Episode 0038 | Life After Crowdfunding: ABC’s “Shark Tank”

In this episode, we’ll talk with Mindy Zemrak, who is the Emmy-nominated Supervising Casting Producer of ABC’s “Shark Tank.” This award-winning startup-centered reality show debuted in 2009 and has since featured thousands of entrepreneurs, including over a dozen of our past crowdfunding clients. Mindy is now casting for the show’s 12th season, which will premiere this autumn, and she is going to give us her expert perspective about how YOU can succeed on it. So, on with the show…

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⭐ During this episode, we detail these takeaways:

 1. People shouldn’t wait to understand something perfectly before plunging into doing it, as we also learn from our own experience, and practice makes perfect.

 2. Entrepreneurs can apply for “Shark Tank” either through the Internet anytime or in-person at open casting calls, which are held between January and August at various locations nationwide.

 3. Applicants should ideally show passionate energy, have working prototypes, be able to explain succinctly what makes their offers unique, know their numbers, and not necessarily have any sales or positive reviews yet (although these can help).

 4. Applicants are chosen partly for themselves and their story, and partly for their business and their product, and also because they need investment to get to the next step; those who aren’t chosen one year may try again each new year and may eventually get chosen.

 5. Applicants should consider alternative fundraising methods and not rely upon getting featured on “Shark Tank” because 20,000-30,000 entrepreneurs apply for it annually but only hundreds make deals and only 88-108 get featured on television.

 6. Finalists will receive extensive help preparing themselves before they approach a panel of self-made millionaires (who know nothing about them beforehand) to try to negotiate a deal, which usually involves a valuable partnership plus a financial investment; these negotiations will be recorded and possibly condensed into a brief segment for television.

 7. Finalists who appear on “Shark Tank” will get seen before 5-7 million television viewers in what amounts to millions-of-dollars-worth of free advertising, and should prepare to handle a surge in remarketing, sales, cross-sells, upsells, customer-service inquiries, shipping, et cetera, which they can use to expand their business as quickly as possible.

✍️ Click here for this episode’s complete show notes!

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