"You're not going to get 1%" - Mark Cuban on why he walks away from Shark Tank deals

Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban recently talked about the details that made him opt out of a pitch on the show. He sat down with the Your Mom's House Podcast, where he shared his strategy to find out the deals in which he will not be investing.

He says that his main criteria when entrepreneurs start with their pitch is to find out that one key detail that will make him not invest in the product. He is not always looking for reasons to invest.

Till this time, he has put in over $20 million in various products and thus, has devised a formula for analyzing which one of the companies could be successful later in the game.

The Shark Tank investor says that even after trying to not invest in a deal, the product turns out to be very good or he is the missing piece that the company needs, and thus, they shake hands on it.

Mark says, however, he turns out to be wrong almost all the time, but it is a risk he has to take. When talking about what makes him instantly turn off from a pitch, Mark said,

"The number one tell is when they talk about, ‘Well if I only get 1% of this billion-dollar market… because you're not going to get 1%.' I've done too many deals. The minute they start talking, I'm looking for reasons to go out. Sometimes I'll think, ‘Okay, they're not good at A, B, or C, but I'm really good at A, B, and C—so if we combine forces, maybe it works.' I'm wrong probably half the time, but that is what it is."

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Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban shares why he opts out of pitches on the show

Mark Cuban, the Shark Tank investor, has been on the reality TV show for a very long time now, and even though he has calmed down as compared to the initial years when he was on the tank, he still makes headlines for his deals.

These deals, he simply decides to opt out of the pitches if they do not suit his palate, but back in the day, he would create disruptions and also get other sharks in the race with him if he ever liked a deal.

Having sold the majority shares of his beloved Dallas Mavericks team, the Shark Tank investor is a silent partner now and now often appears on the show itself. On the podcast, he was asked about the dumbest deals that he has come across.

Starting strong with Tail Lightz, this one is quite peculiar-looking. It serves as a flashing light that attaches itself to the back of the jeans of teenage girls.

Mark, being the fun person that he was, asked the entrepreneur who was pitching the product if she was ever going to wear it on a date, and she denied, saying "nobody" was going to wear that.

Mark says that there were other weird products on the show as well, such as Original Man Candle and Wake-n-Bacon. The second one was an alarm clock that would cook bacon for you and doesn't release the smell.

One of the deals that turned sour in which Mark had also invested in on Shark Tank was Breathometer. He says that it was a promising product and secured funding from all five sharks at the time.

However, the founder partied too much, and after taking loads of money from the investors to improve his product and marketing, he escaped to an island. Mark says that the whole thing "crashed and burned."

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Shark Tank season 16 episodes are released weekly on ABC at 8 PM Eastern Time on Fridays. They are later available to watch on Hulu.