Shark Tank Australia Series 2 Episode TWO on TEN

With a mix of disruptive businesses, innovators and some rich discussions on valuation Episode Two has many lessons, great insights and a few laughs as well…Our entrepreneurs are prepared, their pitches entertaining and expressive – all the founders in this episode happen to be relatively young (well compared to us) – some have been battling away at their idea for years whilst others are not even a year into the business. These are the notes that I took while filming Episode Two (and a few behind the scenes photos):

Disrupt Surfboards – There are many methods to valuing businesses – I know of at least four used by professionals in this space. When a business has good revenue and then falls behinds it’s launch year numbers then the founder needs to be really clear about the valuation method they chose and why. No business is linear – not every business grows year on year. Founder Gary with his team of eight at Disrupt is doing something really cool in the surfboard market, (and they are a supplier to RedBalloon) Personalisation of sports equipment, looks great, is fun, customers love it – but is that enough to make it a business to invest in?

The product is beautiful but it takes much more than that to get the Sharks to swim with any investment.

Yet no idea is worth much without the ability to create a profitable and scalable enterprise. What we must do as a nation is invest in scaling businesses – and this appears to be something that can scale with global aspirations. Great pitch…

Car Next Door – There is a trend to collaborative consumption or the ‘sharing economy’ it is a hybrid market model (in between owning and gift giving) which refers to peer-to-peer-based sharing of access to goods and services, coordinated through community-based online services). Car Next Door is about renting your neighbors car when they’re not using it or rent out your car when you are not using it and earn some dollars in so doing. It bodes well for the environmentally friendly case, the less vehicles on the roads case and the community case. Your car is insured and monitored, drivers are screened. I know my own car sits idle for 96% of the time… hmmm maybe this is a revenue opportunity for me.

Super Orbs – We did not know what to expect when Shatrh and Bren (spiritual names) walked into the tank. The taste and goodness of the product ‘was out of this world’. The pitch was concise and passionate growing the vegan organic protein snack business to a $260k turn over over the last eight years. The three founders live together, work together and are growing their enterprise one retailer at a time. A story of commitment and persistence – the authentic start up story with $57, fine tuning the product and ready to expand. Would the investor remain an outsider and never truly be ‘in’?

Catch up: Scrubba Washbag – When Ash walked into the Shark Tank last year he presented us a light and effective way to wash a few small clothes in a bag – the secret is the bumps inside the bag which act as a ‘wash board’. Well packaged, small, light, memorable, a great name and a business making profit. Already an Australian export – I saw synergies with Hegs at the time. A fantastic feeding frenzy between the Sharks – as Andrew said “There was blood in the water” and Janine and Steve acquired a 10% stake each  in the business for a combined $240,000. And now a year on sales have gone through the roof – with a big part of that being from export.

If you have a business idea that you really want to see successful grab a copy of my new book Ready To Soar