'Shark Tank': Why did PrepDeck founder decline Kevin O'Leary's $750K offer and leave?
Even though every entrepreneur that pitches on 'Shark Tank' comes in with the hopes of closing a deal with a Shark, sometimes they are forced to make the difficult decision of turning down the Shark's offer. The recently aired episode of the award-winning show featured 'PrepDeck' founder Andrew Eburne being forced to decline Kevin O'Leary's offer to protect his business' best interests.
Andrew walked into the tank seeking $750,000 for a 7.5% stake in his innovative one-stop solution product for meal-prepping and cleaning. The Sharks were intrigued by his pitch, especially after listening to him spit out impressive sales numbers and cool profit margins. Despite the promising numbers, Barbara Corcoran, Mark Cuban, and Daniel Lubetzky decided to sit out on the deal as they couldn't relate to the product. Kevin O'Leary aka Chef Wonderful felt that PrepDeck was right up his alley and immediately rolled out an offer of $750K as a loan at 9.5% interest for a 5% stake.
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Andrew felt that the offer was a bit too 'Shark-ey' as he would be spending all the investment money he would be receiving from Kevin in paying back the loan. He found it really hard to see how Kevin's offer would help him or his business. Luckily for him, Lori Greiner jumped in and made an offer of investing $750,000 but in exchange for a 25% stake. Andrew immediately declined Lori's offer as she was asking for too much equity.
Not wanting to leave the tank empty-handed, Andrew attempted to negotiate with Kevin by making a counteroffer of $750K as a loan 9% interest, with interest-only payments, for a 3% stake. Kevin refused to make any changes to his original offer. Left with no choice, Andrew made the decision to leave the tank with no deal. Even though he may have not gotten a Shark on board, he, however, did manage to earn the respect of all Sharks for his bold decision. The Sharks encouraged him to continue building his business and assured him that he would be just fine without the Sharks.
'Shark Tank' Season 13 airs every Friday at 8/7c on ABC.
Missed an episode? Been wanting to catch up? Episodes can also be viewed the next day on demand and on Hulu. Not just that, you can also watch old seasons and episodes on Amazon Prime Video and iTunes.