The CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics, Vineeta Singh and one of the ‘sharks’ on Shark Tank India, revealed that they were auditioned for the show.
“There was one round of, as they call it, an audition. The good thing about Shark Tank is, unlike any other thing that comes on television, we have to be ourselves. The only guidance we got from the showrunners was, ‘You just have to be there, be yourself and evaluate these businesses genuinely as investors.’ That was a very big motivation for me to want to do this as well. When the show team reached out, they got us a mock pitch where they said, ‘Here are the cameras and this is the pitch. Let us do a personal audition, where you just be yourself and react how you would to any other pitch’,” she said.
Vineeta said. “They were very clear that they wanted to see founders because a lot of the companies that came in were brands. They also wanted representation from women because the number of female entrepreneurs pitching at Shark Tank was almost 50 per cent and they wanted similar representation in the panel. For various reasons, it just clicked,” she said, talking about how she came on board.
“In the first couple of weeks itself, what I realised was that there was a massive interest in the show in the demographic which is 50+ and under 20. The 20-50 demographic probably got interested when the memes and all started. But for the younger kids and older people, it was such an eye-opener, learning about businesses. These were the two categories where there was a need for maximum awareness about entrepreneurship and the fact that it is a respectable career,” she said.
Talking about what gets edited out, Vineeta said, “Instead of the 10-15 minutes that gets aired, it is typically a 30-45 minute discussion. Some of the questions are very detailed, number-related stuff, which would be boring to the audience or repetitive things where you need to dig deeper, those are the parts that get edited out. The production team has done a fabulous job of keeping the most entertaining and easiest to understand bits and they have built the entire show around the most gripping 10-15 minutes of the pitch. That’s about it. Even if you say something embarrassing, I don’t think you can tell the team to edit it out. All of it goes on air, so the team has complete control on whatever will be useful for the audience and they air it as it is.”
