Cash Must Fall into my pocket
LET’S hope that if any of the judges on Shark Tank SA have future presidential aspirations, they’re being careful what they say when their mics are on. As Donald Trump is currently learning to his peril, after years hosting The Apprentice, those recordings of your off-air comments on reality shows sometimes stick around to haunt you.
The sharks are a smooth bunch, though. I can’t see them going on a Trumpian rant. There are five of them, before whom hapless wouldbe entrepreneurs appear to pitch their business in the manner of feudal subjects petitioning a monarch. The show’s opening credits, in which the producers hammer home just how rich and successful these business people are, are basically a gilt-edged invitation to kidnappers — or at least golddiggers. Type “Gil Oved” into Google and it immediately auto-corrects to “Gil Oved married”. Advertising mogul Oved is a nice-looking man, but I suspect that the interest in his marital status might stem from the scene in the show’s opening where he appears to exit a private helicopter.
If you’re thinking that the concept of Shark Tank SA sounds like something we’ve seen before, that’s because we have. Mzansi Magic previously aired the almost identical Dragons’ Den SA, on which two of the millionaires — Oved and tech guru Vinny Lingham — also appeared as investors. The major difference seems to be that Shark Tank features footage of actual sharks, whereas Dragons’ Den was low on visuals of live dragons.
The first two episodes to flight thus far remind you what a deeply optimistic bunch South Africans are. I liked rugby coach Reinhardt, who pitched a confusing “social rugby career website” with the passion of a drunk motivational speaker. “My idea has three customer segments,” he said, brandishing two fingers. He was cash-poor but cliché-rich. Build it and they will come, he said. It’s a numbers game. The sky’s the limit. In 10 years, he saw himself as “the Marc Zuckerberg of the rugby world”. The sharks disagreed.
A man called Nelis confidently asked the sharks for an investment of R48-million. His concept? Submarines for tourists. One submarine, to be specific, built in 1997. “Do you genuinely think anyone would give you R48-million?” Oved asked. “I do think so, yes,” Nelis responded equably. The scene made me think that the leaders of the #FeesMustFall movement are really barking up the wrong tree. If a middle-aged white man has the balls to stand in front of a panel asking for 48 bar for a second-hand submersible, I see no reason why Mcebo Dlamini couldn’t appear in front of the sharks and request that they cover university fees for a generation.