“You gotta say who you are:” When Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban questioned Chefee founder Assaf Pashut 

Shark Tank Season 15 Episode 17 introduced viewers to Chefee founder Assaf Pashut who pitched his business idea of a cooking mechanism. All users had to do was restock ingredients weekly in the system and Chefee's responsibility was to cook dishes for them. Assaf was seeking a $500,000 investment for a 4% equity and stated that the company was pre-revenue.

After explaining how he built the system and birthed this business idea, Mark Cuban felt that the execution wasn't quite right. Assaf shared his plans of utilizing $500,000 for manufacturing costs, noting $1,500 for material costs, and $1,000 for labor costs. He also wanted to introduce a value version between $9,500 and $10,000, as well as a premium version between $40,000 and $50,000.

Upon hearing this, Mark Cuban shared his thoughts regarding the product:

"That's an integrator, I'm not saying there is anything wrong, you got to say who you are and what you are doing and what is working, and what's not working because if we are going to understand how you get to a product, we have to understand why you are already not there."

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Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban shared his thoughts about Chefee

Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban asked the Chefee founder if his company was a robotics company to which he responded with a yes. Cuban was not satisfied with his answer and explained why the entire system was "integrated" rather than "created from scratch." He continued, saying that Assaf was claiming to be a robotics company when his company wasn't manufacturing individual components. Cuban said:

"So, let's just be clear here, you're not a robotics company, you're an integration company. You're taking off the shelf or stuff you have licensed and you maybe have written some software and you have some IP and you're doing that to integrate it right? You're not manufacturing the individual components."

Sharing his point of view regarding the business model, the Shark Tank investor felt that the practicality and technicality of Chefee had some drawbacks. He further elaborated:

"If you truly created something that is so differentiated so unique, when you are in an industry when everybody and their brother seems like is coming out with a new robotic space system, there should be so much money being thrown at you that you can't even keep up with it."

Assaf on the other hand considered Cubans' comments as positive remarks mentioning that the shark thinking his idea was "crazy" made him feel like he had made it. Cuban called him out clarifying that he meant something else, he continued:

"I will simplify things, I think it looks great conceptually makes sense, technically not quite sure whose pieces and parts you integrated but the reality is there's no way you did it from scratch and created everything in a couple years for $450,000."

The Chefee founder continued defending himself until other Sharks interrupted him and asked Cuban whether he was willing to make an offer. The Shark Tank investor stated he was out. Despite Cuban's discontent regarding the business, Assaf ended up agreeing to Kevin O'Leary's offer of a $500,000 investment for 15% equity.

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Viewers can watch new episodes of Shark Tank exclusively on ABC on Fridays at 8/7c.