In the days leading up to her experience on ‘Shark Tank,’ Electra Beverages founder Fran Harris was asked which shark she wanted to land the most. And her answer was, “it doesn’t matter.” Not only because she could think of a good reason for each but also because her business plan wasn’t hinged on making a deal.
“I’m not going there for publicity… I’m going there for a strategic business partner,” Harris told NTX Inno.
But at the end of the night, she walked away with a deal with shark Barbara Corcoran, who offered $100,000 upfront, along with a $250,000 line of credit in exchange for a 30 percent stake of her sports drink and apparel startup.
“That was my approach to it the entire time: Would it be great to get a deal? Absolutely. But if you’re going in there hinging the wealth of your company on getting a deal, you’re going to be terrible,” Harris said. “You’re going to be a wreck. You’re going to be crying and all the stuff that you laugh about when you’re at home watching ‘Shark Tank.’ We don’t want to do that.”
Halfway through Harris' appearance on the show, it looked like that deal wasn’t going to happen after every shark besides Corcoran passed on the deal. While Harris has been under the spotlight before as a former WNBA player, she described the experience as an adrenaline rush, to the point where she didn’t notice it was down to one, until shark Kevin O’Leary pointed it out to her.
“I went, ‘Oh shit,’ to myself… and then I did say on the show, ‘It’s just me and you Barbara.’ Until then, I didn’t really realize it,” Harris said. “When I realized it was just her, I studied Barbara, so I knew she was going to ask for the world because that’s what she does; she knows her value. I also knew I wasn’t going to give her the world, but I was happy to be in that conversation.”
After a few back and forths with Corcoran, Harris did close the deal, contingent on bringing on at least one of the hall of fame athletes on board to promote Electra’s products. And she finished out her appearance like she started her pitch, tell the sharks and the audience, she’s “coming for that ass.”
“I did not know that people were going to latch on to any of that, nor did I go into the pitch think that was a big deal. That’s just how I talk,” Harris said.
That phrase took off on social media, with the company now selling shirts with the catchphrase, as well as another shirt with her comment on the show to Mark Cuban’s comment that she had no choices after the four other sharks dropped out: “I always have a choice.”
“You kind of know from reading online what’s happening next and what’s happening in there, but you know you’re in there trying to get the best deal you can get,” Harris said. “But at the same time, you want to have some leverage, so you want to feel like you can. I can walk away from whatever.”
In addition to social media mentions, Harris said customers began flooding almost immediately to Electra’s online store. That night, she left her Shopify notifications on, listening to Electra’s first sales come through. But despite Electra’s efforts to prepare for the buzz generated by the show, which Corcoran and the show’s producers helped prepare her for, and creating a checklist of about 200 items to prepare for, Electra’s early sales hit a few snags.
“It has been literally bananas… It was just crazy. It’s still crazy,” Harris said. “People have been ringing off the wall.”
Before the show aired, Electra had added a print-on-demand option for some of its apparel. And after a potential customer on social media, whose wife is named Electra and wanted to buy nearly one of the company’s products, posted in frustration, Harris realized the new code to hit the purchase button didn’t match the original code. That left that customer and some others clicking the button to no avail.
“They were just clicking a button that did not take them anywhere, and the only reason I knew that was because we had people monitoring all social networks,” Harris said. “You know how customers are. If they can’t do something, they’re just moving on.”
At the moment, Harris said she was a little frantic, “911 calling” her developers, who calmed her down by telling her the issue could be resolved in about 10 minutes.
In addition to some random calls to her cell phone, including one from her fourth-grade teacher, Harris said Electra was inundated with questions about when customers would be receiving their shipment. Unfortunately, that shipment has been delayed, as boxes of its sports drink were damaged in-transit from its Coppell manufacturing facility to its distribution facility in Alabama.
It also wasn’t just customers and customer calls that came flocking to Electra. In the days following the show, Harris said she got a few calls from VCs – some of which had previously told her the company was too early-stage to invest in – began reaching out with their own deals. Laughing, Harris told NTX Inno she had made a list of her former rejections, saying they would “rue the day” of that rejection.
“You’re like, ‘Oh, I was a little too early for you three months ago. Nothing has really changed in the business, but you saw me on ‘Shark Tank,’ so now you want to talk to me,’” Harris said. “It’s nice to be wanted, but I knew this was going to happen.”
Even though Harris said she was ready to launch and grow the business without ‘Shark Tank’ funding, the experience has accelerated Electra’s growth. The company is prepping to launch a powdered version of its sports drinks and adding new flavors and other forms of the product like gummies. Harris said she is also now in talks with H.E.B. for potential retail sales, something she wasn’t expecting to explore until Q3 of this year. And looking ahead, Harris said her focus is to continue building out its distribution network to reach more customers.
“Overall, it was amazing,” Harris said. “You never know after you shoot an episode.”
