ABC recently announced that it has renewed Shark Tank for a new season, along with The Good Doctor and A Million Little Things.
According to Deadline, the Emmy-winning reality show will be coming back for its 11th season.
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The Sharks crew is scheduled to remain the same: consisting of “billionaire Mark Cuban, owner and chairman of AXS TV and outspoken owner of the 2011 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks; real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran; ‘Queen of QVC’ Lori Greiner; technology innovator Robert Herjavec; fashion and branding expert Daymond John; and venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary,” per the outlet.
In a 2018 interview with CNBC, CEO and co-founder of Honeyfund Sara Margulis, opened up about what it was like to appear in the show. Margulis scored a deal with O’Leary during show’s sixth season.
“When you’re waiting to go into the Shark Tank, you’re in a trailer on a big studio lot in Los Angeles and it’s very surreal,” she recalled. “You’ve got your hair and make up done and you’re waiting for them to come and tell you that it’s time.”
She also shared that sometimes the pitches can take a really long time, but are edited down for TV.
“A lot of viewers wouldn’t know that sometimes you’re in the tank for two hours,” she shared. “What you see on television is just a few minutes.”
And those two hours aren’t easy. Margulis went on to explains that the pitch process was “really very challenging,” and added, “Not only are you pitching your business for the first time in front of real investors, you’re doing it in front of a national audience, with cameras all over you and lights.”
Interestingly, the CEO also shared that — while the show does gets thousands of applicants — they also reach out to established business, which is what happened in her case.
“I got an e-mail in my inbox from Shark Tank,” she said. “They were looking for more established companies, brands that people knew, to come on to Season 6 and look for bigger amounts of investment.”
Finally, Margulis stated that as abrasive as O’Leary comes off on TV, he is actually just like that in real life.
“He’s no BS,” she said. “Everything you see on TV about Kevin is absolutely his real personality.
“Of all the sharks, he’s someone who really has noticed that in his portfolio all of his returns are coming from women led or women owned companies,” she added. “He has a huge amount of respect for when a woman walks into Shark Tank.”
Shark Tank airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.
