're toast. So, you know, a couple of companies I have here, Boost, Oxygen, I invested on Shark Tank and Felicious. They really had a great, authentic story. And it hit me as saying, these people need what we can do for them on Shark Tank. And believe me, it's worked. Shark Tank itself is an eight minute commercial.
- [09:13]
Kevin O'Leary
Totally.
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Robert Herjavec
And then it's in syndication until the cows come home. Yeah, but we also go beyond that and are starting to explore relationships just with those two companies. An example, they're here at the conference because of wonder ads.
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
We're going to be using television in addition to everything we're doing. And it's very important for retargeting. I mean, there's so many tools you get with wonder ads that people, I tell everybody, test it, test it. Don't buy something just because you think it's a good idea. Test it.
- [09:40]
Kevin O'Leary
Right.
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Robert Herjavec
See if it works by the numbers.
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Kevin O'Leary
No harm in a 5,000 or $10,000.
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Robert Herjavec
Oh, absolutely. And if you find something better, I'll buy it. Yeah, that's the way I look at it.
- [09:49]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah, exactly. I'm curious on content for brands today. Like you're creating so much content, there's, there's an influx of content. There's all these algorithms that are just pushing, you know, things to just keep you on the platform and keep scrolling. How do you think about content and the future of content in a world that's just getting more and more crowded?
- [10:10]
Robert Herjavec
Well, if your strategy is to be part of doom scrolling, you're never going to be successful. You have to build a community of people that care about your product or service and become part of your advocacy for it. There's nothing more powerful than one consumer telling another about a good experience they've had with one of my companies. These testimonials that we try and post on our websites, even the shittiest recordings are 10 times more powerful than a produced ad. And so we really, really care about making sure. I mean, what it really boils down to, and I tell all my CEOs this is if you're going to get in this game, which is a tough game, your product and customer experience has to be top quartile. It has to be because your competitor is going to compete for that time. You got to get in their heads. You got to deliver on your promise and you have to do it consistently each quarter. And you have to find out in monitoring your social where the pain points are being created, either in your supply chain or something about your product or we monitor that stuff. It's a science. But the real creation of the story is an art. It's a communication from the founder to the potential consumer. And then the promise of the brand is the consistency of the service. And we've gotten very good at it. But we also know when it's failing. Because not every company I invest in works. And I know why I can see it coming. I try and help them. But in venture startups or in companies you think about 5 to 500 employees is my sweet spot. The ones that are successful are amazing at telling their story consistently.
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah. Going into the venture side of things, you were a part of StartEngine crowdfunding. Do you see crowdfunding as something that's still pretty relevant for brands today? Or like, what kind of brands should be doing crowdfunding? Or thinking about crowdfunding as an alternate to just raising either Shark Tank style capital or regular venture capital?
- [12:06]
Robert Herjavec
We're having our best year in history at StartEngine and we're the biggest crowdfunding site in America now. It's because the venture market has completely changed in the last 24 months. Venture capital is extremely hard to come by now. Most large VC firms are licking their wounds on their losers and they're trying to determine which ones they're going to cut and which one they're going to keep. And they're going to keep those funds right now, Remember, they got to divest between five to seven years, so they have to make decisions right now. A lot of these funds are in midlife. They have to pick their winners and losers and fund the winners. In the meantime, this company's still raising capital in StartEngine because it works. It's really about being authentic, telling a story the same way, and using a tool that was, you know, created from the Jobs act years ago. But I'm very proud of my affiliation with it. And I'm a shareholder and I'm a paid spokesperson. I'm totally transparent because I use again, I use the service. I use it. And the same with Tax Hive, I use the service. The same with Universal Coin, I buy gold. Stuff that I use and I'm authentic for is why I back these products and services.
- [13:07]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah. Do you think crowdfunding is something that will like, you know, there's so many companies now that will raise once or twice and then not have to raise again. They're kind of getting out of this whole just keep eating the venture dollars and then, you know, catch up to the valuation and then raise again. Do you think crowdfunding is. Is a way out for that? Like we're not going to have to see that again?
- [13:26]
Robert Herjavec
No, that crowdfunding doesn't work if you're trying to raise 50 times because you have no way of see what really happens. Let me describe it outside of just startengine but the whole ecosphere. It used to be when money was free, basically two and a half percent interest rates that you could keep raising while you're exploring your CAC model. Today you basically get 36 months, right? You get your first raise, you get some revenue. People are encouraged to see you actually have revenue, but you haven't figured out CAC yet. You get one more raise to figure out CAC. If you don't figure out CAC within 24 to 30 months, you're going to get taken out behind the barn and shot because you're not going to make it. Nobody wants to fund exploration of CAC Roas models anymore. You got to nail it. You have to nail it right away saying I figured out cac, I figured out roas. Here are the vehicles we're using and we just need capital to pour gasoline on the fire to expand revenue on a profitable break even basis. There is no other model. So anybody who thinks they're going to play the game any other way is just going to go out of business. And listen, I've got my own portfolio of companies I watched this happen to. There's nothing I can do if the CEO or the founder can't figure out KAK and roas, which is why I encourage them to try other tools. It goes right back to Wonder Ads. I'm saying, look, you're paying 200 bucks, whatever it is, for CAC. If Wonder Ads can get it for 120 or 130, why aren't you using that tool?
- [14:46]
Kevin O'Leary
Plus the halo effect that comes from tv.
- [14:48]
Robert Herjavec
Well of course, but that's an added bonus if they're just trying to survive because they know they don't have enough capital to make it. Nobody funds losses anymore, they just don't. And it's a change, a sea change in the mentality of the founder to understand every cent is lifeblood. And so you want to find vehicles that really perform for you. And I think that's the tone of the world today. And it's only going to get worse as capital gets more expensive.
- [15:18]
Nick Sharma
A few years ago without Prescient, I would have said there's no real way to track what channels like YouTube TV or even newcomers like Apple are doing. But with Prescient, you can now look at daily Omnichannel forecasting and optimize your paid media without any bias. Today brands like Porton Leather, Saatva, Jones Road, Hexclad and so many more of our clients use Prescient to understand what these top of funnel channels actually do to impact their sales in retail. Amazon and their DTC site Last Click Channels have taken too much credit for far too long and reduced confidence in upper funnel channels. Prescient allows you to see the halo effect that is usually unrecognized with top of funnel channels and allows you to measure those down to the campaign level. See the impact of upper funnel on your revenue roas and new customers today by going to prescientai.com limited to learn more. That's prescientai.com limited.
- [16:13]
Kevin O'Leary
Are you still hot on consumer?
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Robert Herjavec
I am actually. You know we were talking about this earlier in another narrative, but I'll explain how I look at it. Right now we're buying for holiday. I don't care what company you are, you're getting ready for the purchase in October for the holiday season. So you have a tough decision to make because post pandemic retails back most of my companies are now back to 50% retail two tier distribution in addition to direct to consumer for 50%. Whether that includes Amazon or not depends, right? So what we're finding is that takes 60 to 90 days worth of capital in terms of receivables, but you also have to buy goods and services, put it on the water and ship it here to make sure it's ready for late summer. So we're making those capex decisions by the week now. Now in aggregate across 11 sectors. I have companies in every sector of the economy. I've got insecticide, I've got wireless charging, I've got food services. You name it, I've got it all. I've got printed greeting cards. I have a measure of the consumer like nobody else has. This is an academic bullshit. This is real tear sheets on every week. What I'm seeing is at the CEO level with their CFOs allocating their capital, they're making an assumption of 1 1/2 to 2% GDP growth for the back end of this year, which is not a recession. I don't see a recession this year. I know there's a lot of hype around tariffs, but those are going to get resolved starting April 2nd one way or another. I see a resilient consumer for the you can't forecast this past 24 months, but the buy in for back end holiday is a stable one. Not a massive growth one, but stable. If it was a recession they feared you'd be down 20% on buy in.
- [18:05]
Kevin O'Leary
Well I feel like even the last two, three years it's always the year starts and it's always like this is, you know, everybody's pulling back, the ad spend is down, you know, customers or recession is happening. But then as soon as Q3 comes around, it's like the ad spends working again. Customers are buying, everybody's happy. And then it's always a bigger Black Friday than the year prior.
- [18:26]
Robert Herjavec
Right. And frankly, you can turn on ad spend lickety split.
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
Like, it's not like, oh, my good, woe is me. It's two years from now, I can get back to my ad spend level. You can do it in two weeks.
- [18:35]
Kevin O'Leary
Right.
- [18:36]
Robert Herjavec
And there's lots of inventory to buy. And Atari is amazing at that. I mean, that's really why the relationship started into wonder ads with them, was their magic ability to have so much of the available, you know, ad spend, 30% of the market's ad spend. These guys know where it is. So they have large clients. But now I want them to have small businesses too. So that remnant after secondary market, it's like the Rolex market and watches. You've got to be really good at understanding how it works. They are.
- [19:05]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah. For, for something like these inventory orders that you're now talking about. How do you advise founders to fund that?
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Robert Herjavec
Well, this is a great topic. The way that most of them are doing it is they're balancing their direct consumer credit card business to fund their inventory if they get to the 5050 model. Because they're finding that the Omnichannel is back. It died during the pandemic. But Omnichannel is big, really big. And retailers are getting very selective. They're demanding only that there's an 8020 rule on the shelf. Sort of 20% of your SKUs do 80% of your business. They don't want the dog shit skus anymore. They don't even want them in the planogram. They have zero interest. And they're willing to try a new SKU in select sites, but if it doesn't perform within three weeks, the whole.
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Kevin O'Leary
Brand'S gone behind the barn.
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Robert Herjavec
And there's a lot of dead stuff behind the barn these days. But I'm the first to go back there with a rifle. I don't get emotionally involved because in my companies are very, very promiscuous. They'll try any form of promotion, but they're not promiscuous with their relationships at retail. They find which buyers, which retailers perform for them in which sites and they focus on those relationships. That's different than it was pre pandemic, where let's just spray out there because they're Tying up their lifeblood and capital. The fastest you're going to get paid is 60 days. Some of them have to use factoring, which is as high as 17%. It's your entire margin.
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
So you know, you don't want to use factoring for your business if it's all your profits. That's just a horrible treadmill.
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Kevin O'Leary
Is there a Mr. Wonderful factoring product yet?
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Robert Herjavec
No, I stayed out of factoring because it's, it's not founder friendly.
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
And I need to be seen and maintain my relationships with founders. I don't want to milk 17% from my founders.
- [21:01]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
I have other ways to make money. That's not one of them.
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah. You know, you've, you've talked a lot about on Shark Tank. Either going into big box is a good idea or it's a terrible idea.
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Robert Herjavec
Well, remember Shark Tank. Most of these are nascent companies just trying to get their first million in sales.
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Kevin O'Leary
Totally.
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Robert Herjavec
And you got to pick winners and losers. And I will give you a stat that's very sobering. Let's use that word, very sobering. Each shark does, I don't know, 10 to 17 deals a year. And they're just so damn sure they've picked the winners. They just know they got the winners. You wait five to seven years and not a single company that they thought was a winner ends up being the winner. It's always the crazy chicken deals that end up being 10x20x30x on what you assumed was going to happen. And they pay for all the crap you bought. Because if you look at Shark Tank, what's unique about it is because it's network television, an eight minute commercial that stays on perpetuity and syndications, that's very powerful for driving down cac. And so you can take a marginal company that is really not very good at acquiring customers and make them rock stars on Shark Tank and then work with the management to try and fix the model a bit. But you just don't see the unicorn coming ever. And any shark that says, oh, I know a winner, they're so full of shit. It's just, just, it's not true. I've been doing this for 17 years.
- [22:29]
Kevin O'Leary
Were you surprised by Poppy?
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Robert Herjavec
Yeah, but I, but you've also got an operator there who's really, really?
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Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
I mean, come on, he's a rock star.
- [22:38]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
I tasted poppy when it was called something else.
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Kevin O'Leary
It tasted same in the glass bottle.
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Robert Herjavec
It tasted like shit.
- [22:43]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
And I just, I knew I couldn't be. And listen, I'm very proud of what happened there. Shark Tank. It was great. But I would never use that product because I just couldn't stand the smell when you open the cap. Now. They made it better, but that's just not for me. And, and. But I had winners like baseballs. That was a monster irr because it went from zero to a number so big we have an NDA all cash deal that paid for a lot of mistakes. But who knew? Cat DNA testing kits. That's a joke. You can buy a new cat for five bucks.
- [23:12]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah. That was quick. Right?
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Robert Herjavec
36 months.
- [23:15]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
From zero to a massive exit. Because it wasn't really a cat company. It was a data company. DNA data.
- [23:20]
Kevin O'Leary
And they just didn't know they had a data company.
- [23:23]
Robert Herjavec
Well, it was bought, you know by Ziotis.
- [23:25]
Kevin O'Leary
Right.
- [23:25]
Robert Herjavec
Which. And they. All they wanted was the data.
- [23:27]
Kevin O'Leary
Right.
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Robert Herjavec
And now they've got a massive program. They're going into other animals, you know, like horses and dogs. Fantastic CEO there. She was amazing. But I helped Aniskaya negotiate that thing. We talked about it a lot and it just. It was a phenomenal outcome. But that's my point. You just don't see them coming so poppy. I congratulate those entrepreneurs because you could see they had a great story, you know, and Rohan just focused it.
- [23:52]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah. He knew how to bring it up, how to focus.
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Robert Herjavec
He's a. He's a master in that space.
- [23:56]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah.
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Robert Herjavec
And I respect masters. He's. There's nobody better than he is. And that's why I like to have those kind of people on Shark Tank because we all were beholden to him in analyzing that space, particularly beverage and distribution of beverage. The guy knows what he's doing. You want that talent. And I think that's what makes the Shark Tank platform so successful is you bring all these amazing people together and things happen.
- [24:22]
Kevin O'Leary
Totally. What are your thoughts on the three tier system?
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Robert Herjavec
Different.
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Kevin O'Leary
Different.
- [24:29]
Robert Herjavec
You know, it's more challenging because there's less. You have less control.
- [24:34]
Kevin O'Leary
Right.
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Robert Herjavec
That's the.
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Kevin O'Leary
You think it's something. Do you think it's crazy that it still exists today?
- [24:39]
Robert Herjavec
No, I don't. Because it's. It works for some people and it works in a big way for some people. And things that work, you don't mess with.
- [24:48]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah. You know, is a big part of your wines brand is e commerce or.
- [24:52]
Robert Herjavec
Sold through the three Me, my wine.
- [24:54]
Kevin O'Leary
Your wine.
- [24:54]
Robert Herjavec
Yeah. So here's what we learned on the wine business. For seven years I lost money in wine but I was passionate about it because I as we talked about earlier. And my wife said to me one day, she said, look, dick weed, this is really stupid what you're doing. You're spending millions of dollars because you just want to hang out in California and Paris and, you know, in Burgundy and Bordeaux with your chevalier detesta van bodies and bland wine, and we're losing millions of dollars. Why don't you just buy some wine instead of investing in all this stuff? That was just before the pandemic and perfect timing. Yes. So now I'm sitting on production capability to do 3 million bottles. And the laws changed to allow direct shipment to 48 states, as I like to say. So I immediately went to QVC and said, hey, listen, we've already got a relationship here. Why don't we become. Why don't we marry? Like, you've got 6.2 million women, of which 64% of women buy all the wine live. I'm Chef Wonderful, a proven brand for you. Let's partner up, and I'll become your largest wine purveyor. And I am. All of our production goes to QVC now. All of it. All of it. And it's a phenomenal business because we have the data, we have the AI. We know which varietal selling in what state.
- [26:18]
Kevin O'Leary
Right.
- [26:18]
Robert Herjavec
And we build the. You know, I'm blending Moscato right now for southern Florida. So it's. It's sort of like being authentic, knowing the brand, having the data, having the production capability, having the glass just to make 3 million bottles and having the production facilities and the logistics to ship in partnership with them. Now, my wife's not laughing at it anymore. It's a contributing business, and she loves the whites. So I. You know, she. She's very. She's almost a sommelier now. She blends all of our whites. I do the reds. That's my whole point. You can see me mashing grapes. I'm doing the work, and I love it. And if you can find a better value than my wines at those prices. My last sale on qvc was under 12 bucks a bottle.
- [27:05]
Kevin O'Leary
Wow.
- [27:05]
Robert Herjavec
I dare you to find a better Chard or Cabernet Sauvignon, because I know exactly what that juice is, and I know what it's selling for on other brands. The same juice. Like, 60 bucks. Wow. So. And I'm not talking out of school here.
- [27:19]
Kevin O'Leary
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Last question for you is, you know, Shark Tank has been. It has to be the most successful business reality show that exists. And all the other ones that come, they just come and Go. They come, they stay for a bit, they go. Although the Sirhant one on Netflix, I think, has some staying power.
- [27:38]
Robert Herjavec
Good luck, baby.
- [27:40]
Kevin O'Leary
What do you think are the ingredients of a business reality show that makes it last? How come the others haven't lasted but.
- [27:45]
Robert Herjavec
Shark Tank has, I think, the genius of the original. And I have to call them out. I mean, I've worked with many showrunners. The original. I remember the very, very, very first time I met Mark Burnett and he called me up, I was working in England and he, he on a show called Project Earth. It's still, you can still get it online. Look at it. I was the one of the investors on that show. It was about profiting from climate change, how to solve climate change while you make money. So that would really work. And he called me up and said, hey, listen, I'm doing this new show based on a license called Dragon's Den, which I know you're familiar with.
- [28:32]
Kevin O'Leary
And.
- [28:32]
Robert Herjavec
I'm looking for a real asshole and you're it. I said, well, that's very complimentary. He said, no, it's the truth. Come and meet me at Shutters and let's walk through this format because I don't want you changing. And it was a. It was a focus on. On how he would Americanize the British version of Dragons Den. And he had to abide by a law from 1960s that was called the game show law, that you could know nothing about the company that walked front of you. And he played off that. So you're peeling the onion of discovery. The reason it works, I believe now after 17 years, was the genius of Burnett from the very first in assembling a cast of many of which are still the originals. Him in understanding, he understood each person's personality and how they would likely interact. That's the genius of a great producer finding a guy like Clay New Bill, who's now the show runner, the show producer. And he managed it for 17 years through all of the things we've gone through. But what I've really learned in the last few years is America's number one export is not energy or technology. It's the American dream. That's what the export is. And Shark Tank is the essence of the American dream. It's on in 54 countries. Any country I go to now, I can meet the leadership in 48 hours if I want. Everybody knows Shark Tank. I mean, when I go to UAE or Saudi Arabia, I meet the leader because his kids or her kids watch Shark Tank. Everybody wants the Shark Tank picture. And wow, has it worked for us as sharks. I mean, we just get access to so much deal flow. But it's the discovery. I meet so many people saying, I can't stop watching it at night. That idea versus this idea versus, you know, this, because every eight minutes it's a different show. And, you know, you see these people come up with these really stupid ideas, and then you go online and see it's $100 million business. Well, how'd that happen? Well, that's the American dream right there. That's how it works.
- [30:41]
Kevin O'Leary
Amazing. Well, Kevin, thanks for being on.
- [30:43]
Robert Herjavec
Thank you so much. This is great. You're a very good interviewer.
- [30:45]
Kevin O'Leary
Thank you.
- [30:46]
Robert Herjavec
You can keep your job.
- [30:47]
Kevin O'Leary
Thank you. Thanks for listening. We'll be back. Next time to cut through the noise on CPG retail and e commerce. If you enjoyed this episode, why not share it with a friend?
- [30:58]
Nick Sharma
And be sure to subscribe wherever you.
- [30:59]
Kevin O'Leary
Listen so you don't miss the next one.