Lessons - The Shark Tank Experience | Aaron Marino - Alpha M & Serial Entrepreneur

Okay, what's the what's the Shark Tank play? What's the Shark Tank experience? If you were two acts on Shark Tank, right? You were there twice. I was once. So what happened there? Try to get on a third time. They wouldn't take me back. They're like Aaron. What's the story now? Like shit. Um, yeah. So, so Shark Tank is like my favorite show. And for any entrepreneur, if you're thinking about, you know, or interested in business, watch Shark Tank. You know, the cool thing is that you can go, you know, they're syndicated now on, on, you know, television. So every night of the week, you can go and watch like episode after episode after episode. And so I came up with this e-product. It was my first stab at like an info product. I should say not an e-product because it was actually physically DVDs that I was trying to sell. It was an info product. I thought that, you know, a lot of the people that I am, I'm friends with in the space of internet, you know, business and sales. A lot of guys are like, oh, the e-product, the e-product. And so I came up with this style system. So my dad was like, well, how are we going to try and sell it? I'm like, I don't know. He goes, you should try and go on Shark Tank. I'm like, yeah, sure. And so literally, I remembered, it was a Friday night. I went home. I went to ABC's website and I applied. And on Monday, I got a call and, and they're asked for information. And it was three months later. I was pitching in front of the sharks in terms of, the Alpha M style system. They hated the idea. And, and I was like, oh, no big deal. You know, that's okay. I'm on TV. So it's going to be great. I'm going to sell, you know, thousands of these things. I'm going to be rich. Well, the night shark tank aired. I had like this big party. Everybody was around. And I was sitting there with like my, my computer. And I was like, ready for the sales to come rolling in. I literally, right? Nine million people watching the show. I sold one style system. Get out. Yeah, you sold one. I know people that are on Shark Tank. And they, they get like thousands of sales. It depends on what it is. Apparently, apparently, that was a real wake up call. Like, hey, stupid. This is not, this is not right. And, and so, yeah, it was, it was a bomber. So I was bummed out for a little bit. But then, you know, kind of got over it. And, and I am, I just realized that I'm not really an e-product kind of guy. And at least not, like physical DVDs. Like I said, I'm a dinosaur. Like, you can't even play a DVD on your computer anymore. Like, it doesn't even have that ability. And so if it was an app, or if it was like a web based like program that was less expensive, I think it would have been successful. And I still think it's a good idea. It's just, it wasn't the right application. And I wasn't the right guy to do it. And then I started a hair product company, Pete and Pedro back in 2012, 13, somewhere, 2013, I believe. I started Pete and Pedro, which was a hair product company. And I went to my stylist that I was friends with Steven. I said, Hey, do you have any connections at any of these like labs that make hair product? I think I want to come out with a hair product line. And he's like, yeah. And so he gave me a number. I called him up. They sent me samples. I called a few other labs. I got samples. I, I chose my products. I, I started Pete and Pedro white labeling products. And my opening order, I believe it was, I started Pete and Pedro for $3,000. And so no, well, that includes everything. That includes my website. That includes my, my little stamps.com, like printing station boxes, inventory. I had five products, private hair products that I was selling. And I got 96 units of each. And, and it took me like five months to sell through that inventory. And yeah, that was, that was an amazing business. My first kind of business selling physical products. Other than I, I played around, I had a website also that I tried doing for a while, a membership website where I was selling like hand strung, like beaded bracelets. The problem was that I was sitting there at night and stringing these bracelets. And so not, not a scale. It's not fun. No. And so I've tried a ton of shit, man. I have tried a lot of things and, you know, a lot of things, some things have worked. Most things haven't, you know, and, and you just keep, you know, trying and throwing stuff against the wall and just scratching the, the curious itch. And that's kind of the takeaway. You know, I'm not scared to fail. Once you fail as big as I failed in terms of the fitness center and bankruptcy and all that, you know, failure, it's not as scary. And once you kind of get it out of the way and you realize that, okay, well, that sucks. It's things. And, and, and a lot of it, not only one of the worst parts about when you, when you, when you fail in business, it's not necessarily the burden that it places on you. It's the embarrassment of having to acknowledge that something that you tried didn't work to other people. And so when you get over, at least it was for me, you know, I can only speak for myself. But once you kind of get over that the ego of, yep, you know what, I tried it at least. And you realize that most people aren't even willing to do that, you know, and, and it's funny because the most people that are the most critical or the naysayers or the people that'll, you know, say, oh, you shouldn't do that or you're wrong. They've never done shit and they never will. They're just going to basically, they're more comfortable staying comfortable and would rather, you know, sit on the sidelines and point figures and, and say how you, you didn't do something right or you should have done this way. It's like, you know what, you know, F you, you know, I'm, I'm out here trying. I'm going to, I'm going to try. I may not, I may not be successful, but at least I, I don't have regret and I'm not doing something I don't want to do.