'Shark Tank' judges boo Kevin O'Leary for telling contestants that he 'hates' their product
“Shark Tank” judge Kevin O'Leary might be known as Mr. Wonderful, but the ruthless investor doesn't mince his words while ripping through businesses with his criticism. If there’s a product he doesn’t like or a business that has little sales, he doesn’t hesitate to go to town on them. That is exactly what happened on an earlier episode of the show in which a couple of entrepreneurs came up with an innovative and healthy way of blowing out birthday candles. Unfortunately, Mr. Wonderful was having absolutely none of it and said that he "hated" the idea.
Mark Lareau and Mark Apelt sought $100,000 for a 20% stake in their company, Blowzee. The problem was that it was more of a product and not really a company. The product is nothing but a small fan with a sensor inside. You blow into one end of the Blowzee, the sensor picks up the air pressure, and it rotates the fan to blow out the candles on a birthday cake.
The entrepreneurs believed that this was a hygienic way of blowing out birthday candles, which would otherwise see kids spitting all over the cake while trying to blow out the candles. That’s a cake that nobody would want to eat at any point. The sharks understood the need for this product, and the entrepreneurs had decent margins. However, none of them wanted a slice of their business after getting to know the sales figures.
At the time of taping, the entrepreneurs said that they’d been in business only for five months and had generated $12,000 in sales. This number was so less that Kevin O’Leary immediately made up his mind. “Why doesn’t anybody care? $12,000 is actually nothing,” he said before calling Lareau and Apelt “really bad marketers.” One of the good things about the business was that they had only paid the engineers and consultants $2,000 before launching the product.
“What a great lesson for everyone at home,” an impressed Robert Herjavec said. However, Mr. Wonderful was simply not going to have any of that. “What’s the great lesson? Don’t have sales?” he asked. Mark Cuban was more understanding as he said that no business starts out with a million dollars in sales.
“That’s very encouraging,” O'Leary said to Cuban before turning to the entrepreneurs. “Let me give you something that is not encouraging. I hate this very very much and I’m out.” The rest of the sharks were not fans of such brutal honesty and they all proceeded to boo Mr. Wonderful. However, not a single one of them made an offer to the entrepreneurs.
Cuban still had some kind words for the founders. “Look, guys, I give you a ton of credit because you are what Shark Tank is all about. You have an idea, you sort it out with all your friends so they like the idea, will it work…then you go through the whole hassle of getting it done. That’s the American dream,” he said.
