‘All is well that ends well’ is a phrase we are all familiar with. Shark Tank judge, Mark Cuban might have a slight disagreement about the phrase because a promising pitch on the show which ended pretty well turned out to be Cuban’s worst investment. The billionaire recently revealed the ‘biggest beating’ he took on the business reality show Shark Tank. Apparently, the sharks can go wrong too. Read along to know more.
Best To Worst
Losses and failures are part of the game when it comes to business. An experienced entrepreneur like Mark Cuban doesn’t need special lessons about that. In the ten years that he has spent as one of the ‘sharks’ in the reality TV show, Cuban has invested about $20 million in over 85 startups. Safe to say that he has tasted profits and losses in those deals. However, there is one particular deal that Cuban finds rather bitter in comparison to the rest.
In 2013, an entrepreneur, Charles Michael Yim introduced a smartphone breathalyzer to the sharks. As per his claims, the device had the ability to provide an accurate measure of blood alcohol content. The readings could be easily sent to smartphones. In addition to this, users could also call cabs with nothing but a touch button when the device was connected to the phone. The pitch seemed promising and smart and it managed to impress all the judges who jointly invested in it. This might seem like a happy ending. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
Four years later, Yim was back in the spotlight again but for all the wrong reasons. It was alleged that Yim was misleading customers about the accuracy of the device. Following the accusations, the court ordered the company to refund everyone who bought the smartphone breathalyzer.
Mark Cuban in an interview with Full Send Podcast called the investment his ‘biggest beating.’ According to Cuban, “It was a great product. But, the guy, I would look at his Instagram and he would be in Bora Bora… Two weeks later he would be in Vegas partying, and then he’d be on Necker Island with Richard Branson.”
Looks like the success got into Yim’s head that he decided to take a pause and relax. Clearly, that didn’t turn out well. Yim’s defense was that he was out there networking for the business. Safe to say that the ‘networking’ didn’t work to his advantage either.
