Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Million-dollar tips to success
‘Shark Tank’ stars teach Boca students about entrepreneurship
They don’t always get along on their TV show. But the charismatic multimillionaires who promote entrepreneurship on “Shark Tank” thrilled more than 1,500 Olympic Heights High School students on Monday with a unified message: Don’t be afraid to fail.
They encouraged the teens to take initiative, persevere and disrupt stuffy mindsets. And they shared stories about their own missteps: Fashion mogul Daymond John said he has had 12 businesses that went kaput. Tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban recalled his fruitless attempts to sell powdered milk.
“No one remembers your failures,” said Cuban, owner of AXS TV and the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. “If you’re right one time, everyone calls you a hero.”
The Sharks visited the Boca Raton high school after an Olympic Heights student, senior Madison Borman, won the Shark Tank High School Sweepstakes. After the four episodes that aired in October, high school students were
asked to tweet what they had learned from that show.
Borman’s tweet was randomly selected after she posted this response: “I learned that sometimes you have to break down the wall you put up for yourself and let your emotions break through in order for someone to see your true potential.”
On the show, now in its 10th season on ABC, entrepreneurs try to get the Sharks to invest in their products. Four Sharks visited Boca Raton on Monday. Besides Cuban and John, there were venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary and Alli Webb, who grew up in Boca Raton and attended Olympic Heights. She is the founder of Drybar, a hair salon chain that focuses on blowouts.
“Boca Raton inspired me,” Webb told the students. She has said in previous interviews that her interest in hair stemmed from the daily challenge of straightening her curly hair in South Florida’s humidity . She now has more than 120 salons in 16 states.
The Sharks took questions from students for about 50 minutes. Senior Mariana Vallejo asked about how to make her tutoring and babysitting businesses into long-term successes.
Webb encouraged her to create a unique advertising brand to promote her services.
Vallejo said later she was deeply inspired by the Sharks’ sense of humor and graciousness.
“I have a million ideas,” she said. “I’m going to try every one until I’m successful.”
After the taping, O’Leary said the Sharks had never appeared together in front of such a large, enthusiastic group of high school students. He said he was grateful that the teenagers watch the show and are interested in the business world.
“They know who we are,” he said. “They asked good questions. They were succinct. I was impressed. It’s clear their future is on their minds.”
Borman, 18, who won the contest that brought the Sharks, also won a free trip to Los Angeles with her family to see a “Shark Tank” taping. She said she had to keep the Sharks’ visit a secret for two months and felt relieved to finally be able to talk about it.
“Last night I saw them on the TV screen and now they’re here,” she said. “It’s the first contest I’ve ever won. I’m so thankful.”