At any point in time there is at least one show I watch on the go, mostly on my iPad.

When you travel as much as I do, and spend so many hours in airports, airplanes, cabs, on the way somewhere… sometimes, all you want to do is click play, and watch some good TV.

The range of things I watch is really broad, and can be from Dexter, Breaking Bad and all the way to Top Gear, or Jersey Shore.

I now watch Shark Tank.

As opposed to many reality TV shows, when a lot of it is not really real, and the emphasis is on the drama, Shark Tank is quite different. In a line – the show is about entrepreneurs pitching their ideas to raise money from investors, who need to invest their own money.

And the main difference between this show and others – is money. The investors are not investing other peoples’ money but rather their own, hence there is a tangible limit to how much producers can fake it.

Beyond that, as the investors are using their own money, when they decide not to invest – they usually say why. Nothing is more valuable than getting some feedback about your product/business, whether you ended up raising that money or not.

Naturally, many episodes include the investors asking the same questions. For the fun of it, I thought I’ll list them:

– What are your sales?
– How do you sell, direct to consumer / distributor / retailer?
– How much do you sell the product for. What’s the margin?
– How much have you invested so far?
– What’s the unique element of it?
– What do you do outside of the startup, do you have another job?
– Tell me about your competition, why you unique?
– How are you going to use the money you could get today, how can it grow the biz?
– What drives you, why are you doing this?
– What did you do before, tell me your history?
– Could I do what you do for less of the valuation you’re asking?

Here is a trailer of the 2nd season I was able find, enjoy 🙂