Shark Tank India, the country’s first business reality programme, was a smash hit in its inaugural season. The show has been a massive success, both in terms of viewership and in terms of inspiring the startup community. In the first season, which spanned 30 episodes, 67 businesses received investment totalling Rs 41.98 crore.
Ashneer Grover, MD and Co-founder, Bharat Pe, Anupam Mittal, Founder & CEO, Shaadi.com, Aman Gupta, Co-founder & CMO, boAt, Vineeta Singh, CEO & Co-founder, SUGAR Cosmetics, and Namita Thapar, Executive Director, Emcure Pharmaceuticals were among the five sharks on the judging panel.
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The Shark Tank India judges, who are all successful entrepreneurs, have now become cultural superstars in their own right. The show was about ‘sharks,’ training and mentoring young brains, rather than other successful entrepreneurs who are just providing money.
Everyone on the judging panel had one goal in mind: to motivate, correct, and provide a reality check to the fledgling and aspiring entrepreneurs. While Ashneer Grover didn’t mince words, Sharks like Namita Thapar and Aman Gupta kept things light-hearted while teaching important lessons.
Although not every pitch received funding from the Sharks, they all left with useful lessons, suggestions, and alternate company models. Furthermore, the level of exposure that each concept and business received on Shark Tank India had to have boosted sales, social media fan following, and popularity.
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After only a few weeks on the air, social media was swamped with memes, tweets, and videos proclaiming how it had captured the attention of people of all ages, genders, and professions.
Despite its enormous popularity for promoting entrepreneurs, Shark Tank India is, at its core, a reality programme
We may enjoy what we see on television because it is customized according to our interests. What occurs behind the scenes, on the other hand, may be a very different tale.
Take, for example, Akshay Shah, a businessman who appeared on the show and offered his idea to the Sharks. His experience, however, was not what you might expect. He shared his whole experience on Twitter in the Twitter thread spanning 32 tweets.
Akshay claims that despite the fact that he and his team participated in the show, his episode was not telecasted.
So we had featured in #sharktankindia too but our episode has not been telecast due to reasons best known to the Channel & Sharks however I am putting down a thread for the benefit of all my entrepreneurial brethren and the public in general on Shark Tank India.
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
He also points out that knowing Hindi might be advantageous because their pitch was created by channel creatives. As a result, non-Hindi speakers’ USPs may get weakened.
The show comprises of a 3 minute pitch followed by a Q&A with the sharks. Your pitch is designed by the Channel creatives and mostly you need to stick to it and speak Hindi, at times your USP can get diluted but that’s how the scheme of things is.
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
He also talks about how certain people get more attention than others. He also discusses how the channel selects candidates for the judges to put their money in.
The Channel will try to make your pitch as simple as possible and in chaste Hindi for the viewers to Understand. Multiple rehearsals will be done for 2 days till late nights till the Channel is sure you are good to go and some guys are given more practice and attention from the
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
the 1st day and if I can connect the dots I feel they are the channel’s so called recommendation to the Sharks to invest, with whom they spend less time are maybe the backups or wild cards who are left in the tank to test their luck, we were one of them as all our rehearsals were
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
taken up last on both the days and for not more than 10 mins with no focus given to us so we thought we are really good so the channel is not worried on us and our pitch which was totally wrong in hindsight.
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
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Shah also slams the judges for not grasping the pitch and responding with ridiculous responses. This is what Ashneer Grover allegedly stated regarding Shah’s proposal.
We Digitize Universities & Colleges on a unique FREEMIUM Model and monetize on a B2B2C SaaS Enabled Marketplace play. We have 700k students and we monetize when the Students transact / pay fees via the MDR which is directly against #ashneergrover business of Zero MDR.
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
So when we said we have 700k students with us, his exact was “Data to Kilo ke Bhaav main Chandni Chowk pe bikta hai!!” My reply to Mr Grover is, sir, this is not a name place animal thing data like you might be capturing in BharatPe to show GMV and gain valuation & funding.
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
Our data is qualified student data on which we run intelligent AI for our marketplace partners. If you applied a little bit of mind and shown a little more patience you could have got that. Anyways, his whimsical reason to pass on us was that we do not have a Mobile app,
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
when I explained him in Hindi as English was not permitted on the show that my application is responsive and a web app so I need not have individual mobile app as my primary customer is the University stakeholder
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
#namitathapar was kind to us and debated with Ashneer to respect the grit which we have put in our business through thick and think but for Ashneer a pivot means a loss making product cover up, for him to pivot is to sin.
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
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I want to point #ashneergrover financials to him at this point in time, 256 crores sunk in vs 6 crores revenue alive on investors and cashbags, Need I say more??
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
Another judge, Aman Gupta, was evidently unhappy with Shah’s firm name and logo, and he adhered to that line of logic throughout the competition.
Before Ashneer the Shark who had a problem with us was boAt promoter #amangupta . To him our company name iWeb, its logo, our brand name IUMS – Integrated University Management System
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
our Less code tech name ‘Agilewiz’ all was a big big problem. So my reply to Aman is, Sirjee! yeh koi USB headset nai, that aasani se samaj aa jayega, thoda vakt lagega this is hightech 🙂
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
Secondly, trust me, till date I have not understood why is boAt called boAt and your company called Imagine Marketing Limited, but I can’t ask, right!!!
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
If someday tables turn, I will ask him the same question in the same arrogant tone and with the same expression he did that to us. I mean, we are in SharkTank, selected from over thousands of applicants so the channel and their team would have done some due diligence, right?
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
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The judges’ lack of technical skill is further highlighted by Shah.
My only request to Namita was since she liked us but opted out from the fund raise due to her non understanding our tech business, she could have either opted out of all tech pitches totally since she said that to many other tech pitches OR she should have tried to understand our
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
space. Why do we waste one Shark’s seat due to some tech incapability, right?
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
Peyush Bansal, according to Shah, could not trust the idea could scale-out since his own student finding platform failed miserably.
Next came in was LensKart #PeeyushBansal who had startedup an Education discovery platform before he started LensKart and since he could not monetize nor run it nor earn via its marketplace his fixation was that this can’t scale up!
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
although i retorted back to him that sir, we are not a college discovery platform, we have over 250 modules and we digitize processes of a university end to end and its workflow, we are an enterprise app on a B2B2C revenue model but sir had made up his mind
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
Then there was Anupam Mittal, who wasn’t delighted with Shah’s use of Gujarati, his mother tongue.
Last came in the https://t.co/2OnTzFdzEF hero Mr #anupammittal who also had a serious problem with me pitching 1 line in gujarati which is my native language which I had done only and only at the behest of the channel to make the pitch a bit entertaining,
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
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we had rehearsed this time and again with the channel creative and they had even advised me to use a few more gujju words just to keep the pitch light but alas it seems the Sharks were not as well trained as we were and hence twice I was asked by Mr Mittal
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
why did I say 1 line in Gujarati as if that pierced him like a bullet – to which I had to retort that I am a gujju so it came naturally (although I wanted to say go and ask the channel creative sirjee if this hurts u so much as its they who told me to speak this line in Gujarati!
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
followed by which he said tech and scale is not my worry but my issue is that you doing a B2B2C which is second to none and since you are neither a B2B nor a B2C you maybe innovated this model seeing and reading a lot of newspapers but I do not find it focussed.
— Akshay Shah – Founder CEO, iWeb (@AkshayiWeb) February 5, 2022
Since then, the thread has gone viral. People are tweeting in support of Shah and accusing the show of discrimination.
Worth reading your thread. I just started watching old episode this weekend. Who the f**k are these 4-5 guys to decide your business model will perform better or not. Most of the time i felt this #SharkTankIndia is a joke like one pre-recorded film script 😂 https://t.co/d5LoZTryCr
— Usmangani Patel (@usmanganipatel) February 6, 2022
I’ve said it before. The right name for the show is Shark Tank Hindi, not Shark Tank India. @sharktankindia https://t.co/DDIriTMx1J
— Prapthi (@prapthi_m) February 6, 2022
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This Is very brave yet a humble request. After binge watching shark tank over the weekend I also feel the same. Way to go @AkshayiWeb . #SharkTankIndia https://t.co/cgzCR2bfiJ
— Yogesh (@yogik197) February 6, 2022
Please go through this thread to understand the realities of the particular show and how the supposed business minds interact with fellow entrepreneurs. An eye opener.@HeyNikhila https://t.co/gymkDb3lHJ
— Amit Kar (@AmitKar1990) February 6, 2022
Very important thread on a show that made me sick to my stomach with the amount of arrogance and attitude on display. It’s amazing how we don’t seem to demand humility and compassion from successful entrepreneurs. Culture is more important than most things in organisations https://t.co/5EyrvL61cz
— Vishwanath (@vishwanath1211) February 6, 2022
What I love about Sharktank India is the array of cool businesses that the people of our country have learnt of. But I’m actually not surprised about what happens in the backend, reading this thread. I felt some of the sharks were either way too arrogant, or lacked knowledge. https://t.co/sq0WpfrRRm
— Vid (@notsmartiyerboy) February 6, 2022
However, the makers of the show and judges haven’t responded yet to these allegations. We will have to wait to see what will happen next. Do the makers and judges take any action against these allegations or do they trying to suppress this matter by accepting their mistakes? What do you think about it?
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