The Shiver: Tonight’s group of sharks, SIX strong once again: Dallas Mavericks owner and tech-sector maverick Mark Cuban in his usual stage-right chair, haberdashery emperor Daymond John, real-estate impresariess Barbara Corcoran, venture capital mogul Kevin “Mister Wonderful” O’Leary, QVC Queen Lori Greiner and at the end of the line, infosec entrepreneur Robert Herjavec.

The Bait: Recycled flowers, flashy fashion, safe seafood, and Inspirational Groupon.

Company: Meagan Bowman, “EcoFlower”

Seeking: $400,000 for a 10 percent stake

“Being on welfare was humiliating,” Bowman tells us in a taped intro. This entrepreneur went through really tough times while trying to make ends meet for her and her family. But she’s been watching Shark Tank since Season 2 — and not only did it inspire her to start a business, but her brains and bootstraps have carried her all the way here to the Tank.

Her business? EcoFlower: homemade bouquets built from reclaimed materials that are themselves recyclable:

The Sharks start to protest that women receiving gifts want the real thing — but Bowman says that among non-billionaire ladies, flower-gifters spending more than $50 on a frippery that’s going in the garbage in a few days feels more wasteful than anything else.

$2.8 million in sales in just a year and a half tell the Sharks she’s right. The price to consumers is reasonable, at $59 for a bridal bouquet sold direct through their websites. Mister Wonderful protests that his wedding Just $4,000 in marketing boosted her daily wedding take by almost a factor of ten, to $100,000, just before coming on the Tank.

Now the bad news: She took on a lot of investment to get off the ground. One angel put in $3,000, plus paying her rent for a year, in return for 25 percent of the company. She sold two more 25-percent chunks for another $30,000. These Sharks are bidding to pay far, far, more for whatever tiny slice of stock Bowman can afford to spare.

“My secretary’s going to own more stock than you do!” says Mister Wonderful, and dang. Time for a DRAMATIC COMMERCIAL BREAK.

“My investors are tech guys,” she says, “I want to get them out.” Mister Wonderful starts to protest that she’d be using his money to buy those guys back out — but Cuban interjects to say that’s smart.

Robert doesn’t think Bowman has enough equity left to deal. He’s out. Barbara has plenty of money and loves real flowers. She’s out. Cuban applauds Bowman’s moxie and hustle, but he’s the last guy on Earth who should be selling arts-and-crafts bouquets. Mister Wonderful is out on principle, and Bowman just can’t believe she’s striking out when she’s been crushing the business stuff.

She’s down to one Shark.

“C’mon, Daymond,” she says. I’m gonna do $4 million this year.” He’s got the same concerns as everyone else, but she says the other investors are willing to cash out some stock to take a Shark on, he’s willing to table an offer: $400,000 for 25 percent.

Everything she’s ever worked for comes down to this moment of negotiation. She counters. She waits. She flop-sweats. She physically buckles under the weight of the moment. And then:

Swim or chum? “You got a deal.” SWIM. Huzzah! What an amazing story: A relentless mother using the safety net as a trampoline, and now she’s a job-creating entrepreneur.

THAT’s the American Dream.

Should you buy? If you’re going to spend at least $60 on flowers, SHOULD BUY. Stuffing dead flowers into a trash can is obnoxious.

Company: Hillary Novelle Hahn, “The Style Club”

Seeking: $500,000 for a 20 percent stake

The Babe Collection: we see all these models standing still, pretending to be Barbies. It’s kind of weird and off-putting. Then Hahn bursts through the Tank doors to explain her fashion line isn’t just fashion, but music videos designed to appeal to trendy Millenial preference influencers, or something:

WOMENZ. WATCH. SHOP. …IDGI.

The Style Club is already sold in Urban Outfitters, which is awesome. Hahn’s line has done $400,000 in sales through Urban Outfitters. But the numbers don’t quite hold up: Urban Outfitters has exclusivity, so there are no other sales — and $300,000 of that $400,000 is just one very popular hat.

“I thought ‘babe’ was insulting to young women,” Barbara says, echoing my immediate reaction.

“No, it’s empowering!” Hahn says, which, oh, okay I guess? Lori seems to agree, which reminds me I’m absolutely not the target market here and maybe my thoughts don’t count. But while Hahn wants to use Shark money to prepare for direct sales and broader retail distribution, Lori thinks she should go in the opposite direction: Double down on the great opportunity she’s got.

“I don’t see this as an investment for me right now,” Lori says, “because I have a completely different thought on the way you should go. I’m out, but I’d be a customer.”

“I just wish there were more data,” Robert says. “To me, you’re a pure start-up looking for a half a million dollars.”

Daymond, the only Shark who built his fortune through fashion, is in: He offers her the full $500,000, but for a full third of the company. In a twist, Cuban wants in, too — and he doesn’t want to team with Daymond.

He thinks she needs tech to scale up, but even more she just needs cash for inventory. He offers her a $500,000 loan at eight percent interest — discounted from the standard 10 or 12 percent for this kind of capital — for a 25 percent stake.

Swim or chum? “Daymond,” Hahn says after about seven milliseconds, “I appreciate your offer, but…” Cuban has a deal. SWIM.

Should you buy? Again, the clothes aren’t for me and the branding—the real difference-maker here—really really isn’t for me. If you’re a digital urban lifestyle tastemaker, or whatever, and you dig these threads, sure. SHOULD BUY.

Company: Sean Wittenberg and Brian Moches, “SafeCatch”

Seeking: $600,000 for a 3 percent stake

“SafeCatch is going to make tuna great again!”

Guys: No.

No.

Do better.

The idea, unlike the opening line, is brilliant: A rapid-testing mercury machine that can test individual fish in seconds. It’s a big leap forward in controlling the levels of mercury in fish, by screening every single animal. Even better, the pair have built out a supply chain of tested tuna with mercury levels less than a tenth of the current FDA limit:

“It’s the healthiest tuna on the planet,” Wittenberg says. They cost $1.10 to make the can, wholesale it for $2.00, and it retails for $3.00-4.00. He says it’s competitive with other premium tunas, but definitely not as cheap as the budget brands.

So right now, the business model looks great—but here’s the problem: It took ten years to bring the product to market, raising and burning through $14 million along the way. Moches came in as an investor after that and bought the whole thing for $900,000; the company also has $900,000 in debt.

In their first 12 months of sales they did $1.2 million, but they’re burning over $70,000 a month. They remind the Sharks it’s really more of a tech company, but and Cuban immediately smells blood. He starts asking the hard questions and they try to sell him on the potential size of the market instead of being honest. CHOMP:

Every Shark has a different reason for getting out of the pool: The 10 years these guys spent wasting $14 million, the debt hanging over the company’s head, the long hard road lobbying the FDA to mandate using their test machine…every single aspect of this business is a headache in a can.

Swim or chum? They may well succeed, but they’ll have to do it without the help of a Shark. CHUM.

Should you buy? From all the looks of it, SafeCatch tuna is high-quality and much safer than any competitor. Definitely SHOULD BUY.

Company: Kash Shaikh, “#BeSomebody”

Seeking: $1,000,000 for a 10 percent stake

It is time for A Very Important Rap Song, a la Homestar Runner:

“We’re all talk,” Shaikh raps, sort of, “and I’ve had enough.” Given that at the end of his performance we still have zero idea who or what he or his company are, he’ll probably have to do a little more talking.

#BeSomebody — the hashtag is actually part of the brand name — is a search term, an aspiration, a lifestyle, an app, a mantra, and about 72 other things that don’t make sense or money. But hey, look: SPORTS!

Kristine Lilly vouching for him is cool and everything, and he’s got the inspirational hashtag, but what really is this business? He’s selling it as experiences — Kick it around with Kristine Lilly! Train with a Ninja Warrior! Dance with Bollywood dancers! — but this inspirational hashtag app is effectively Groupon.

“Happiness can’t buy money,” Mister Wonderful says, as he always says. But he brings up the crucial point: how is #BeSomebody going to scale? After a 12-month beta test in Austin — where cool experiences and people with money to pay for them are easily paired — they’re trying to secure partnerships across the nation.

It’s the same problem Groupon had: Every “experience” is going to be an individual deal they have to negotiate with every “passionary” and sell to every customer. If Shaikh’s staff doesn’t do a good job of negotiating and/or selling every single one, they’re not going to make a dime.

The proof is in the sales numbers: #BeSomebody’s only done $12,000 in the last month. Daymond asks a great question: How will the company protect itself from a lawsuit if Joe Sixpack breaks his neck trying to Ninja Warrior?

Shaikh answers that this is why he’s raising money.

“So you can lose it all in a lawsuit?” asks Barbara. That zinger triggers the second DRAMATIC COMMERCIAL BREAK.

Swim or chum? “Let’s leave all the passion and kumbaya aside,” Mister Wonderful says. “In the end, Shark Tank is about money.” CHUM.

Should you buy? All six Sharks don’t smell blood in the water; they smell B.S. They can’t even stand to be in the same room with Shaikh by the end. The experiences could be fun, but SHOULD NOT BUY.

About Ty Schalter

Ty Schalter is thrilled to be part of The Comeback. A member of the Pro Football Writers of America, Ty also works as an NFL columnist for Bleacher Report and VICE Sports, and regular host for Sirius XM’s Bleacher Report Radio. In another life, he was an IT cubicle drone with a pretentious Detroit Lions blog.