‘Competitors will always complain’: Shark Tank‘s Andrew Banks spills on coffee pod controversy

THE man who handed out the biggest deal in Australian Shark Tank history, worth millions of dollars, has spoken out about the brewing controversy.

THE man who handed out the biggest deal in Australian Shark Tank history has dismissed the ensuing controversy over “questionable” claims made during the pitch.

But entrepreneur Andrew Banks, who agreed to pay $2.5 million for 22.5 per cent of Kane Bodiam’s iCapsulate biodegradable coffee capsule company, said “the deal may push through or it may not”.

After the episode aired earlier this month, the heads of the three largest manufacturers of Nespresso-compatible capsules in Australia took issue with claims made by Mr Bodiam during his pitch, saying Mr Banks had been taken “hook, line and sinker”.

“We think that Kane made some highly questionable statements during Episode 3, and Andrew Banks, Shark Tank Australia and Network Ten deserve to know the facts,” the directors of Mad Capsules, CoffeeCaps and Podpac said in a joint letter.

Their main concern centred on the claim by Mr Bodiam during the episode that he has contracts with “Australia and New Zealand’s largest coffee companies”.

“Our industry is small here in Australia, with only four manufacturers of significant size,” they wrote. “All four of us have made significant capital investments in the millions of dollars, but only three of us have been successful in winning significant contracts.”

It also emerged that Mr Bodiam had in 2015 been found by a Sydney court to have made false claims about his role at his former workplace, Mad Capsules. Mr Bodiam claimed on his Facebook and LinkedIn pages that he established and ran the firm, which Justice Richard White found was misleading conduct.

Mr Bodiam told The Daily Telegraph he had been victim of a “smear” campaign, saying he had filed no defence in the case because it would have been a waste of money. “It comes down to it was a simple waste of money arguing this in court, which I realised they wanted me to do,” he said. “There was nothing false and misleading about the statements.”

Mr Banks told news.com.au he “frankly didn’t take too much notice” of the controversy. “Competitors will always complain about other competitors,” he said. “I’m aware of stuff. It’s like any business you invest in, there are people who like it and people who don’t.”

He said the “most important criteria for the deal” was the “confirmation that they had the competitive advantage in biodegradable capsules”. iCapsulate is slated to launch Australia’s first Australian-standard biodegradable coffee capsule in August.

“That’s what appealed to me, particularly when you read the founder of the concept of coffee capsules regretted having invented it because landfills around the world were being populated with the stuff,” Mr Banks said.

“Without making it too complicated, the patent or protection of the technology that produces truly biodegradable capsules was a combination of two different technologies, Japanese and German, they pull them together.

“There is probably a six-month process to validate and prove by Australian standards those capsules were biodegradable. I’d say it’s pretty close, the next month or so should finalise it. That’s where it’s at, it’s really on hold.”

NO MORE ‘MOUSETRAPS’

Mr Banks said the quality of the pitches was getting better with every season as more people tuned into the show. “Not necessarily bigger in size but better in quality, more original ideas and broader,” he said.

“I think in early seasons people thought they had to have an invention. Of course 90 per cent of new businesses are not an invention but a twist on an old idea. That’s coming through, it’s not necessarily people trying to invent a new mousetrap but maybe make a way to deliver them better.”

He singled out two “inventions” from previous seasons, however, as ones that got away. The Scrubba portable wash bag, which scored an investment from Boost Juice founder Janine Allis and internet pioneer Steve Baxter — who described it as “one of my best investments ever” — and the Hegs clothes pegs, scooped up by RedBalloon founder Naomi Simson.

“She’s done very well out of that,” Mr Banks said.

But while the show is about forking out cash to start-ups, he said the best investments he’d ever made were in his own companies, recruitment firm Morgan & Banks and HR provider Talent2 International.

“I’m like the people who appear on the show,” he said. “The best investments I’ve ever made are in my own businesses, with my own money. If you combine your own money with your own blood, sweat and tears, in terms of ROI you can’t compete with that.”

Outside of Shark Tank, he is an early investor in US company ABCMouse, “the largest online kindergarten in the US”, whose parent company Age of Learning recently joined the “unicorn” club of start-ups with valuations over $US1 billion.

“It’s just launched in China, we can teach two- to eight-year-olds how to read and write. I’m pretty excited about that,” he said.

FOUR QUESTIONS FOR ANDREW BANKS

• What’s your favourite life hack? Have saved thousands hours and wasted time due to the avalanche of people calling me over the years (candidates looking for jobs as an example) which is when I return a call I always leave a specific number and time when they should call me back. That way it’s on them ... and I can move on to the next thing and don’t have to remember to call them.

• Best timesaving app or gadget? My electric shaver has saved me, over 50 years at three minutes a shave (versus water and razor), 54,750 minutes, 912 hours or 38 days. That is almost two years of vacation time.

• How do you save money? That’s instinctive, as I started with a good education and no capital and so have never lost sight of the value of a dollar. So every day when I price things or buy I am conscious of not wasting money. I will Uber versus a paying for parking space in Sydney, for example, as cheaper for a day.

• What is the biggest mistake people make? They procrastinate instead of “doing it now”. I am amazed at how often people talk themselves out of immediate action on basics and then constantly play catch up with an inferior result. I think of these decisions as “cycles of completion”, be it cleaning up a mess or making a phone call, and if a person has too many incomplete cycles they will eventually drown in quagmire of inefficiency ... and if they are leading a team ... so goes productivity.

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Shark Tank returns Tuesday, August 1 at 9pm on Channel Ten