Do you watch Shark Tank, the American equivalent of Dragons’ Den in the UK?

For those who don’t, it’s a reality show with entrepreneurs pitching investors on their companies.

Last Friday James Michell, founder of Pure Ayre, was one of the entrepreneurs.

If I had been shown just a clip of him I would have thought it was a put on.

Michell bumbled every question, giving minimum information and forcing the sharks to drag it out of him. He had burned through his seed money, but was responsible for nothing.

Several of the sharks were interested—in the product, not in Michell.

Each offered to buy the entire company as well as pay royalties, but only if he relinquished all involvement with the company.

Michell is a caricature of the entrepreneur who knows it all and can do no wrong—just ask him.

“I was incredibly insulted. They thought the only problem was me. They were making all these assumptions and they weren’t there. It was awful.”

Michell has a severe case of founder ego and it bodes ill for the friends and family that invested in the company.

The video is no longer available (at least 20 min of searching can’t find it), but see a critique here.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/75001512@N00/3369027984/

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 7th, 2011 at 1:15 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: ego, egoship, founders
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