Alex Rodriguez: From Baseball to the Shark Tank

Season 9 of Shark Tank features some new guest Sharks, one of which is none other than former baseball player Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod). It is becoming more and more common to see major league athletes build companies around their name, and A-Rod is one of these athletes. 

Check out this Forbes article by Ky Trang Ho which gives great insight into A-Rod's company and his winning mentality: 

This fall baseball icon Alex Rodriguez is diving into the Shark Tank -- ABC’s hit business reality show.

“I’m very proud that I’m the first Hispanic shark,” said the former Yankees slugger, known as A-Rod. “I’m the first athlete shark, which is kind of cool.” What’s really cool? You should know: A-Rod is about as big a power hitter in business as he was America’s pastime.

His A-Rod Corp holding company has a hand in auto dealerships, gyms and real estate with a payroll of about 500 employees. It’s a rare diamond in the business world considering only 0.3% of the 5.9 million U.S. companies employ more than 500 people.

A Shark Tank entrepreneur would commit a major foul in declining an offer from the three-time MVP.

His 953,000 followers on Twitter, 1 million on Instagram and 1.5 million on Facebook will score eyeballs galore for any product. He could go to bat for companies seeking deals with professional sports teams or leagues.

“The potential of one plus one equals three is always in play if you partner with me,” Rodriguez said in a recent phone interview. “I can pretty much get you wherever you need to be to either show your pitch or show your product. If you are someone who needs to get into Walmart, we’ll go out and get you a meeting with their top executives.”

Champion of the Fastest-Growing Market

No other shark could wield as much influence over the fastest growing U.S. demographic like this bilingual Dominican American. At nearly 57 million, Hispanics account for 18% of the U.S. population and are expected to more than double over the next four decades, according to Nielsen. Their buying power of $1.3 trillion eclipses the gross domestic product of Russia -- the world’s 12th largest economy. If they were a state, it would be the fourth largest behind California, Texas and New York. Hispanic buying power is projected to hit $1.7 trillion in three years.

Should Rodriguez’s girlfriend join the game, the marketing potential multiplies exponentially. Actress and pop star Jennifer Lopez sports 42.9 million Twitter followers, 68.8 million on Instagram and 42.2 million on Facebook.

In the Shark Tank, the World Series champion considers himself a rookie. He’s more focused on finding good entrepreneurs with a strong management team than striking a home run with the next fidget spinner.

“It's always been my philosophy that I invest in jockeys and not horses,” said the 14-time All-Star. “Even if that business doesn't work, this is somebody I want to be in business with and perhaps I can bring them into one of my other projects. And we can build something because I believe in people. People actually run the business. People and players actually win championships.”

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Kevin O'Leary - Shark Tank Secrets

What better way is there to kick off Season 7 of Shark Tank than with this Forbes interview with Kevin O'Leary. In the interview, Kevin shares some of his Shark Tank secrets - specifically, what type of entrepreneur makes him interested in investing his hard-earned money.

You can watch the interview and read the original article written by Steve Schaefer of Forbes here.

They may call him Mr. Wonderful, but in the Shark Tank boardroom Kevin O’Leary is often anything but friendly to the entrepreneurs pitching their ideas for hot-selling consumer products. O’Leary’s barbs, zingers and critiques have made him a reality TV star alongside colleagues Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec and Daymond John.

It takes a lot to cut a deal with O’Leary, a tenacious negotiator and harsh critic of gimmicky contraptions, but in a recent interview with Forbes he shared the secrets to success and why viewers can expect him to bet on a lot of women founders in the news season premiering Friday night.

There are three keys to getting one of the sharks to buy in, O’Leary says, evident in virtually every case where a deal is reached with the inventors and entrepreneurs pitching their idea.

First, the basic elevator pitch. “In 100% of cases an entrepreneur can articulate their idea in 90 seconds or less,” he says.

Second, the team “can articulate why they’re the right people to execute the business plan.” Plenty of inventors might be able to come up with a great idea; far fewer have the wherewithal to see it through production, distribution and profitability.

Above all though, O’Leary says there’s a single most important trait Shark Tank success stories have in common.

“The one that really matters is the entrepreneurs know their numbers inside out,” he says, rattling off examples like break-even points, market share statistics and margin analysis. “In Corporate America, when you want to be a leader…above all, you need to know your numbers.”

That doesn’t mean O’Leary is infallible. While he holds the crown for the largest exit in Shark Tank’s history — the $14.5 million sale of smartphone photo collection app Groovebook to Shutterfly SFLY -5.71% last year — the product that has proven to be the best revenue generator completely stunned him.

Scrub Daddy is a sponge product funded by fellow shark Greiner. The selling point is that under cold water the sponge is hard and can be used to scrape food residue off a plate; under warm water it’s softer and can be used in more delicate applications.

“I thought it was a piece of crap,” says O’Leary. But after landing a deal to hit the shelves in Wal-Mart, Scrub Daddy is up to $50 million in revenue.

While he missed out on Scrub Daddy, O’Leary has more hits than misses with his Shark Tank investments, and after studying all of them through 2014 he found a surprising statistic.

“One hundred percent of my returns the last six years have come from companies run by women,” O’Leary says, across different sectors and geographies. “There’s an old adage that says ‘if you want to get something done give it to a busy mother,’” he adds, but he’s less interested in how it’s happening – he speculates speculating that women are more mindful of risk and better at time management, both crucial for the small companies in the Shark Tank pool — than about the outcome.

“I don’t care why. I care about the actual financial results. So this year on Shark Tank, I’m investing in a lot of women.”