I just came back from a meet up with the gals from the Bay Area Make Mine a $Million group, where 3M winner and  Shark Tank star Susan Knapp of A Perfect Pear told us about her experience on the show. Susan's story is inspiring. She's creates delicious pear-inspired jams, marinades, vinegars, olive oils, and more. I recall standing in her garage not so long ago commiserating with her about the challenges of coming up with enough cash to fund a product-based business.

Like SmartsCo, Susan bootstrapped her business, and with any product-based business, growth cost money. Last year, the economy hit her hard last year and she was strapped for cash and couldn’t afford to manufacture to meet the $125K worth of orders sitting in her in-box. But thanks to luck, timing, and innovative publicity, she was discovered by the producers at ABC who wooed her to come on the show. After some smart negotiating (apparently the contract had initially asked for her first born child), she agreed to come on the show back in December.

They taped the show in January and Susan was able to secure $500K of investment from Kevin Harrington. Some of the key lessons she shared from her experience on the show:

1) Look for open opportunities. Susan was quite surprised to find that online sales did not go through the roof after the show aired. This is not unlike our experience when SmartsCo was featured in a national TV, radio and print ad campaign for OPEN by American Express. Let’s just say the phone didn’t start ringing off the hook. But the key is to capitalize on opportunities. For us, we were able to secure an awesome distributor. For Perfect Pear, she’s finding partners for new products, new distribution partners and more. You’re not always going to see the doors that are wide open to you, but you may see that some are ajar, you just have to keep looking.

2) Know your numbers and have a strong business structure in place before you need it. Susan knew her numbers and how much she was willing to give up to get the investment. One thing that did surprise her was the amount of legal fees she'd have to pay to make the deal happen. For us, we had both outside investors and our exit strategy in mind from day one. This has helped us be nimble and to easily bring on new investors and ultimately sell the business without spending an arm and a leg on legal fees.

Best of luck to Susan and A Perfect Pear – I’m sure it’s going to be awesome.

| More...