'Shark Tank' takes a wild turn as Lori Greiner snatches major deal from Kevin O’Leary’s hands
It's well known how entrepreneurs have to face ruthless investors on “Shark Tank” to secure an investment for their businesses. But sometimes even the sharks have to cut off fellow investors on the show to close a lucrative deal with a firm. That’s exactly what Lori Greiner did to Kevin O’Leary on an earlier episode of the show. “That’s why they call it the Shark Tank,” Mark Cuban said after seeing it all go down. The company for which all this happened was Fish Fixe.
Emily Castro and Melissa Harrington sought $200,000 for 15% of the company. Fish Fixe delivers premium seafood products packaged in a safe and healthy way. The entrepreneurs revealed that most Americans were not meeting their required seafood consumption levels, and that was because they were not confident in buying, handling, or cooking it. It is true that seafood can be quite tricky to cook, and such items undercooked can lead to serious health concerns.
The sharks liked how the food tasted, and the company had decent sales figures as well. However, their problem was shipping. During the pandemic, they subsidized all of their packages to the east and west coasts. This helped them gain a nationwide customer base, but shipping products outside, while highly profitable, was becoming an issue, and a lot of the sharks did not like that.
Robert Herjavec said that he had little to no idea about the whole shipping problem and said no to a deal. Cuban said that there were a lot of variable costs in the business, which made it tough. He wasn’t willing to invest in it as a result and refrained from offering a deal. Kevin O’Leary’s concern was customer acquisition cost, as that would help the brand be competitive.
He was willing to invest in the company but asked for a third of the company for $200,000. This was more than double what Castrio and Harrington asked for, and they were not willing to do the deal. However, Mr. Wonderful, who has been successful in the food industry with Chef Wonderful, did not budge from what he had asked for. Even 25% was not enough for him to make a deal.
That’s when Lori Greiner swooped in and stole the deal. “I don’t want you doing it for that,” she said. “I’ll give you the $200,000 for 25%.” That was an acceptable deal, and the entrepreneurs did not even have to think about it. Since then, it has been smooth sailing for the company for the most part. As per a report in Tasting Table, they got into a distribution issue but solved it eventually.
The entrepreneurs were surprised at getting a deal from Greiner as much as anyone. That’s not saying that they’re complaining about it. "I could tell that the more we talked, the more she was engaged," Harrington said. "Lori will say over and over again that she picks people, so I would like to think that's part of why she swings back in."
