Mark Cuban offers a life-changing deal to 'Shark Tank' founder who reminded him of his younger self

Although investors on “Shark Tank” have a fan following of their own, people do admit that they are hard negotiators who can intimidate entrepreneurs with their criticism and scrutiny. This means that it's very difficult and rare for entrepreneurs to get what they originally asked for. But once in a while, there comes a business owner who is just as tough a negotiator as the sharks and it could raise tensions on the sets while making things interesting. That’s what happened when Justin Baer showed up pitching his firm Collars & Co. The Maryland-based entrepreneur asked for $300,000 for just a 4% equity in his company which none of the sharks were ready to give.

However, Justin had a solid business that specialized in producing casual polos with dress collars. At the time of filming, the company had made a whopping $5.4 million in sales at 20% net profit. That was what attracted three of the five sharks after Lori Greiner and Daymond John were out since the former didn’t believe the product was in their wheelhouse and the latter just hated the overall look of sweaters over dress shirts. It was the other three sharks who wanted to be part of this fast-growing company.

Kevin O’Leary made a first offer of $300,000 for 10% of the company. Justin was not okay with giving away that much of what he built and scoffed at the offer before saying no as per CNBC Make It. This came as a shock to some of the other sharks since Mr. Wonderful doesn’t usually make an offer for just 10% of a company. Mark Cuban and Peter Jones also teamed up with the exact same offer but as Justin refused to budge, all three decided to say no.

For any business owner, getting multiple offers and not taking any on “Shark Tank” just didn’t make sense. Justin might have been steadfast in what he wanted but even he realised that he was letting go of a big opportunity. So he stuck around on the stage for a bit more. Jones and Cuban made him the same offer again, this time with $700,000 as a line of credit along with the $300,000 for 10%. The entrepreneur had no choice but to step back and take it.

After the deal was done, Cuban said that Justin reminded him of himself. “He reminded me of me, I’m not going to lie. When you’re young, you don’t know what you don’t know. I did a lot more talking than listening,” he said. He and Jones had questions about how the three would work together but those doubts have surely been laid to rest as Collars & Co. is one of the biggest “Shark Tank” success stories today.

As per a report in Screen Rant, the company recorded a 300% rise in website traffic after the episode was aired in 2022. Both Cuban and Jones are active partners to this day and have mentored Justin to become a successful clothing line business owner. “Mark and Peter have been awesome. They are in touch and always extremely responsive. I’ve gone back and forth with Mark on email some nights until 1:00 am,” he said.

The report also states that the company currently has more than 200,000 customers worldwide. It’s safe to say that the Collars & Co. owner would probably have regretted it had he walked away from the stage that day without accepting an offer.