which she claimed to have more than 20% profit of several hundred thousands in sales. sure, it's not a ton of money since you have to put it back into the business. but the fact that she's allegedly homeless with numbers like she was pulling seems shady. she even admitted she basically had no clue on how to run a business and wanted the sharks to do all the work.

She did come off like she was dedicated, but didn't have a clue how to grow her business.

She might be doing well on paper, even growing the business with increased sales, but that can also drive up her production costs to the point where profit is being whittled away. She's going to have to find a way to get her production costs down enough to free enough capital to expand the business.

Most businesses don't turn a profit until they've been running for five years, and most will fail before that.

My parents were in the food/restaurant business for over 30 years before they left. Even though they managed to stay in business for so long and made money, the overheard costs just kept going up every year and all their profits went back into the business. They barely took anything home and weren't able to save very much. As with the gumbo lady, I don't think my parents had the business knowledge like her of how to continuously make the business profitable and kept overheard low. I don't think she wants Lori and Kevin to do all the work, as Josh and Jason said, she needs help.

I ordered a Mission Belt and it shipped today.

The movie guys might have been one of the worst pitches I've ever seen on this show. There have been worse products, but two guys asking for $5 million for a movie with no script, no story, no stars from a guy who hung around Dane Cook movies was insane. It's a movie with a motorcycle in it. That's what they were selling.

Topped off with the "trailer" that was just text done in After Effects.

"That's it??!!"

Yeah, the movie guys were ridiculous.

I hate the pitches that involve food, or some service like exercise videos. I like it when they have an actual invention, not just another fucking cookie or burger recipe.

"We're seeking 5 Million dollars...Track Days is a full-length action film."
Mark Cuban: "I'm out."
::

No idea why the food truck women didn't cite L.A.-area Seoul Sausage (winner of Food Network's Great Food Truck Race) or White Rabbit (Filipino fusion) as examples of food trucks that have successfully opened B&M restaurants. I think Lime Truck, another race winner and OC-based truck, also has a storefront.

Idiots.

Track Days is a horrible title. Those guys also have a $2 million Kickstarter going for the project, and it somehow looks worse than their Shark Tank pitch. It's been going since April 22 and has $11,160 pitched... somebody (probably a plant) pitched $10,000 of that.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...days-the-movie

It's pretty bad when their Kickstarter pitch video isn't as good as most of us could do with a handcam.

Contrast that to the Veronica Mars pitch video and you can see the difference between a team who know what they're doing...LOL--and they were asking for only $2 million and had a set of guaranteed actors!

That was certainly one of the worst pitches the show has ever had.

--------

As far as the food truck goes, I think they could have just pitched differently, saying the truck was the test of the food and concept and now they want to open a brick-and-mortar. That said, because of the name and sales pitch, it's really like a Hooters in a lot of ways, and I think a truck would get about anyone to eat there, but a B&M would have a hard time getting families through the doors just like Hooters struggles with.

That was awesome.

The movie guys were probably hoping to hook Robert, the motorcycle enthusiast, with the pitch alone. They really had nothing to lose, because giving away 2% or whatever the show takes in equity is meaningless on a movie pitch that will likely never get made.

According to Deadline, the ABC reality shows like Shark Tank and Dancing with the Stars are expected to get officially renewed on Monday.

Shark Tank has been the highest rated Friday show (in the demos that matter) this whole season among all the networks. And its ratings have grown with every year. Add the fact that it's an extremely inexpensive show to produce (Five people in a room for two weeks of shooting), and ABC gets a percentage of every pitch that airs. It's a no-brainer that it gets renewed.

My only suggestion would be to get another Shark on the rotation. The Barbara/Lori switch helps keep both of them fresh, to me Robert and Daymond are getting a little stale (Robert especially has been REALLY tight with his wallet this year) and it might help to throw some fresh money into the mix.

Probably one of the few pitches where the majority of forum users here knew as much/more than the Sharks and could immediately spot it as a horrible deal. Cuban was great, dropping out before they could even make their pitch.

Cuban owns HDNet (or whatever it has become these days) and has a struggling chain of theaters, so he is well-versed in the movie business. I do think the show needs fresh blood, so much of what each Shark invests in is so predictable.

I like Robert, but I agree that he would be a great shark to switch around with another person, much like Barbara and Lori. He used to do a lot more, but as others have said, he has done very few deals lately. I think Cuban has proven to be a great addition to the show, even though too many pitches are directed toward him.

The movie people couldn't even shoot some sample footage of motorcycle racing? That was really, really lame.

I think they would have struggled to get the Shark's attention with that as well. The Shark's would have still pushed to get them to stick with the food trucks. I don't know the dollars and cents with those trucks but they seem like cash cows. Low overhead and they can still overcharge for the food. Plus they can use social media to gather a following. Though I suppose the market in LA and NY is pretty saturated.

I agree. I'm hoping for less of that next season and more inventions. The food stuff doesn't make any sense to show on TV because the viewer can't try it.

And I agree that we need a change up in the line up. Someone that eagerly wants to complete deals. Mark will jump on pretty much anything which is why I like him. Daymond is picky and that's ok. Kevin doesn't seem to ever want to actually do a deal, he just wants to throw out a miserable offer to see if he can get the idiot on the other end to bite. Barbara always thinks of some stupid excuse not to make an offer. Robert barely speaks anymore. Lori is always good though.

I wouldn't mind an entire new line up but I know that Mark sells this show and they need Kevin to be the Simon Cowell.

Robert doesn't do many deals, but he's actually my favorite Shark, so I'd hate to see him rotated out of the line-up. He's actually the only shark I would 100 percent trust wasn't trying to take advantage of me. Damon would be a distant second. I wouldn't trust any of the others as far as I could throw them.

Geek Chic has displayed at C2E2 (the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo) for the past few years and I've got to say: it is some really nice furniture. You didn't get a good sense of it on TV, but there are all sorts of compartments and drawers that conceal very well, so that when you're not playing games/reading your comics/whatever, it looks just like any other piece of high-end furniture. I have no idea what the finances look like -- the furniture is expensive, and he said he lost money last year, so maybe it's not a viable business -- but the furniture is really cool and really high quality.

On a related note, I Want To Draw A Cat For You also shows up at C2E2.

The guy who was trying to sell the stake in his scones business killed his presentation when he actually mentioned that his sales declined. I also didn't think his business had any appeal to the sharks.

I agreed with all the sharks that the LugLess guy is going to get killed by the bigger competitors. Also another business I didn't see that was very cost effective to be profitable and appeal to the sharks.

The deal that verbalizeit made was a real Holy S#!t moment. Absolutely floored that they'd take the worse deal just for a lower percentage.

And I'll be honest, I kinda want a grilled cheese doughnut right now. I thought their premise was outstanding. Affordable comfort food that you can't get anywhere else.

Holy shit!!! Robert actually made a deal. Very surprised he invested with that Geek furniture. Total high end product IMO with little room for profit margin.

That was very cool that Mark and Lori helped out those 2 hot soldiers and their jewelry. Although they kind of oversold the soldier storyline. But those 2 girls have ridiculous cost bargains, so I can see how with the right marketing and promotion, this could be profitable for the right clients. Lori is definitely the right person to get it out there. Plus $75K each with her and Mark is a small gamble.

Wow, shocked those 2 language translation guys chose Kevin.

at the dating site girl. She was kind of cute, but that whole concept was so ridiculous and flawed. The price structure was absurd. No way that business makes any money.

Happy for that boy to get Barbara to invest in his doggie treat business.