{"id":1914,"date":"2017-05-30T17:57:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T00:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/studio\/n-c-entrepreneur-cuts-a-deal-on-shark-tank\/"},"modified":"2017-05-30T17:57:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T00:57:00","slug":"n-c-entrepreneur-cuts-a-deal-on-shark-tank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/n-c-entrepreneur-cuts-a-deal-on-shark-tank\/","title":{"rendered":"N.C. entrepreneur cuts a deal on &#8216;Shark Tank&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>Originally featured on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/bizwomen\/news\/latest-news\/2017\/05\/n-c-entrepreneur-cuts-a-deal-on-shark-tank.html?ana=RSS%26s=article_search\">biz women<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h3>\n<h1>N.C. entrepreneur cuts a deal on &#39;Shark Tank&#39;<\/h1>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Wine &amp; Design on 'Shark Tank'\" src=\"https:\/\/media.bizj.us\/view\/img\/10457531\/1447790484-900x600-1*800xx900-506-0-47.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>ABC\/Kelsey McNeal<\/p>\n<p>A husband and wife duo from Raleigh, North Carolina, surprise the Sharks when they bring a party atmosphere and a nude male model into the Tank to show how their franchised art studios work.<\/p>\n<p>A nude model, a pair of Raleigh entrepreneurs and an equity stake: ABC&#39;s entrepreneurial pitch contest &#39;Shark Tank,&quot;&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/triad\/news\/2017\/05\/01\/raleigh-entrepreneur-to-appear-on-abcs-shark-tank.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">featuring Wine &amp; Design founders Patrick and Heather Mills<\/a>, made for a memorable Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of just pitching the numbers to ABC&rsquo;s &ldquo;shark&rdquo; investors, the pair behind the wine-and-sip franchise brought out &ldquo;Richard,&rdquo; a model who &mdash; to the surprise of the &ldquo;Sharks,&rdquo; completely disrobed. It&rsquo;s a bachelorette party, Mills explained onscreen amid shocked faces.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Does Richard come with every party?&rdquo; Shark&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/bizjournals\/search\/results?q=Lori%20Greiner\">Lori Greiner<\/a>&nbsp;asked.<\/p>\n<p>See Also<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/triad\/news\/2017\/05\/01\/raleigh-entrepreneur-to-appear-on-abcs-shark-tank.html\">Raleigh entrepreneur to appear on ABC&#39;s &#39;Shark Tank&#39; on May 12<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/triad\/news\/2016\/10\/24\/appearance-on-shark-tank-drives-company-s.html\">Appearance on &#39;Shark Tank&#39; drives company&rsquo;s expansion into N.C.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Mills&rsquo; left the stage with a new backer: &quot;Mr. Wonderful&quot; Kevin O&rsquo;Leary.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I know we made the right decision,&rdquo; Heather Mills says, minutes after the episode aired from her watch party in downtown Raleigh, N.C.<\/p>\n<p>Already, sales are up &mdash; as is franchise interest, she says. During the episode, she exchanged text messages with O&rsquo;Leary, who she says is &ldquo;all in&rdquo; when it comes to Wine &amp; Design.<\/p>\n<p>The sharks couldn&rsquo;t help but note the uniqueness of her pitch.<\/p>\n<p>The entrepreneurs got down to business, telling the sharks how Harriet Mills got the idea when attending a wine-paint party six years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Within 60 days, she had a business. And, by the time she met the sharks, it had accumulated 74 franchisees.<\/p>\n<p>In its first nine months, it had snagged $250,000 in sales, they told the sharks. The company was on track to make $10 million in annual sales, they said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve done over $24 million in gross revenue from all the stores,&rdquo; Patrick Mills said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to a $25,000 franchise fee, franchisees pay six percent in royalties, they told the sharks.<\/p>\n<p>The pair initially wanted $500,000 for a 10 percent equity stake &mdash; a valuation labeled as &ldquo;way off the charts&rdquo; by shark Barbara Corcoran. Within minutes, the only sharks remaining were O&rsquo;Leary and&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/bizjournals\/search\/results?q=Robert%20Herjavec\">Robert Herjavec<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>O&rsquo;Leary wanted to know if the Mills&rsquo; would consider selling outright.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Everything is for sale,&rdquo; Harriet Mills said onscreen, adding that she thought the company was growing &ldquo;too slow.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We do have a lot of competition,&rdquo; she told the Sharks.<\/p>\n<p>O&rsquo;Leary made the first offer: $150,000 for 10 percent equity. He added on a $350,000 loan &ldquo;as a line of credit&rdquo; at 12 percent.<\/p>\n<p>And he pledged to deploy his &ldquo;social media cannon&rdquo; in leveraging the business.<\/p>\n<p>Herjavec offered the $500,000, but for a third of the business.<\/p>\n<p>What the cameras didn&rsquo;t show, Mills says after the episode airs, was the full decision process. When Herjavec&rsquo;s competing offer came to light, &ldquo;my husband and I actually walked in the hallway and discussed it.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It was a hard call,&rdquo; she says, adding that she has &ldquo;no regrets&rdquo; and looks forward to continuing to grow the business from Raleigh with O&rsquo;Leary.<\/p>\n<p>And O&rsquo;Leary seems satisfied with the choice.<\/p>\n<p>As the show aired, he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kevinolearytv\/status\/863200930879111168\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tweeted<\/a>&nbsp;his enthusiasm: &ldquo;This one is going to be BIG! I can&rsquo;t wait to work with @WineAndDesignHQ!&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Lauren Ohnesorge covers information technology and entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wine &#038; Design featured on Biz Women<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-in-the-news"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanddesign.com\/asheville-nc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}