Shark Tank Products

Yesterday was November 1. I passed through the Qantas terminal to head to my plane for Melbourne — I had an opportunity to attend the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards last night to celebrate those people who backed themselves and did something different.

Yet what struck me markedly, in the terminal, were the Christmas decorations loud and proud… heralding the commencement of ‘The Season’. Christmas catalogues have started to appear and I even heard a Christmas carol as I passed one of the stores at the airport.

Every year we say “but it is so early!”… Yet I know exactly why it is done. Christmas is an essential time for businesses to be successful. Big business has the budgets, planning departments and resources to be ‘all in’ with promotional activity. However, it can be a scary time for small business. Finding and keeping customers can seem expensive, yet it is essential to build momentum now — this includes all small businesses that I have met as part of Shark Tank.

We’ve had close to 250 business owners pitch to us during the last three series of Channel Ten’s Shark Tank. Each Shark is getting older and wiser and so too are those pitching. The pitches and businesses get better each year… and we continue support our invested Shark Tank businesses with mentoring, networks and experience.

The Shark Tank businesses are probably better off than most, due of the national exposure they have received. But what I have observed in The Huddle [a peer to peer network of business owners which you can join for free here] is that the number one question small businesses owners have is “how much money is being spent to find and attract customers?”. We know that Facebook and Google are media companies and without spending our money to promote the offering, it is almost impossible for customers to find them.

I sometimes lament the loss of the Yellow Pages. At least if a business owner paid for the ad, he or she knew the number of books that would be printed. With social media channels one cannot be sure exactly who, how or when people are seeing your ad — despite the extensive reporting.

So what am I doing about this?

I figure there is safety in numbers. One thing I am doing to support Shark Tank businesses (not just the ones that I invest in) is to put together a Shark Tank range in one place and promote these small businesses as gifts for Christmas. (We do have other Australian small businesses represented too).

I figure I can solve a few problems…

• Most people are looking for something innovative at Christmas – tick.
• Most people would love to support small start ups, somehow – tick.
• Most people don’t have much time to do the searching – tick.

Problem solved.

I’m kind of excited to bring this range together under the Wrapped.com banner. Bigger businesses supported me when I was a startup and it is my turn to do that for others.

Given that Christmas is right upon us (I’ve seen the Christmas decorations so it must be true)… here is a sample of the 100 or so ‘As Seen on Shark Tank’ products all in one place. And plenty of other innovative Australian products.

Got to love that ‘Aussie ingenuity’.

Remember these great Products?

Hegs

Scott presented such a simply powerful story of the need for his pegs with hooks: Hegs. I guess I was hooked. Perfect for apartments and tripling the available space on your clothes line. This is one of those inventions that you think – why did no one think of this before?

 

 

 

Bottle Pops

Andrew teamed up with Steve to invest in Bottlepops which can be purchased on Wrapped.com.

 

 

Vegepod

Matt from Vegepod is a bloke who gets things done. An inventor with a passion who also picked up on a growing trend — home grown vegetables. Playing to the rise of the apartment living market, I couldn’t resist investing in this product.

 

 

 

Images courtesy of Network Ten.

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Also published on Medium.