How a failed shark tank pitch of flatheads company owner became successful after it was aired?

Why my throat feels dry and tight?

I was feeling emotional. And I can sense it from my throat. I was watching shark tanks episode of flatheads Owner Bala krishnan. It started well, but it didn’t end the same. Though the episode didn’t end well for him, but it changed his life after it was aired.

He started his pitch, as a cool guy. With a positive note. Pitching the sharks for investment. The sharks asked couple of questions initially about the shoes, his background and the company’s background.

They then tried the shoes. And they loved wearing it. They appreciated the quality of the shoes. But it didn’t matter.

Among several questions, there was one big question that was raised to him? If he had investors why aren’t they investing? What made him to come to shark tank?

He gave an honest answer to them. His investors backed out as they saw flatheads as a failing start-up.

The business wasn’t making money, investors weren’t making money, as a founder he wasn’t making. What’s more painful was he even put his personal money on this start-up so it doesn’t die. Now he was running out of money.

And shark tank was his last hope.

All his hope was shattered when the sharks criticized his product as unfit for the market’s needs.

The sharks gave their honest feedback. The flathead shoes didn’t fit the market’s need. And his ambition to make the product an international brand was making the product more unacceptable for the market.

The sharks saw this as a dying business. Among five of them, three of the sharks didn’t want to invest. They then discussed about his personal life.

And realised his family’s economic situation was not in a good state. His wife was the sole bread winner of his family and he was using that money to fund his start-up too.

He frankly said that if he didn’t get any investment, he has to look for a job to support his wife.

Anupam Mittal offered him a vice president job to stabilise himself.

The rest two of the sharks, Peyush Bansal and Vineeta singh, came forward to offer him an investment of 75 lakhs for 33% equity with certain conditions like not to sell the shoes in UAE or USA.

He rejected both the investment and job offer by the sharks.

He realised he was making mistakes, getting more fund won’t help him anymore as he believed he had to learn more.

He realised, what was his priority. It was his family. He decided to take a job in a D2C company, learn more and then he will restart his business again in future. He was in his lowest state, and he broke down in front of the camera.

He knew the whole nation will be watching it. But he couldn’t control.

That’s the most dangerous thing about hope. It builds you or it destroys you. He tried 10 long years with the hope to be a successful entrepreneur and he was seeing all his hope getting shattered into pieces before his eyes.

The sharks stood up from their seats went to the stage and consoled him. Because every one of them were in a similar position before.

One thing Balakrishnan worried was what will happen if this gets aired to billions of people in television. It would be embarrassing.

But guess what the people reacted in an opposite way.

The clip became viral. Everyone shared the story and clips in social media. That’s how I came to know about it.

People began talking about it. Not just talking but they were buying his shoes too. His entire stock was sold out. There were no more shoes left to order.

Inspired by Aman’s quote, he launched a “down but not out” slogan t-shirt. That was sold out too.

Balakrishna then came with another idea of getting a pre-order of 900 shoes. Nearly 450 shoes were prebooked within 48 hours. Within 60 hours, 837 shoes were pre-booked.

One of his friend who runs a company ordered nearly 300 shoes for his company’s employees.

Each and everyone did something to help him remove his burden and become a successful entrepreneur.

But I just had one single question in mind.

Why did they do it?

I mean why did people choose to share this clip making it viral? There are lot of other good episodes but why do people wanted to share this? Was it because of the masala and emotion in the clip?

Why did Aman one of the shark, who didn’t want to invest in flatheads gave an open job offer for him? He could have hired anyone from the market.

Why did Peyush Bansal and Vineeta singh were willing to invest in his business even though it was a clear failure business?

Why would people choose to buy flathead shoes even though they didn’t want it?

Why did one of his friend decided to buy 300 of shoes all at one?

I raised all this questions in my mind, and I got one common answer for every single question.

Because none of them wanted him to fail. None of them wanted him to lose.

No it wasn’t just about empathy.

They saw their own self in him.

None of them wanted to fail again. None of them wanted to lose again.

Everyone were trying to help him. But unconsciously they were trying to help themselves who were once getting beaten up by failures.