The Chef In Black
The heart of Shark Tank is when someone can't find what they're looking for and then just goes out and does it for themselves. This entrepreneur couldn't find a good Chinese salad dressing, so she went out and made one for herself, selling it under the name, The Chef In Black.
The Chef In Black is sold in 1,300 stores and can be found on selfs next to dry salad dressings. It is the culmination of six months of the entrepreneur going into Asian groceries looking for the right ingredients to make up the recipe. The entrepreneur also invested $300,000 to bring her product to market.
In the first year of sales, The Chef In Black made $78,000. Unfortunately, thus far in the year in which this episode was filmed, the business has only made $41,000 because The Chef In Black was forced to pull product from the shelves and redesign the packaging when the original packaging was deemed offensive because it featured a Japanese prostitute.
Despite having a bad year, it's still enough to lure Barbara Corcoran onto the entrepreneur's side but at a cost of 25% more equity than was originally on offer and a bite of just over $350,000 from the original, reasonable, value. Additionally, Barbara's offer comes with several contingencies. Barbara wants the entrepreneur to focus on developing the brand and also to stay in dry salad dressing for a while before trying to branch out.
None of this is a deal breaker and, despite Barbara's enormous bite, the entrepreneur walks out with a deal. (See below for just how sharky Barbara's been this season...)
Season 1's Biggest Biters