ABC Shark Tank Kevin Harrington Shares His Wisdom

I spent a few days in Miami at the Pro Athletes Business Summit and I actually was voted to pitch my deal, Children's Educational Network,  to a few sharks including Kevin Harrington.  One of the Shark investors on ABC's Shark Tank TV Show and he loved my pitch and agreed to give me an interview and share some of his wisdom.

He was a very nice and I am glad I got to know him.  He has been in the infomercial business for 25 years and had had over $4 billion in revenues from his infomercial!  He is looking for more products he can bring to market, so if you think you have a product that would be worthy on mass marketing on TV check out his site at www.TVGoods.com and tell him Greg Writer sent me!

I was not aware that in 1987, Kevin and a group of young entrepreneurs including Michael Dell, of Dell Computers, and Ted Leonsis, of AOL, teamed up to create the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, or EO (formerly known as the Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization), and today it has grown to over 7,000 members worldwide, with 113 chapters in 38 countries with more than 924,000 members. The EO is recognized as a catalyst that enables entrepreneurs to learn and grow from each other, leading to greater business success and an enriched personal life.

So there's proof he has been an entrepreneur advocate for decades!  Thanks Kevin, we appreciate your efforts!

Here's his bio for your review.

Kevin Harrington, CEO of TVGoods.com, LLC, is widely acknowledged as the pioneer and principal architect of the “infomercial” industry. Since producing the industry’s first infomercial in the 1980s, Harrington has financed more than 500 product launches resulting in sales of more than $4 billion worldwide with 20 products reaching individual sales of over $100 million each, and creating dozens of millionaires.

Harrington got his start in direct TV marketing with his company Quantum International, which after merging with National Media in 1991 grew to over $500 Million in annual sales with distribution in over 100 countries in 20 languages. Harrington was the pioneer responsible for setting up international infrastructure worldwide which lays the groundwork for today’s infomercial industry. He had offices in: London, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Brazil, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

After leaving Quantum, Harrington had several other successful infomercial ventures including HSN Direct with Home Shopping Network before founding TVGoods in 2005.

He subsequently raised more than $20 million in capital from a New York hedge fund in a venture, which then acquired Tampa’s premiere film studio where TVGoods is headquartered. The studio is located in Clearwater, Florida, featuring a 33,000 square state of the art production studio on 5.4 acres.

Regarded as a tireless entrepreneur with a talent for identifying blockbuster products, Harrington’s business was a case study that was chronicled and taught for over 12 years at Harvard/MIT, called “The Rise, The Fall and The rise of Quantum International.” The case study is used as a teaching guide about what it means to be a grass-roots entrepreneur in a fiercely competitive industry.

In his latest venture, Harrington is an investor on a new ABC show called “Shark Tank”, in which budding entrepreneurs compete in pitching their potentially moneymaking ideas to business experts in hopes of securing investment financing. The show is owned by SONY Pictures and produced by Mark Burnett.

Harrington is uniquely qualified as an investor/shark because of his involvement over his career in a wide range of industries. As a young entrepreneur at the age of 19, Harrington launched and operated a successful company that reached $1 million in annual sales and employed 25 people, all while still in college. In 1979, he started Franchise America, a franchise consulting and brokerage business, through which he sold thousands of businesses, giving him insight to the inner workings of dozens of industries; from restaurants to retail to small manufacturing, etc.

Harrington’s book, ACT NOW!, explains how he innovatively turns ideas into million-dollar products. It is available through Amazon and at bookstores nationwide. Examples of popular products available through TVGoods.com currently are: Tony Little fitness, George Foreman cleaning, Jay “the Juice Daddy” Kordich Health, Flying Lure fishing, Wolfman Jack music, and the Dual Saw, marketed by the late legendary pitchman Billy Mays. One TVGoods.com product, the Air-Cutter, a precision vacuum haircutting system, will be featured in the upcoming film Father of Invention starring Kevin Spacey.

Harrington is proud to have founded two of the most important global networking associations in the marketplace, the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and the Electronic Retailing Association (ERA).

Angel Investor Interesting Facts

Angel investors are usually multimillionaires – often self-made, cashed-out entrepreneurs.  They have additional capital and business experience, and they're not ready to retire.

They want to be involved with start-ups without the sleepless nights of start-ups.

In 2005, angels invested $23.1 billion in 49,500 entrepreneurial businesses in the US.

The average angel investor is a 49-year-old male with a post-graduate degree and management experience ill an entrepreneurial venture. However, the face of angel investors is changing. Most recently, the investors are younger and more of them are females.

Angel investors prefer to invest in local ventures (no more than 150 miles away), so they can play an active role and monitor then- investments. They often finance manufacturing or product-oriented ventures, especially in high-tech fields.

Angel investment rounds usually range from $250,000 to $2 million. Individual angels typically invest approximately $40,000 to $100,000 in each deal.

Most angel investors are successful entrepreneurs, so besides financial support, many also provide business expertise and connections to the companies they fund.

Angel investors look for companies with strong growth potential, proven management teams and sufficient information about related markets so then- value call be assessed.

Angel investors expect high returns for their higher-risk investments – on average, 10 to 40 times ROI.

Angel investors are private, accredited investors. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) defines accredited investors as having S 1 million in net worth (excluding residence) or an annual income o1' more than $200,000 (or $300,000 with a spouse).

There are an estimated 20 million prospective angels nationwide, with about 227,000 angels actively investing (in 2005).   Those 227,000 angels are investing more than $23 billion per year in 50,000 small, start-up companies.

Previously, most of the national angel investment activity has been clustered on the coasts. That is changing as more and more accredited investors throughout the country get into it.  We hope Shark Tank TV Show will add more investors to the mix!

Angel investing helps fuel the economy and creates new jobs. It is the largest private source of capital for early stage entrepreneurs, and it is the most likely source of seed and early-stage capital.

Amazon.com is one of the most well-known companies to start with angel investment funding.

Two of the earliest known angel investors were Thomas Sanders and Gardiner Greene Hubbard. They provided funding for Alexander Graham Bell to complete initial experiments and development of the telephone in 1874.   They invested $40,000 to form the Bell Telephone Co. of Boston and realized all excellent return.