Shark Tank Season 12 Episode 8 Recap with Ed Jaffe, demo and presentation coach
Shark Tank Season 12 Episode 8 Recap with demo and presentation coach and Demo Solutions Founder, Ed Jaffe, is part of our pop culture series and underscores the importance of the pitch. You get one shot to make a deal, or it tanks
Not quite a spoiler alert, but I do want to let you know what to expect in these posts. This isn’t a “play-by-play” recap of what happened on Shark Tank. Instead, I go through it with my own framework of what makes a great (or less than great) demo. So, if you’re ready for some snark and helpful demo tips, let’s dive in.
The Sharks who appeared on this week’s Shark Tank – Daymond, Lori, Mr. Wonderful, Cuban and Barbara.
The products that appeared on this week’s Shark Tank: Holiball,
Next (recap) into the Shark Tank: Peakaboo Organics
What is it: Ice cream with hidden vegetables
The ask: $800K for 8%
Who are the founders: Jessica Weiss Levison
How many offers: 2
The result: No deal
How was it presented to the Sharks?
Jessica asked Sharks to taste the ice cream and describe the flavors. Robert said “heaven,” so he clearly liked it. Then, the big reveal, there’s veggies in the ice cream.
What worked during the demo?
The “taste test, bet you didn’t know there was veggies” worked quite well. Based on a commercial she showed with kids eating the ice cream, this is clearly something she’s done quite often.
Lori called her a “diamond,” because she was good under pressure.
Jessica didn’t want Lori’s offer because Lori wanted the ice cream to be low fat/low sugar. I respect that she walked out on that offer – ice cream shouldn’t be low fat/low sugar. If you want ice cream, just eat some ice cream.
What didn’t work during the demo?
Barbara: You must have enormous sales. Jessica: $450K. So that didn’t go over as well as she wanted it to.
The valuation is awfully high based on sales. Jessica’s defense was “innovative high-growth food startups” are trading at 4-6X. Cuban: ugh (ugh is right).
She said “innovative high-growth” multiple times. This is very much a DemoFail – I know what those words mean, I don’t know what they mean in that sort of sentence.
Additional thoughts about the demo
This one was weird. They didn’t edit it well or something, but they didn’t seem to like that the strategy was “sell the business.” I don’t see why as an exit is good for everyone, but the Sharks are already rich I guess?
I’m also not sure Jessica was there for an offer. I’m guessing with zero evidence that she wasn’t trying to use Shark Tank as an ad to customers, but I do think she was using it as an ad to investors who weren’t the Sharks.
Next (recap) into the Shark Tank: Brake Free
What is it: A brake light for a motorcycle that goes on a helmet, that lights up when someone slows down
The ask: $200K for 10%
Who are the founders: Henry Lee and Alex Arkhangelskiy
How many offers: 1
The result: Deal with Mark and Robert for 20%
How was it presented to the Sharks?
A relatively straightforward description of the product, with a video showing off the product
They buried the lede a bit that this is all based on indiegogo – customers don’t have the product yet.
What worked during the demo?
Normally videos don’t really work, but in this case it did. The product needed to be shown “in the field” so to speak.
This is just flat out an excellent idea. I’m genuinely surprised no one has thought of this before.
What didn’t work during the demo?
When Robert made the entrepreneurs an offer, they ignored it to see what Mark wanted. But, to their credit the entrepreneurs got them to work together.
As presenters they were a bit wooden, which could have been nerves. But, they talked all about how bikers are passionate, and that created a bit of dissonance between the words being used and the emotions being conveyed. I’m not saying everyone should be a passionate presenter – not everyone is – but try to match the words used with the emotions that are there.
Additional thoughts about the demo
When the entrepreneurs say the name of their business together, it never actually works. It’s like when more than 1 person would record a message on an answering machine (that’s voicemail but recorded on a cassette. The 80s were great) – it never actually worked.
You seem like someone who wants to be our friend. Why not join our list?
Next (recap) into the Shark Tank: Pillar Learning
What is it: “A storytelling robot built on smart home technology” (it has Wi-Fi)
The ask: $500K for 10%
Who are the founders: Dayu Yang, Chris Oslebo and William Mock
How many offers: 1
The result: Almost didn’t get a deal, but Robert came back at the end
How was it presented to the Sharks?
The entrepreneurs described the product while holding one – I was sort of surprised that they didn’t interact with it during the demo.
What worked during the demo?
Showing a video of a family playing with the toy was a nice way to see how it worked.
After everyone was out, they kept selling. Normally I’d say that’s bad, but it got Robert to come back in, so it worked.
What didn’t work during the demo?
They kept saying it’s made with “smart home technology” – that makes it sound sort of ridiculous. It’s a WiFi device. Just say that.
“3 million people have seen our ads.” So what? That just means you have an ad budget.
Additional thoughts about the demo
I miss my 2XL.
Also, as a parent with a young kid, I hate this. Not everything needs to be smart. Kids like playing with the box – they don’t need a smart robot that talks to them (get off my lawn).
Recap of the Shark Tank Season 12 Episode 8 Recap
We hope you found some of the lessons from Shark Tank, Season 12, Episode 8 useful. Share Shark Tank Season 12 Episode 7 Recap with your team and come back next week for a new analysis. And, of course, if you want to see how we can apply this type of framework to make your demos better, feel free to get in touch.