'Shark Tank' judge Mark Cuban loses patience and asks contestants to leave after not getting a deal

The entrepreneurs just kept going with their pitch, even though every Shark had already said no.

PUBLISHED 3 HOURS AGO

Screenshots showing Mark Cuban and the entrepreneurs on "Shark Tank." (Image credit: YouTube | Sony Pictures Television)

Not all entrepreneurs who come on “Shark Tank” have a ton of sales. In fact, a lot of them don’t have nearly enough to make the Sharks interested. Some, however, are more desperate than the others to get a deal to kick their business off in a big way. Unfortunately, they do not all get deals. In an earlier episode of the show, Mark Cuban asked one entrepreneur to leave after she overstayed her welcome.

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Her name was Kate Kung-McIntyre, and she had partnered with Eddie Sandoval and Kyle Offutt. The company was called Pinole Blue, which was Sandoval’s brainchild. Being the son of Hispanic immigrants, Sandoval always felt a strong connection to his roots in Mexico. One of the things that really drew him to his culture was a roasted and ground corn mixture called pinole. The product traces its roots back to the indigenous Tarahumara community in Chihuahua, Mexico.

The mix could be used to make several items like tortillas, cookies, and more. It could even be used as a drink mix. According to the entrepreneurs, their pinole is made from government-approved blue corn that is sourced from Mexico. The contestants also claimed that pinole was rich in proteins, antioxidants, and complex carbohydrates. It is stoneground using volcanic rock, which is an ancient method.

Screenshot showing the Pinole Blue products. (Image credit: YouTube | Sony Pictures Television)

Like pinole, the entrepreneurs also had an interesting backstory. The company was the idea of Sandoval, who was a Wichita State University student. Kung-McIntyre was one of his professors over there. The two of them partnered up at first to get the company off the ground. Later on, Offutt joined as the social media consultant, per a Food Republic report. The product was decent, and there was a large Hispanic population in the country that would buy it.

The problem, however, lay with the numbers and the lack of awareness about pinole among other demographics. The company projected $730,000 in sales in the year of taping. The year before, they had $260,000 in gross profit but only $5,000 in sales. That turned off a lot of the sharks that might have been interested. The Sharks obviously wanted to reach out to non-Hispanic customers as well, but educating them about pinole was going to be a massive challenge.

Screenshot showing the sharks. (Image credit: YouTube | Sony Pictures Television)

The company just was not in the game long enough for any of them to make an offer. As a result, the Pinole Blue entrepreneurs got nothing. However, they weren’t going to leave just yet. Kung-McIntyre tried to draw sympathy towards his younger partners as she called them scrappy and said that they did not have a lot of money. The judges said that they were all scrappy at one point in their lives.

Ultimately, Cuban had to step in. “We wish we could stay and talk forever, but we can’t. You guys have got to go,” he said, as politely as he could. The entrepreneurs obliged, knowing that the Sharks did not want to hear it anymore.