Mark Cuban Regrets Not Investing In This Shrimp Burger On ‘Shark Tank’
Photo: TechCrunch (Wikimedia Commons)
On the hit TV show Shark Tank, hundreds of potential ideas have come through and been critiqued by some of the top investors in the country, so it’s easy to miss on a potential million-dollar opportunity.
For “Shark” Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, the biggest miss that he’s admitted on live television is a frozen shrimp burger from Chef Big Shake, aka Shawn Davis. The burger was pitched back in 2011, and while Big Shake’s Shrimp Burgers may have flopped and walked away with no investors on the show, it has taken off since then, jumping from $30,000 in sales to $5 million in just a year.
While the Sharks loved the shrimp burgers and thought they tasted delicious, all of them were initially wary of investing in the company and felt the valuation of it was incorrect. While this led to Davis leaving the show with no deal, he impressed viewers enough that angel investors stepped forward afterward to bring in $500,000 of investment to the company, allowing the shrimp burgers to spread to more than 22,000 grocery stores nationwide and causing sales to jump into the millions.
Today, Chef Big Shake has stopped selling his shrimp burgers in grocery stores due to fees, however, many restaurants around the country continue to sell them, as does his restaurant chain, which Davis now has plans to begin franchising.
Cuban and fellow Shark Daymond John have also both remained close with Davis after his pitch, with Cuban telling Davis that he’d remain a customer for life. Daymond John also gave Davis his private cell number so that he could call for advice, something that Big Shake still thanks him for to this day.
Daymond John never verbally expressed regret for missing out on Big Shake’s Shrimp Burgers, but Cuban’s remarks make it clear that Big Shake is probably one of the biggest – and most delicious – success stories of a Shark Tank flop in history.
