Live Every Week Like It's Shark(Tank) Week

In just a few days, Aaron and I will jump into the SharkTank on May 7th at 8:00pm EST/7:00pm CST/MST on ABC.  We are insanely lucky to have the opportunity to pitch to the Sharks, but this experience is by no means typical of running a young business.  However, we do think the process of preparing for SharkTank is something every start-up should put themselves through.

It’s probably not worth watching hundreds of episodes of SharkTank, like we did.  I mean, we watched it all.  We analyzed every SharkTank pitch, every deal, and every bogus royalty offer Mr. Wonderful put out there.  We tracked down every beer and alcohol related pitch we could find.   While maybe you can find a nugget or two that could ultimately help drive your business, it’s probably not worth devoting all the time.

What would be useful to any young business or brand was the drawn out process of creating, what was in essence, an extreme form of an elevator pitch.  But it’s not just a pitch for Sharks.  It’s a pitch for MILLIONS OF AMERICANS watching the show. 

When you really boil a SharkTank segment down, you realize how little time you truly have to sell BEERMKR.  Take a normal 7-minute SharkTank segment.  There’s the intro pitch, there’s Q&A, and there’s negotiation (hopefully).  About half of the time the Sharks are talking.  About half is the back and forth about equity and dollars.  So when it really comes down to how much time you have to sell your company, we’re talking about maybe 2 minutes.  MAX.  So how do you sell your company and your product in just 2 minutes?

You’ll have to tune in to SharkTank on Friday May 7th on ABC to find out!  Kidding…  But seriously, we don’t really know.  We tried, at least, to make these three key points.

THE PROBLEM IS REAL.

• If your product isn’t solving a problem, then it’s not really worth anyone’s time.  BEERMKR makes the complicated, time consuming, and risky process of making beer easy. So easy that anyone can use it.  And make killer beer.

• Investors want an idea that has the potential to blow up, and viewers want to catch the next big thing before they make it, so sell the BIG story.  The Domestic beer market is over $100 Billion!  Globally, that’s nearly $600B!  BEERMKR just needs a little slice.

• This one is key (and maybe a bit biased).  On SharkTank, it’s easy to get lost in selling the Sharks, but you have remember to sell the people.  And lucky for us, beer is the best!  And BEERMKR beer, in particular, is the best.  So no matter how deep into a profit margins you get, or angrily defending your valuation, you always need to sell your product.  Bring it back home to what really matters in life.  Great beer.

That was all relatively easy to say in hindsight...  Please tune in to watch us on Friday and see how we do!