While the pitch process is intense, many entrepreneurs who have gone on ABC's "Shark Tank" have scored lucrative investments, some even climbing into the millions of dollars. But when the cameras stop rolling, there's still a lot that needs to go down to get the deals done.
"Right after I give them an offer on 'Shark Tank,' the first thing I do is call them," Lori Greiner says in "Inside the Shark Tank" magazine. "I'll call them even though we're still shooting. I just want to get to know them."
Next, she says, Greiner does her due diligence.
"It's a handshake deal, so we have to learn more," Greiner explains. "My due diligence team gives me a nice report on everything about the company, and then we all sit down and determine what would be best for everybody."
"It's not just, 'Oh, here's money and I get this percentage,'" she says "It's a very careful, thoughtful analyzation. I want everybody happy. Me, my team, the entrepreneur, their team. Because if you don't have that, it's never going to be good."
Indeed, if a company is not what the Shark thought it was, deals may change or they may not be finalized.
"Well, people are very optimistic when they're sitting there on the carpet and the lights are on them," Kevin O'Leary told The Cheat Sheet. "We go check the facts and they don't always come out the way they said, and that may be why a deal doesn't close."
In fact, on a 2014 episode, the founders of delivery service Plated made a deal with Mark Cuban, but it later fell apart. When the show re-visited the company in a follow-up segment called "Beyond the Tank," O'Leary was impressed with the start-up's development and made an investment. Plated later sold to Albertsons Cos. for $300 million, giving O'Leary a 1,346 percent return on his investment, he says.
In the decade that "Shark Tank" has been on-air, Greiner has invested in successful companies, too, including Squatty Potty and Scrub Daddy. Collectively, her "Shark Tank" investments have done over $870 million in retail sales, according to Greiner's website.
Indeed, the Sharks are very careful when it comes to their money. While pitches presented on the show are edited down to just a few minutes, in reality they can take hours. In fact, it can get so intense that there's even a psychiatrist on-set to talk with the entrepreneurs before and after they make their pitches.
"People can get very upset when the outcome is not what they anticipated," judge Kevin O'Leary previously told CNBC.
Despite the high stakes, the Sharks have their fair share of fun on set, too. Guest judge Bethenny Frankel previously told CNBC Make It that Mark Cuban and she liked to jam out to hip-hop between pitches, and Barbara Corcoran says she blasts Nicki Minaj in her trailer while getting ready.
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Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to ABC's "Shark Tank."
