Lori Cheek has faced the sharks on Shark Tank and tells Jason about her experience. She shares her story from the beginning of the application process to the end when the show was aired. She talks about what her business is about and where it is today after she survived the sharks.
Key Takeaways:
[2:30] What is the Shark Tank application process?
[5:30] Shark Tank requires you to produce a five minute video of yourself during the application process.
[11:25] She couldn't talk about Shark Tank to her friends, family, and even the other contestants on the show.
[13:55] Lori talks about what it was like facing the sharks.
[18:00] What's Lori's business about?
[19:40] Once the sharks heard Lori's numbers, they didn't want to go further.
[23:00] Shark Tank doesn't take equity from your business anymore.
[24:20] The day after the show aired, Lori received so many visitors on her website.
[26:05] Where is Lori's business today?

Tweetables:
“It was really intense getting all the stuff submitted. (http://ctt.ec/S9569)”
“You gotta keep the Shark Tank filming on the down low and it was hard to keep it a secret. (http://ctt.ec/8jw6M)”
“They told you don't talk about the Shark Tank 400 times and they let us know that weren't going to take any equity. (http://ctt.ec/cXCJ3)”

Transcript
Jason Hartman:
Hey, it's my pleasure to welcome Lori Cheek to the show and she has developed a really innovative idea for a dating application for smartphones, a dating app. She got on Shark Tank and I know a lot of us watch Shark Tank, it's a great show. I thought you wanted to hear some of the insider information as to how you can get on Shark Tank and whether you even want to or not. So, Lori is here to share that with us and we talk about some entrepreneurship techie stuff too in the world of app development, I'm sure, but Lori, welcome, how are you?
Lori Cheek:
I'm great. Thank you for having me.
Jason:
Good have you, you're coming to us from the big apple, New York City, right?
Lori:
Yes.
Jason:
Okay, great. Well, so, how long ago were you on Shark Tank?
Lori:
I aired on February 28 of 2014, which I realize is last year now, but I had filmed it in September of 2013, so the time between when you actually film it and air it, yeah, a lot can happen.
Jason:
Right, so between five months between filming and airing and now we're going in reverse chronological order, when did you first learn about or decide that you wanted to be on Shark Tank? When did you apply? How did you learn how to apply? You know, the best way and share some of those best practices with us, so maybe our listeners can be on Shark Tank too.
Lori:
You know, I had never watched the show and for months and months, I mean, I guess, I probably years actually, people kept saying this is such a product for a show like the Shark Tank, you should apply and I was like, yeah, yeah, I guess so, and finally one of my girlfriends that lives in Dallas, Texas sent me a link and said they are opening applications, you should just do this.
So, I took a look at it online and it didn't look like that lengthy of an application, so I just submitted my business and it seems like a couple of months later I got an email from them saying they were interested in scheduling a phone call and they ended up calling and we had our first kick off conversation and that was from the producers of the show.
So, we ended up having about, I'd say, ten more of those calls and each time you would have one of those calls, it was a pretty lengthy interview and in between those interviews, you had to keep submitting all these paper. I felt like I could have written a book by the end of submitting all this paper work and questions just about your business and the patent and trademarks and partner ownership and the money you've invested, the money you made. It was very intense and some of the questions I didn't even understand what they were asking. I had to get lawyers involved. I mean,