Business Valuation & Negotiation Lessons from Shark Tank Breathometer Man Medals Kane& Couture Mango Preserves Simple Sugars Update

Pitching on Shark Tank will be Charles Michael Yim, who is the founder of the Breathometer.  Proving that smartphones will one day do virtually anything, coming on the market in America will be a Smartphone application that will let users test their own Blood Alcohol Level.  The Breathometer app requires a physical measuring device that connects direclty to a smartphone’s headphone jack.  According to the Breathometer website, the product is in the pre-order phase with an expected rollout in the fall of 2013.  The pre order price is $49 plus shipping.  Breathometer is based in California’s Silicon Valley.  The Breathometer device seems fairly simple to use, plug the device into the headphone jack and blow into it.  Being a Silicon Valley company with Sunny Vu on board as an adviser, it’s possible that the Breathometer has already been through a round of funding.  That would likely mean that Barbara Corcoran would most likely be uninterested, however, she will not appear in this segment or episode, instead it will be Lori Greiner.  Expect Kevin O’Leary and possibly Robert Herjavec to be interested.  Though, the sharks may be put off with the aspect of enabling drivers to think they can drink a little and still drive.

Nagging a spouse or partner to take care of chores can become tedious and antagonizing.  To solve the distress of nagging and to put some fun back in household chores is James O’Brien.  James O’Brien will be pitching his business Man Medals on Shark Tank.  The concept is fairly simple, a partner or spouse can be rewarded with a medal for fulfilling a specific household chore.  The six chores are: Asking for Directions, Vacuuming, Taking Out The Garbage, Putting Down the Toilet Seat, Picking Up Dirty Clothes and Putting the New Toilet Paper Roll in the dispenser.  James O’Brien is from Michigan.  The inspiration for Man Medals came from his wife who nagged him about the chores.  She would say to him after he took care of a chore, ‘What do you want a medal or something!”  Alas, the business was born.  This seems like an ideal business for Barbara Corcoran, however she will not be appearing in the episode featuring the Man Medals pitch.  Instead, Lori Greiner might be interested, since she might feel that this business will work well on Direct TV Sales.

There are a lot of pet dog owners in America and the World.  Which makes pets & dogs a big money industry, and not just in food but in apparel accessories.  Amber Lee Kane appears on Shark Tank to pitch her pet accessories business called Kane & Couture.  There have been other dog accessories related businesses on Shark Tank, but not one that features stylish apparel.  Will the sharks be interested in Kane & Couture?  One positive sign for Amber Lee Kane, is that she has already secured retail distribution in pet stores designed to appeal to higher income demographics.  Also Robert Herjavec is known as a dog lover, so expect him to be prominent in the Kane & Couture segment, if for nothing else, to be playing with any model dogs on set.  New York Based Daymond John might also be interested, not necessarily just for his apparel connection, but that he may be aware of the brand as the widest distribution Kane & Couture enjoys is in New York City.

A lot of people find mangoes to be very tasty.  Those people will be interested in the pitch from the trio of entrepreneurs from Mango Mango Preserves on ABC’s Shark Tank.  The good news for the entrepreneurs is that they have secured retail shelf space for their products in select grocery stores in state of Virginia.  The pitch promises to be fun as the trio of entrepreneurs perform a song and dance routine promoting their Mango preserves versatility as a food product.  Their song jingle is ‘spread it, mix it, shake it, stir it.” Their mango preserves can be spread on to food, mixed in to recipes, stirred into food, or shaken into mixed drinks.  The mango preserves are made with four ingredient according to the company website: mangoes, sugar, lime juice and vanilla. They claim to use no artificial ingredients.  All natural products have an appeal and can demand higher retail prices.  Daymond John has been on the record as being interested in investing in companies that are a net positive to living wellness, so expect to see him interested if the pitch makes sense in terms of asking price and sales volume.

Getting a Shark Tank update segment is Lani Lazzari from Pittsburgh, PA for her line of All Natural Body Scrubs called Simple Sugars. You may recall that an extraordinary aspect of her story is that she was 18 at the time of taping her original Shark Tank segment for Simple Sugars. She was incredibly polished and poised on the set, which impressed a lot of people. Even more impressive is Lani Lazzari  began creating her all natural body scrubs at the age of Eleven! Like many great inventions, Lani Lazzari created Simple Sugars Body scrub based on necessity. Lani Lazzari has very sensitive skin, so much so, that she isn’t able to use commercially available products, and thus, was compelled to create Simple Sugars all natural body scrubs to help her and her family.  Mark Cuban was interested, but he needed enough equity to make it work his while, so he got Lani Lazzari to give up 33% in Simple Sugars. During Negotiations, Cuban made an offer for 33%, which elicited the counter offer from Lazzari for 25% equity. Cuban gave a simple no to the 25% counter offer. This is where the negotiation skills became apparent. Cuban was wise to say no, and not offer a different counter to Lazzari. This is because he had the leverage, there were no other bidders. Lazzari knew that she did not have the leverage, which made her accept Cuban’s offer for 33% equity too quickly. What could she have done differently. After Cuban said no to her counter, she could have said something along the lines of “Let’s do 30% equity” and then accepted Cuban’s 33% equity offer if he said no to that. We’re excited to see the updates.

Want to read recaps of previous Shark Tank episodes? Click here to see the entire collection episode recaps, all of them with business lessons you can take away from each pitch.

For More information on how Just Elementary, Inc, Business Brokers can help you with Valuation Matters & Negotiation Techniques for your business contact our Client Care Manager Sonia Chhabra at (888) 926-9193 or email cs@justelementary.com