“The only deal I’m going to do:” When Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary refused to change his offer for Woosh founder

On Shark Tank season 14 episode 4, Woosh founder Winston Mok sought $500k for 10% of his business, Woosh. The founder, Winston, explained that his product was to eliminate the problem of poor air quality through smart air filters. He shared that the company was pre-revenue and had raised $62,817 through a Kickstarter campaign.

Mr. Wonderful saw the potential in the business and decided to make an offer. However, when Winston tried to counter, O'Leary stated that he had no room to reduce the equity as Woosh didn't have any sales yet. He said:

"It's a big risk, either I'm going to make a lot of money or I'm going to lose $500,000. This is your moment, I made you an offer what do you want? I swear to you if you don't take this deal I won't even remember what woosh is. It's the only deal I'm going to do it's time for you to make a decision."

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Woosh founder secured a deal with Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary

Shark Tank investor Mr. Wonderful decided to place an offer of $500,000 for 12 and a half percent equity and $0.50 cent royalty per unit in perpetuity. The Woosh founder decided to place a counteroffer, but Kevin emphasized that he was not ready to change the offer by reducing the equity or eliminating a royalty. Then, Kevin increased the equity to 15%.

By that time, other sharks had already backed out from placing an offer. Kevin said:

"I've heard enough you're my favorite filter roach there's no question about it. I'll give you the $500,000, I want twelve and a half percent but wait there's more. I want 50 cents royalty on every filter."

The Shark Tank investor Daymond John mentioned that investing in a business like this wasn't something he was an expert in. He questioned O'Leary why he saw value for money in the business, to which Mr. Wonderful responded with:

"Winston is a dual patent guy with sneakers on that's basically it. You have a really tough negotiation ahead with those behemoths you remind me of Benji Lock. We had to get two lock companies competing with each other my team worked on it for over a year it was a tremendous amount of work."

Later in the episode, Cuban expressed concerns regarding the marketing strategy, mentioning that the business idea was good, but the product itself was hard to sell; hence, he decided to back out.

Lori, on the other hand, felt there was a lack of clarity during the pitch and implied she didn't feel satisfied with the product despite knowing about the patents.

Shark Tank investor Robert Herjavec stated that the majority of the consumers would not be convinced enough to use the product. He continued:

"There isn't enough in the value proposition for me and ill tell you why it's really easy to change a filter people are doing it I'm not sure this is going to compel them to do it."

Then, Woosh's founder decided to agree to Kevin's initial deal and secured an offer. As of December 2024, the business has a net worth of $6 million. New episodes of Shark Tank are available to stream on ABC.