The only real reason to watch Shark Tank on Channel Ten is to see so-called entrepreneurs who genuinely believe that their absurd, unmarketable, harebrained schemes deserve hundreds of thousands of dollars in venture capital.
Some of you might be in it for the stories of hardscrabble Aussie battlers getting their genius idea off the ground. That’s your prerogative. I’m in it for the absolute horrorshows.
Last night’s bizarre pitch was an absolute pearler in that genre. The Shark Tank panel where confronted with Kim Macrae‘s concept for a learning program called iKiFit, which is some kind of… weird dance? Involving an orange stick?
After an entirely baffling presentation, which Macrae says encourages kids to “do all those movements our ancestors did — chopping, rowing, kayaking, surfing,” he drops an absolute clanger: he wants an investment of $250k for a 10% stake in the business. Which, I stress, involves children dancing around with an orange stick.
The judges weren’t entirely keen on the concept (dancing around with a stick) or the amount of money Macrae was asking for (again, $250,000).
Dr Glen Richards, one of the show hosts, said that he felt “subtly uncomfortable” at the weird stick dance he was forced to watch
“That felt really awkward. It felt confining, it felt uncomfortable, and I was really disturbed by that,” says fellow host Steve Baxter.
‘Subtly uncomfortable’, ‘awkward’ and ‘disturbed’ are all excellent words to come up when you’re discussing children’s physical education.
“I’m glad you’re happy, because that’s an amazing amount of money for something that’s got no traction and probably no prospect of traction,” says Baxter, after learning that Macrae has literally put $800,000 into this business idea.
Source: Ten.
Photo: Ten.
