What Shark Tank contestants still get wrong

BOOST Juice founder Janine Allis has revealed the biggest mistake Shark Tank contestants make — and what really happens after the cameras turn off.

THE numbers have been crunched, the pitches honed to perfection, but there’s still one massive stumbling block for Aussie entrepreneurs on this season of Shark Tank: trademarks.

“They’re a lot more prepared,” said Shark Tank judge and Boost Juice founder Janine Allis. “I think every single one has watched all of the other seasons — you’d be a fool not to — but every second person [this season] didn’t do any trademarks.”

Ms Allis said many hopeful entrepreneurs had little understanding of the legal intricacies of starting a business. “Some people, for example, might have a food product, or any product actually, then they get an external person to make it up for them, which might be necessary to make in bulk.

“What I found is a lot of people did that, but don’t own the recipes. Because they’ve given it to a third party, the third party owns it. I was surprised. That’s the whole thing — there is a lot of assumption that happens [in starting a business].

“The biggest rule is that if someone works for you, then everything they do you own as a company. If you employ an external party, like a contractor or an advertising agency, they own it. People don’t realise, sometimes they don’t even own their own logo, because they got an external design agency.”

Ms Allis, whose $250 million Boost Juice empire has expanded to more than 500 stores in 15 countries since 2000, says the relationship between fellow judges has grown a lot stronger over the three seasons, opening the door for bigger deals.

Also on the panel are internet pioneer Steve Baxter, millionaire entrepreneur Andrew Banks, RedBalloon founder Naomi Simson and Dr Glen Richards, founder of pet-care company Greencross.

“[The show] is a lot sharper, a lot more unpredictable than the first couple of series. Last year people went ‘Oh, I know what’s going to happen’. I think the key is we actually know each other a lot better now,” Ms Allis said.

“The relationship between the five of us is stronger, and stronger means we’re a lot happier to go harder, but also feel there’s no negativity. It’s people having a strong debate, it’s not vicious.”

She said the quality of start-ups in Australia was getting better all the time. “The bar continues to get raised. Australia is a very small country compared to a lot of other western countries. We are very competitive. You don’t need to go too far to find a good idea.”

But Ms Allis wouldn’t say how many deals done on previous episodes ultimately went through when the cameras stopped rolling.

In the first season, a $250,000 offer from Mr Baxter and real estate veteran John McGrath for a stake in tyre start-up Mobile Tyre Shop fell through after filming. Last year, Sydney-based fashion start-up Her Fashion Box scored a $200,000 investment from Ms Allis and Mr Banks for 16 per cent of the business.

Ms Allis said the deal with Her Fashion Box — which last month faced court over allegations it underpaid workers and ran an unlawful unpaid internship scheme — fell through within a few weeks.

“All sorts of things happen after the show,” Ms Allis said. “When you go into the show, you do the pitch, we hear them out for about half an hour, after the pitch we send them a due diligence form to basically confirm what they said in the pitch is what happened.

“A business is like a marriage, and you have to feel happy with them going forward. Like a marriage, if there’s any reason you think it shouldn’t go ahead, it shouldn’t go ahead. It’s too big a deal. It’s important afterwards, for us, to find out if what they said was true.”

Ms Allis said Her Fashion Box’s numbers “didn’t add up”. “As soon as the numbers didn’t add up, the deal didn’t go through. We stepped away from that within a couple of weeks. You take people at face value, and if it’s not what they say, we don’t write a cheque.”

From the world’s “first portable outdoor gym” to a device that “could save the Great Barrier Reed”, Channel Ten says the ideas on this season are the “most impressive yet”. This season will also feature a $2.5 million investment, the biggest Australian deal so far.

FOUR QUESTIONS FOR JANINE ALLIS

• What’s your favourite life hack? I get on the yoga mat every day. If I don’t do that, I go nuts. The one I do, Ashtanga, that’s my go-to, it’s one of the most traditional yogas out there, then I go to a class maybe a once or twice a week.

• Best timesaving app or gadget? I love my gadgets. On my iPad Pro I’ve got PDF Expert, so with the pen I can actually sign documents, I don’t need to get them in the mail any more. I do a lot of approval for my stores, I can scribble all over my iPad and mark documents. That saves me a lot of time because I can get back to people really quickly.

• How do you save money? I love a bargain. I shop online, as in shop online with Coles or Woolies, because what I find is if I go in for milk, I leave with a basket full of stuff and forget the milk. But if I do it online, then I get exactly what’s on my list, no more, no less, so I spend a lot less. And to be honest, time is money, so getting groceries delivered to my door, I don’t need to get in the car, look for a car park.

• What is the biggest mistake people make? I think the biggest mistake people make is complaining about what they do in life, whether it’s their boyfriend, husband, job or whatever, and not making a change — settling for mediocrity and not pushing themselves. Just settling — I think it’s that.

From a financial point of view, the biggest mistake people make is spending over their means. When you’re starting out, yes, you have to live somewhere you can afford. It’s actually not true [that our generation had it easy]. If you do the sums on what it cost, what the wages were, every generation thought ‘I’m not going to get in [to the property market]’, but you find a way. It wasn’t easy back then and it’s not easy now. But again, it’s about saying, ‘What can I do about it?’

Season three of Shark Tank premieres on Channel Ten at 8:30pm Tuesday, June 20