‘This is One of the Worst Pitches in Shark Tank History’: Kevin ‘Mr. Wonderful’ O’Leary Stands Up and Boots Defiant ‘Shark Tank’ Contestant After Heated Showdown with All the Sharks
Sometimes, “Shark Tank” judges don’t get along with guests. In one resurfaced episode from 2016, one passionate contestant leaves all the judges disinterested and gets silenced by Kevin O’Leary.
On episode 7 of season 8, entrepreneur Kash Shaikh pitched his marketplace app called BeSomebody to the sharks. In the clip posted on the show’s YouTube page, he explained that the app would be a resource for users who want to learn a new skill to connect with local experts, also referred to by Shaikh as passionaries, for experiential learning. The hosts of the experiences would also make money. For this company, Shaikh was seeking $1 million from the sharks in exchange for 10 percent of the company.
Shaikh added a lively twist to his pitch by having a ninja warrior, Travis Brewer, Olympic gold medalist Kristine Lilly and a group of Bollywood dancers all come out to perform. They were used as examples for thepassionate experiences that users can book. He also demonstrated what a profile looks like by sharing his.
“This is my profile page. If you hit that little plus, it opens up all my passions. You can add as many as you want. You can create them and then our algorithm takes everything you’re passionate about and shows you experiences around you, in your local area. It’s an experience marketplace. Think about Airbnb when you’re booking houses. Here you can book an experience.”
Explaining further how the business works, the contestant said, “We take 20 percent of every experience that’s booked on our platform, on average $40 an experience.” After the pitch, it was time for the judges to ask their questions and give their opinions. Tension immediately ensued when judges inquired about revenue and were unsatisfied with Shaikh’s responses about how he was planning to scale the business.
He claimed that strategic partnerships was one way he was able to scale, which wasn’t enough for judges. Judges also asked if he was insured in the case that a user gets seriously injured in fitness training.
Shaikh first responded, “Right now we haven’t had that problem. We know we’re going to have to figure that out as we scale.” He later added “every passionary that hosts a fitness experience has to have liability insurance. That is part of our terms.”
The judges’ level of interest in the pitch seemed to drastically decrease at this point. It tanked even more when Shaikh said users booked only $2,000 worth of experiences the month prior.
As the judges tried to figure out why trainers give Shaikh exclusivity, Mark Cuban asked him, “You probably have to qualify the exclusivity to an app or something specific as opposed to all bookings, right?” Shaikh clarified that all bookings get the exclusivity and that 100 percent of the passionaries’ revenue is depending on him even without a minimum guarantee.
An impatient Cuban had a look of dissatisfaction as Barbara Corcoran fought to get Shaikh’s attention. Instead, Shaikh continued trying to defend his answer to Cuban.
But Cuban wasn’t buying it, and decided to drop out of the deal. Before walking away from it, he said, “Kash, rule No. 1, the longer the backstory the worse the deal. Rule No. 2, more preaching always equals less money for the investor.”
Corcoran was next to drop out because she felt Shaikh was “abrasive” and didn’t “have the capacity to listen.” Robert Herjavec dropped out over lack of understanding and lack of growth in Shaikh’s business. Lori Greiner and Daymond John followed the other three judges’ lead to drop out.
O’Leary, who was the final judge to make a decision, said, “In the end, ‘Shark Tank’ is about making money.” Shaikh cuts in trying to defend the “passionate community” he’s built from BeSomebody but goes on a rant with Cuban when he said Shaikh needs to “do the work.”
To interject in the rant, O’Leary stood up, made one clap and said, “Silence.”
“I’m calling you out,” O’Leary said. “In eight years of history, you’re one of the first people to ever have six shots at this OK. You struck out on every one. Zero. I’m out.”
Fans responded to the clip on YouTube.
One said, “I had so much second hand embarrassment for him. He sounded like a motivational speaker that gets buy in from the desperate. The sharks aren’t desperate.”
Another wrote, “This is one of the worst pitches in shark tank history.”
A third said, “Perfect lesson here. It’s important to have passion and pride on this show, but you gotta have a stable product too. Passion alone isn’t enough.”
As for what has become of BeSomebody, it was sold to Utivity Holdings in 2017 and was discontinued in 2018, according to Shark Tank Recap.