Barbara Corcoran has starred on ABC’s “Shark Tank” for over 14 years and there’s one deal she made on the show in 2017 that Corcoran says has been her most valuable investment yet.
In June, Corcoran shared on “The Daniel Mac Show” podcast that in all of her time on the show, the deal that earned her the most money is The Comfy, “the world’s first ginormously awesome wearable blanket.”
“I took the deal myself. I got a third of the business for, I think, $50,000,” she said.
The founders of The Comfy, brothers Brian and Michael Speciale, first appeared in season 9 of the show in 2017. They were originally seeking $50,000 for a 20% stake in the company.
In a Season 10 update episode the brothers shared that within five weeks of being on “Shark Tank,” they hit their first $1 million in sales and in less than a year they hit $15 million in sales.
“They made me $468 million in three years,” Corcoran said. “Nobody wanted it… I never anticipated.”
When Mac remarked, in disbelief, that she bought about 30% of The Comfy’s business for just $50,000 and made millions in return, Corcoran interjected and said, “That’s a good investment.”
The “Shark Tank” judge also made it very clear that The Comfy is not to be compared to the Snuggie. “Don’t you dare say Snuggies,” Corcoran told Mac on the show. “No, it’s not. It’s The Comfy.”
Since starting as an investor as “Shark Tank” in 2009, Corcoran said she’s closed between 650-700 deals but has only made money on about a third of them.
And though so many of her “Shark Tank” investments don’t make her money, Corcoran has said in the past that she has no regrets.
In a May episode of Barstool’s “Chicks in the Office” podcast, Corcoran said she’s at the point in her tenure on the show where she isn’t impressed with products and services anymore, but will be wooed by the business owners themselves.
“The No. 1 trait I’m looking for [is] ambition,” Corcoran said. “Someone who envisions where they’re going, and I fall for it when they tell me they’re going there.”
Corcoran’s “buy the entrepreneur” strategy is all about trusting her instincts and the people running the businesses and the fact that they will eventually succeed financially.
And if that doesn’t end up being the case, she doesn’t regret that either, she said.
“I’m not the type of person that cries about that kind of stuff,” she added. “It’s such a waste of time. I’d rather look forward and find somebody else.”
Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank.”
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