Have you ever dreamed of featuring your business on the ABC television show Shark Tank?
My guest this week is Joe Altieri. the inventor of FlexScreen, the world’s first flexible window screen, and a successful past contestant on the ABC television show Shark Tank.
I’m going to ask Joe to share the origin story of his invention, his experience as a contestant on Shark Tank, and what has happened to his company since he teamed up with The Queen of QVC, Lori Greiner.
If, like me, you are a longtime fan of the show who has often wondered what it would be like to be standing on that stage pitching the Sharks, you DO NOT want to miss this episode of Radio Free Enterprise.
Watch Joe’s Shark Tank episode: https://flexscreenretail.com/pages/shark-tank
Learn more about FlexScreen: https://flexscreen.com/
Learn more about Joe Altieri: https://joealtieri.com/
Joe’s Podcast, Lessons from the Tank: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lessons-from-the-tank/id1570315078
What follows is a computer-generated transcription of our entire conversation. Please excuse any typos!
Frank Felker 00:22
Thank you, Dude Walker. Yes indeed, I am Frank Felker. Welcome back to Radio Free Enterprise.
My guest today is Joe Altieri. Joe is the inventor of FlexScreen. The world’s first and only flexible window screen. He is also the founder and CEO of a multimillion-dollar company of the same name, and a successful past contestant on the ABC television show Shark Tank. Joe Altieri Welcome to Radio Free Enterprise.
Joe Altieri 00:52
Thank you for having me, I look forward to our conversation.
Frank Felker 00:55
So glad you’re here Joe. And I appreciate that you’ve blocked out some extra time for me today, we really have a lot to cover. I know everybody wants to know all about your experience on Shark Tank. And when I say everybody, I mean me, I really want to know about that. And I want to dig into it. But I think the best place to start for people who may not be familiar with your product, or you or your appearance on Shark Tank, is to talk about that. What exactly is FlexScreen? What’s so innovative about it?
Joe Altieri 01:27
Well, as you mentioned, we’re the world’s first and only flexible windows screen. So, so that the sides of our screen, they flex in, so it makes it really easy to install them and remove them from your windows, they also don’t block the view like a normal screen does. So a normal an old-style aluminum screen, which most people have on their windows actually blocks up to a square foot of the view. And they’re nearly indestructible.
And we have videos online of me pounding them with hammers, that was one of the big things on Shark Tank was me pounding our screen with a hammer, which of course, regular screen would never put it, you know, it would just get completely destroyed doing that, but we run them over with cars, we throw them off of buildings and, and so really it was FlexScreen is born from all the problems that homeowners have with regular windows screens, we buy a lot of fortunate mistakes, we solved all of the problems. So that’s a that’s what FlexScreen is the quick elevator pitch there.
Frank Felker 02:30
Well, and I know anybody and that’s everybody’s ever wrestled with a Windows screen, trying to get it open or it’s crooked. Now I can’t get it to move, or it won’t lock in place. Or it’s you know, all of the problems with Windows screens, they should definitely go to FlexScreen.com and watch those videos. And it will become immediately apparent what a breakthrough idea this is. And I I really have to congratulate you on your video marketing. Because there’s a video you have that’s only 51 seconds long. And in that 51 seconds, it becomes abundantly clear what the big deal is about this product. And so I am a big fan of video marketing, and I congratulate you on doing such a great job. We’ll also come back to how that intersected with the folks at Shark Tank. So let me then ask you, when was it that you first started working on this? What year do you think it was?
Joe Altieri 03:24
It was a little over eight years ago. Now the thought of something better in the screen industry has been a goal for me, I’ve been in the window industry and then the screen industry for about 20 years. And so it’s been a one of those things that’s rattling around in my head that there has to be a better way, just because of all the problems that my customers which, again, I’m a window guy I was, you know, for most of my professional life, I’ve been in the window and door industry. And every window that gets produced has to have a screen on it, you know, homeowners expect to have a screen on their, on their on their window. But so but there’s a lot of problems with them. You know, there’s a there’s a three to 5% reject rate on window screens. Again, it’s one of those things that most homeowners don’t understand. But you know, 3% 5% of every single window that goes out has a screen that’s bad. That’s a huge financial burden for the window manufacturers and a big pain for the window dealers and the homeowners.
Frank Felker 04:23
I imagine for the installers as well. We then have to go out and replace that screen with no additional revenue associated with it. This is another area of where you are in my careers cross. I did a lot of sales work in the home improvement industry. I’ve made a lot of in-home sales presentations and sound like you did as well. Since then, I’ve done a lot of marketing for Oh, you know, the roofers and the windows and doors guys and all those people. And, and there’s I hope that we’ll have time at the end of our conversation to come back around to the Home Improvement industry and talk a little bit about what you learned there about successful marketing and sales, and how it impacted what you’ve done here with FlexScreen. Okay, so eight years ago would be 2013. At what point did you have, like a minimum viable product, something that you could either demonstrate to manufacturers, or sell to homeowners.
Joe Altieri 05:23
So it took me about two years in my garage. And again, this is, you know, me trying things that I could buy at Lowe’s and Home Depot, you know, walking through a store like that and going, can I make a screen out of that, can I make a screen out of that. And so it took me about two years to to, to come up with what I call my bubble gum and duct tape prototype in it. And when you say minimum viable, that’s exactly what it was, it was what was the absolute minimum that it could be, but it was enough to show the concept. And, and that, that was important. That was a big step, you know, to come out of the garage with something in my hands, rather than an idea. And, again, from there, at least, then I could start describing this to, you know, patent attorneys and things like that to try to see if anything like this had ever existed before.
Frank Felker 06:13
Right? You never know, you absolutely never know, until you do those searches. And of course, that involves investment with the with the attorneys, and so forth. And so, you know, that’s risk, you might spend a few thousand dollars with an intellectual property attorney, and he comes back says, Sorry, if somebody already has this. So that’s a big risk. And with that in mind, I want to ask you, what was your thought relative to your business model? In other words, let’s say you could patent this, and you could manufacture it, and you could sell it somehow? Who did you think you were going to sell it to?
Joe Altieri 06:50
So, again, because I was in the window industry, that there were a couple different avenues that I could that I could explore, you know, one of the big window companies, maybe I can just sell the patent to them. One of the windows screen suppliers, most window screens are not produced by the window manufacturers anymore. They’re produced by large window companies. And so, you know, maybe one of those guys might want to, you know, might want to buy this or license it or something like that, truthfully, when I came out of the garage, and I had something that worked, I was just surprised that I had some things. So I was open to absolutely any, any way of getting it out into the world. interest.
And yeah, and again, just some fortunate things that had happened with my journey. You know, I got an MBA, from you know, I got, I got an attorney, they gave me an NDA, so I could actually start showing it off a little bit to see him if it was more than just my excitement, could I get some excitement out in the industry as well, we did invest in and, you know, getting the patent search and at least the first patent application, that was a personal investment from my family and I. So we started showing it off into the industry and, and we had an offer from an equipment company in our industry. And they said, Look, we’d love to buy this, this idea from you this this, this patent application and this idea. And I reached out to a personal friend, who was in the, you know, he owns several companies, some of them actually control IP, and he owns some IP.
And I just laid it out in front of them and said, What should I do here? I don’t know, I don’t know how to grow this. I’m, I’m a sales guy at heart. I’ve never grown a business. And what should I do? Should I sell it? should i do? What should I do? And he took some, some very of his valuable times took an entire afternoon, sat down with me looked at the whole opportunity, and just said, Give me a couple days, let me think about this. Let me you know, let me come back to you with my suggestions. And that was on a Thursday, he came back to me on a Monday and said, If I were you, I wouldn’t sell it. This looks like it’s in a huge opportunity. And I can actually help guide you, if you’re interested. I can, I can invest myself. And I also have some other people that have invested with me in the past. And I can help you to grow this business if this is something that you want to do.
And so he was my first investor and actually introduced me to our first team of, of, of investors. So again, very fortunate that I had that in my in my life. But you know, I think there’s a lesson there as well, for some of your listeners yet if I wouldn’t have reached out and been humble if I would have thought that I knew what everything. I never would have put this in front of him and probably never would have gotten to the point where our business is today.
Frank Felker 09:47
So that’s great. Yeah, it’s good. I think it was Dirty Harry who said a man’s got to know his limitations. Absolutely. I am quite aware of how much I don’t know. Good on you. It seems like the older I get, the more I figured that out. Well, and you know, it is interesting and fortuitous, as you say that that person was in your life. But that also, to me sounds like the first strategic investor that came into this business. This was a person who had more to bring than just a checkbook. They also had this experience with IP, intellectual property. They knew other investors, they knew they knew a lot that you didn’t know about how to leverage an innovation like you had created. And so Okay, so I think this is a good point to tangent, then pivot into your experience at Shark Tank, because those people also were strategic investors. Now, my understanding is that, unlike most companies who go through a lengthy application and interview process, in order to try to get in front of the sharks, that the producers at Shark Tank actually reached out to you after having seen some of your video marketing, can you tell us that story?
Joe Altieri 11:02
Yeah, we, um, the first thing that the window and door industry loved our product, they really did. It solved a lot of problems, especially operational problems, because our product didn’t get damaged as easy. And so but we had this issue where traditional windows screens were invented in the early 1900s. So if you look up the patents on a on, you know, traditional window screens, they are metal window screen with a rubber spline looks exactly like the screens that you’re probably on your house. So nothing had changed in over 100 years. So, so turning an industry that had gotten used to something for over 100 years was a bit difficult.
So we had this this slow, yes. situation that was going on. We had a lot of people like yes, this is great. But who else is using it? Yes, this is great. But we have to educate the homeowners. But yes, this is great. But and so we had to find a way to get through that slow. Yes. And for us as a young company that didn’t have you know, $5 million to do a 15 second spot on the Superbowl. We said, Look, video marketing is the only way that we can tell our story about a flexible window screen that nobody can even fathom what a flexible window screen looks like. We had to show them. And so we just started doing funny, crazy videos.
And again, it was really basic back then, we put a black curtain up behind me with a put a table in front of me. And we were doing some iPhone videos and using basic video editors to make them and put them out on social media. And through those efforts, the Shark Tank producers found us they said this year, your product looks great. You look like you’re a lot of fun. And we’d love to have you come on. And I’m not kidding. We thought it was a joke. The first, the first phone call, we’re like, Yeah, whatever. That’s Yeah, you know, I’m sure one of my buddies is give me a hard time. Then we got the email. And I’m like, Oh, this is somebody going really far with this. And then the second call came, we were like, okay, it says Sony Pictures. I guess we should answer this one.
And but yeah, that they asked us to come on. And so we skipped an awful lot of steps that most people, most people have to go to a cattle call where they’re at a convention center, and they get a minute to pitch in front of the producers or they send in a video application or something like that online. I want to say it’s around 100,000 people a year are putting in applications. And the year that we the year that we aired. So it’s 29 are not the waste film 2019 they had five that they actually reached out to and asked to come on the show. And we happen to be one of those lucky five.
Frank Felker 13:41
So now 100,000 people a year apply. Are you saying that we’re only five the whole season or was five just on the one episode? You’re on five people that the Shark Tank producers actually reached out? Oh, I see rather than the $100 season, right? Yes.
Joe Altieri 13:58
Yeah. So So again, there’s however many four or five per episode that they get through, but most of those are, you know, they like I said they’ve gone a different way. And they have a lot more steps. I mean, we went from them contacting us. We were we were filming within a few months. You know, most of the time. This is a year process by the time you know, you go through everything.
Frank Felker 14:20
So just to nail that down, what month they contacted you what month it filmed and what month had aired.
Joe Altieri 14:28
I want to say we I think we got contacted in April. And we filmed in June and then we aired in January.
Frank Felker 14:36
So April and June of 2019 in January of 2020. Yes, okay. Yep. Great. Okay, now we’re starting to get into the meat and potatoes of this. As for me, as somebody who’s watched the show, you know, religiously for years. They will always think well if I had been that guy, I would have said this, or I you know he never should have said That a boy really ticked off Barbara on that one? Or, you know, there’s always that kind of thing going on. Had you been a fan of the show? Had you even seen it before you went on?
Joe Altieri 15:11
Yeah, I had seen it. I wasn’t a religious viewer of it, mainly because I was in the middle of growing a business. Sure. And so, you know, one of the frustrating things, as somebody who’s going through this, as a young as a young company, is you have these companies that go on Shark Tank, and they’re like, I did 12,000 in sales, and the valuation of our company is, you know, $300 million, or something ridiculous. And you’re like, oh, my goodness, like, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
So, you know, I didn’t necessarily want to feel those feelings, as I was struggling to grow my own business. But I did watch it every once in a while, you know, we would have it on a, you know, Friday night or something like that. So well, in one of the things you always as an inventor, which is weird saying that I’m that, but when you have something new, the thing that always gets said is you should go on Shark Tank, you should go on Shark Tank. I don’t want to do that.
Frank Felker 16:09
That’s funny. So did you hear that a lot?
Joe Altieri 16:12
I did. And that’s why we thought it was a joke. We thought that the call was a joke, because again, we had heard that so much.
Frank Felker 16:18
But okay, now, having watched it was and you don’t have to name names, which I imagine you probably wouldn’t want to name any names. But were there any of the sharks that you felt, let’s say more kindly towards or any that you definitely didn’t want to become a partner with? And as I say, you don’t have to name a name. But did you have any sense of that before you walked in that room?
Joe Altieri 16:42
So you know, what’s, what’s interesting is, first of all, the thing to remember is they showed 12 minutes, 14 minutes, right? I was in front of them filming for two, two hours and 37 minutes. So, you know, you really do get to know their personalities a little bit through that there’s a lot of back and forth, but it’s just, it doesn’t make good TV. So, you know, when we were going in, we were actually targeting Lori, we thought that Lori was a good partner for us, mainly because we were weak with retail. You know, we’re mainly, like I said, mainly, we sell to the window manufacturers. So the retail side is just something that I wasn’t in my wheelhouse. We had done a little bit. But we wanted somebody that was a bit of an expert and Lori is But Mark Cuban was by far the nicest person in that room.
He Yeah, he really understood our business model. He was very, very kind, you know, even as he was, you know, trying to understand he wasn’t overbearing, Mr. Wonderful, was probably the worst. And, look, he comes across that way. And I know they play a little bit of a character again, it’s a TV show, they’re playing a little bit, you know, almost, you know, bigger than they actually are. Because my understanding is, you know, because now I’m a part of this community of Shark Tank entrepreneurs, we talk to each other, we have online groups, we meet up together.
My understanding is he’s a fantastic partner. He’s one of the best sharks No kidding. Yeah, he does. He goes above and beyond for the, the companies that he partners with, he really gets into their day to day lives helps them to be better entrepreneurs, not just let me make your company better. So again, we never you don’t get that side of him from the TV show. But
Frank Felker 18:38
well in you know, nearly cultivates that hard as reputation that you know, people call him Mr. Wonderful anywhere. Is it like a badge? So but in your case, when I was watching the episode, he’s like, Well, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to lend you, $600,000 at 9% interest. And I was like, wow. And I was thinking, do I really want to borrow $600,000 from that guy? I don’t know. But with that in mind, there’s the next thing I want to ask you. So I mentioned to you in a previous conversation that I’ve had a number of guests on here, and we’ve talked about raising money, and their things about valuation and profits and revenues.
And you mentioned that, you know, people I did $12,000 in revenue last year, and I want $100 million for my company. Even so your call or your request 800,000 wasn’t it for 6% of the company? Is that it? You know, as Mr. Wonderful said, I missed it the first time and I ran that calculator myself. That was $13.3 million valuation on a company that had 5 million in top line revenue, and not a lot in in bottom line profit. What I’m saying is that was, that was pretty strong call there that you made. Where did you pull that number from First off, and the other thing is, was that just a start? point for you? Or was that really what you wanted to come out of that room with?
Joe Altieri 20:06
So we actually worked very hard on our valuation. Again, one of the behind the scenes, Shark Tank, things that that I’m probably not allowed to say, but whatever, they, they actually have a business consultant that is willing to work, that works for the show. And they’ll actually work with you on helping to understand the, you know, what the sharks are looking for with valuations and things. Interesting, yet really interesting fact, less than 20% of the companies that go on the show actually use them, mainly because they don’t want to hear that their baby is ugly. Right? Right. They want to, they want to go in there with evaluation, and they don’t want to be convinced otherwise.
So, you know, we went in, and again, what you see on the show is a very small snippet that is there for drama, right? It’s in there to create a good TV show, first, you know, that the rest of it is secondary. So, you know, you don’t go from, you know, your valuation stinks to, hey, three sharks wanting to make a deal with you, without them understanding where you came up with that valuation. Okay, so, so there was a lot of, you know, again, two hours and 37 minutes, probably an hour and a half of it was just helping them to understand our business model and understand why, you know, even though we had, you know, low bottom line, it really, that’s, it didn’t tell the whole story, you know, we’re growing company, were reinvesting, you know, all of those types of things.
So profits were, they’re just not important at that point in our in our trajectory, you know, and we were also we had $5 million for the year before we before, but the year that we were in, which is 2019, we were going to be over $10 million. So we doubled our top line, you know, just from year to year. And so, again, all of those things get a little bit lost in the translation of the TV show.
Frank Felker 21:57
Yeah, so well, I have to say, because, you know, I do a lot of video and editing and that kind thing, and I understand that, but they tell you, their editors do a great job of increasing the drama and attention. But they also did a good job of showing Mark Cuban one, huh? About three times. And virtually everybody on the panel, nodding their heads and on Wow. And, you know, when you did the product demonstration, etc, it seemed like, and correct me if I’m wrong, by the way, I’ve done a lot of investor presentations. And that’s part of the reason why I’m so taken with the Shark Tank thing. Did you have a positive feeling right out of the gate as soon as you started talking? Or did it warm up?
Joe Altieri 22:40
So what happens in the show? Number one, it’s the most surreal experience ever. Right? So you know, they’re all a type personalities, right? So they all want to be heard, they all are vying for, for attention from you, because that’s giving attention from the cameras and the audiences. Yeah, and again, this is one of those things that, you know, hindsight, you look back and go, Oh, I see what was happening here yet, you know, the producers tried to warn you, they’re like, Look, you need to own that stage, you have to own that those moments, you know, because they’re going to want to talk over each other and stuff like that. So, you know, they pretty much leave you alone during the pitch portion. Right?
So that’s the thing that you memorize as you’re going in. Hey, sharks. My name is Joel tear from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, you know, that, that, that that section of it, they leave you alone for that, then when they start getting into valuations and understanding the business, they’re talking over each other. There they are, you know, they are, and they’re arguing, they’re, they’re saying, Hey, why are you answering her question? I asked my question first. And, you know, don’t why. So there’s all of this stuff happening. So in your head, you’re answering a question, right? Your mouth is speaking, you you’re formulating the next answer to the next question that you have to answer while listening to them at the same time. all at the same time, you’re having this out of body experience going, Oh, my goodness, am I standing in front of all these sharks? Is this really happening? So having this to say I had a warm and fuzzy was probably a little bit of a stretch, but I could tell that they were impressed by the demonstration right off the bat, like it was, you know, there was a lot of great questions. There was a lot of, you know, wow, I have this problem in your own house. Again, you don’t think about the sharks taking their screens out, but there’s they’re real people, you know, they do deal with these things. And so
Frank Felker 24:33
If I could interrupt you, because you mentioned as soon as you walked out and started saying, Hey, I’m Joe, etc. So I actually broke this down because as I say, I’ve done a lot of these presentations, I help coach people on it, make an investor presentations. That situation is unique because I can’t remember an investor presentation where people are shouting at me and shouting at each other and I got cameras on me, you know, generally it’s more of a one to one or one to, you know, up to date group of it. investors. But here’s what I want to ask you, if what I’m about to say is the way it was live, or if it was edited down to this, because your introduction, your elevator pitch was so sharp, I couldn’t believe it.
You came out and you said, Excuse me, he said, your name and hometown. He said the name of the product. He said, What problem it solves. He said, We’re the world’s first and only flexible windows screen. He pulled it out of the window, you beat on it with a hammer. You put it back in the window. And while you had your back turned to them, you said FlexScreen is an industry disrupter. And then you turn around and he asked for the investment. So who wants to get on board? And it was one minute and three seconds. And I was like, that was awesome. So was that the real deal? Or was it edited down?
Joe Altieri 25:49
That’s the real deal. So when it looks like Yeah, when it looks like you’re going to be on the show, that they assign a producing team to you. So I had two guys that were with me for this entire journey. And they and again, these are some behind the scenes things. But every Friday, I had a call with them. And they pretty much said, Look, if we show up on the call, that means you’ve made it another week. That’s a three o’clock every Friday at 259. I’m like please be on the call, please be on the call. But But every Friday they would ask you questions and things like that. And you’d have an assignment for the next week.
So my first assignment they said, right, you’re right, your pitch, tell us why we should, why one of the sharks should do this, watch some episodes and all that stuff. And you’re going to do it in front of us as if you’re doing it live next Friday. Great. Okay, perfect. So I do it, I write it all up. You know, it’s like three pages long. And they’re like, okay, that’s great. That was six and a half minutes, get it down, cut it and cut it in half for next week, get it down to three minutes. I’m like, Okay, great. Get it down to three minutes. So the next week, I get it down to three minutes, what I thought was three minutes. They’re like, Okay, that was five minutes, like, I need to understand by next week, you have to have it down to two minutes. And so the next week, you know, I’m down to two minutes.
By the time I was all done, that you have to get it down to a minute, but by the time you’re done, my pitch on paper was this was this much, it was a paragraph and a half. That was it. And so trying to try to do that was it was a crazy exercise for me and for my team to do that. Because you’re summing up a business, you’re summing up a product, and trying to say that this is the best thing in the world, with very few words. And it is tough to do. And it’s something that the entrepreneurs struggle with. And, and to your point, I’ve been a part of some of these investor pitches, just as a shark tank person, they asked me to be part of those. And that’s a big challenge as people want to get into a very long explanation. You’re like, Look, you have to impress us very quickly, whether they’re interested or not. And so that’s a skill. And it’s something that that is hard to do.
Frank Felker 28:00
It really is it is a skill, and it can be developed. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to write 32nd radio spots many years ago, and to try to get in not even have the video aspect to the visual. Anyway, that’s where I learned how to do it. But it’s hard for people and all of us as humans, we want to tell the whole story. If I don’t tell them everything they’re not going to completely understand. They don’t realize right now, you don’t need them to complete the understand. You just need them to get interested. But I just need their attention. You did. I’m not kidding. I was shocked. And when I timed it, I couldn’t believe it. You know, minute in three seconds. It was unreal.
Joe Altieri 28:39
Okay, I didn’t do too bad. I was really close to my minutes.
Frank Felker 28:43
Well, you were having the out of body experience. You know, you go What if when you were putting the screen into the window, it would pull you know, you’d let’s let go of it or something. The Lord only knows what might have happened.
Joe Altieri 28:54
I am telling you I had that I had that fear. I told this story. I did a little speaking thing. And I told the story. One of the one of the episodes that I watched was this company who had a door lock that comes up from the bottom right. And their demonstration was we have our door, and we have this door with a regular lock, and they’re supposed to be able to kick in the regular one without any problems. Well, they had a problem with the display, and they couldn’t kick in the regular one and these guys pounded on this door kicking it dropped kicking it they brought out a sledgehammer and there’s pandemonium gets it that’s the sharks are laughing and like, Oh, please don’t let that happened to me. Please don’t let me so but yeah, that was that was one of those fears. I’m like, okay, go really easy putting this in make it look smooth.
Frank Felker 29:40
Yeah, but well, anyway, good on. He did a great job with that. Thank you. Okay, so now you’re in the room and you’re in there for two and a half hours. What was that? Were you standing up the whole time? Did you get to sit down? Was there any snack break bathroom break?
Joe Altieri 29:59
No. One of the Things that they say is there’s no timeouts, there’s no take backs, there’s no, there’s no breaks. Now, mine was a little bit rare. So typically they’re 25 to 40 minutes is what they prepared us for 25 minutes if if you have a good pitch, and they want to make a deal 4040 to 45 minutes if you have a good pitch, and they’re going through the deal portion of it. So I, we just had a more, we had a bigger company than normal Shark Tank companies, and they really wanted to understand the financials. Because as we were growing to your earlier point, you know, we didn’t, we weren’t showing much profit, and they wanted to understand why what were well, how are we reinvesting what was going on here, that that we showed a bottom line of only, you know, a couple $1,000 profit every year.
So, and the sharks do really want to understand that they have, they have their notebooks out, they’re making tons of notes, they’re there, they have calculators out, they are doing the things that are normal, you know, a normal counselor, you know, a normal investment group might do if they were looking at investing. So. So a lot of that’s all very real. I mean, there’s none of the sharks that get into deals just to do something for TV or something like that, that they legitimately want to make finish these deals and make good deals with good entrepreneurs. So Well, there’s just the one wasn’t sexy in our in our two and a half hours, if that makes sense. Hit the episodes great. As
Frank Felker 31:25
I say, I’ve watched many of them. I had never seen your episode before. I was surprised at the level of interest all of the sharps. I can’t remember who first said they were out. But it almost seemed like immediately they were wish they hadn’t said it. Because it right away. Lori and Mr. Wonderful. And Barbara, were like, Lori came in last, I guess. But anyway, I was clear, they were interested. They had those buying signals. They’re leaning forward. They’re asking questions that you know, anyway, I thought that was interesting. Here’s something that I always wondered about. And I want to ask you, okay, they’re making you an offer? Well, there’s hundreds of 1000s of dollars minimum at stake.
But when you’re talking about a $13.3 million valuation, and really, they didn’t whittle you down very much. You know, I don’t know what the final number was, but they took your pitch very seriously in terms of the numbers. But what I’m saying is, you’re standing there by yourself having an out of body experience, the lights are on the cameras are on, you’ve been there all this time. And now you got to make a decision. Right, then, did you have to make a decision? Right, then, you know, could you phone a friend? How did that work?
Joe Altieri 32:41
So it so I did make a decision right then and it does take a lot of take a lot of practice. And I don’t know how else to say that other than, you know, I have great partners, who, you know, they, they asked me a lot of questions, they prepped me ahead of time. And then we also prep the deal making what if, what if, what if, what if, and we were in through scenarios and scenarios? What about this? What would be a good counter for this? And so I had some of those things, just as we had already thought about ahead of time. No, don’t get me wrong with all the lights and stuff. It’s easy to forget what. But you do have to make a decision right there. Right, then there’s no timeout, let me go Think about it. Let me go talk to somebody else. If they’re not in the room with you, you can’t talk about it. So and, you know, it is you know, and the other thing about it too, which I didn’t realize until we got into this, you know, Shark Tank is a game too. It’s not just reality TV, it’s not just a business thing. It’s a game and there’s rules to the game. And one of the rules of the game is you can’t they cannot offer you less than the amount of cash that you’re asking for. So we were going in asking for $800,000 I couldn’t walk out of there with less than that I couldn’t walk out of there with 700. I came out of there with one 100,000 they could offer more, but they can’t offer less. So again, that’s one of those things you have to be careful of when you’re going in and with your ask, because $800,000 is an awful lot of money. So, you know, it’s actually a lot easier for the smaller companies to go in and ask for 25 $50,000 because the sharks are almost like, okay, which pocket? Do you want to take that out of? Sure. Yeah. You know, when you’re up into the close to a million dollars, you’re, you know, we’re one of the bigger deals on Shark Tank that you know, typically they don’t come close to a million dollars.
Frank Felker 34:34
So, where were your partners? They’re at the studio with you or were they How did you like how did they debrief you about what had happened and what deal you had struck?
Joe Altieri 34:45
So, no, as a matter of fact, if you’re not going on to the show, you’re not on the set. So even though my wife was in LA with me, she was back at the hotel, so she couldn’t come and go And as a matter of fact, the cell service was so bad in my trailer, that when I got back, I couldn’t call, like, I have all this excitement. And I’m like, I need to tell someone like, you know, and you also have an NDA, because they don’t want you talking about it until, you know, a week or two before you air. So from June until January, I couldn’t tell anybody you know, it’s like, my immediate, immediate, immediate family who was sworn to secrecy and my business partners. That was the only people that knew. So, whoops. So yeah. So I’m like, trying to send texts out I’m outside of trailer like trying to hold my cell phone up to try to deal and but yeah, we’ve finally got through and got to celebrate with her. But yeah, my partner says the same thing. You know, I’m trying to send a group text and I’m like, we got to deal with Lori.
Frank Felker 35:48
I have to wonder, you know, if they had some kind of cell blocker in that trailer to keep you from communicating, but Okay, so what do you remember what day of the week that was that you were filming?
Joe Altieri 36:00
I do, because, you know, they came out. So they flew over. But this is all pre-Corona. So we were the season before Corona hit, right. So. So they flew everybody out that was filming for that entire week. So they film for six days a week for two weeks in the summer, and then two weeks in the fall. And that takes care of the entire season. So we were the first week in the summer. And they bring everybody out on Sunday because they have a big meeting on Monday. And I was supposed to film on Thursday of that week. And they called me on Monday night, and told me that I was filming the next morning. So I Oh my god. Yeah, it was it was a scary it was a scary phone call, too.
Because what happens is on Monday, they line everybody up, and they’re like, okay, you’re doing your pitch that little one minute, right? You’re doing that in front of everybody that is part of the show. And they’re doing it. You know, they want to make sure that they understand the lighting cues. And this isn’t the sharks, this is the producers, directors, lighting, people, all of that. So there’s about 50 people that watch you do this. And they make it really clear that some of you are not going to go in front of the sharks this week, because you’re just not going to do a good enough job in front of us. And we’re going to send you home early. And so yeah, that’s that was scary. So then I get this
Frank Felker 37:16
No pressure. No pressure.
Joe Altieri 37:20
No pressure. Yeah, exactly. But I think they want you to feel a little bit of that. Do you know what I mean? So that you do understand what that’s going to feel like going in there. And they don’t you know, if you’re going to pass out or you’re going to not do very well in front of them, there’s no possible way that you’re going to do well in front of sharks in front of the pressure of having the cameras around you.
Frank Felker 37:40
So what I was driving it, it’s so you Tuesday morning is when your time morning. modifier was? Okay, so who you wake up Wednesday morning, any buyer’s remorse as far as the deal that you took?
Joe Altieri 37:55
Absolutely, actually, none. You know, we, the deal that we took was actually something that we saw Barbara do in previous episodes where she says, hey, look, you keep your wholesale side of the business, which is what we you know, we sell to the window manufacturers, we’re going to start a brand-new retail company over here that we’re going to partner with together. So for us, we weren’t doing much in retail, we only did about a million dollars of retail and in 2019. So which was a very small portion of our business.
It was so low risk, like it was like, hey, look, we’re not touching our core business. We’re just starting something new that we’re not good at anyway. And we’re going to have a partner in it. And Barbara when Barbara proposed that, and then Lori jumped on it. So it was like the perfect deal for us. And then the shark that we wanted, jumped on to that same deal. It was like, it was like God came down and like said, here’s the answer to all your prayers.
Frank Felker 38:54
Oh, that’s great.
Joe Altieri 38:56
Yeah, it really was, it was it was quite fantastic for us.
Frank Felker 38:59
So this may seem like a tangent. But recently, Tesla has gotten into a lot of trouble with their solar roof installations, because they didn’t realize how difficult it is to install a roof. Although anybody had been in the roofing business for any period of time, could have told him that and especially when you’re not going in with you know, flexible shingles made out of asphalt, and instead have these rigid shingles that are made out of glass, good luck. So they learned that the hard way and they actually had taken deposits from people who were going to pay $25,000 for a roof and then they call them back and said, sorry, that’s going to be $45,000 After all, and they did give them opportunity to walk away from the contract.
The reason I bring this up is somebody who hasn’t sold windows and doors for 100 years doesn’t understand that every hole in the wall is a different size. And if it’s even off by a quarter of an inch or a half an inch, then you know the winds going to blow through and the water is going to come in and so it came down to a lot of discussion among the sharks, they were shocked that every window almost every window is custom made, I bring this long explanation up to ask you has that been an ongoing rub with your relationship with Lori, about the idea versus mass production of templated screens versus custom made screens.
Joe Altieri 40:23
So, by the time by the time I was done in front of them, they understood as much as they could, you know, within two hours of me talking that yeah, this was just a standard size screen is going to be impossible. Now, we’ve had conversations with Lori and her team, you know, since then, and, you know, we’ve reiterated some of those, you know, some of those facts to them, we, you know, we’ve launched on Home Depot comm recently, and of course, her and her team were part of that. And, and we are doing some standard sizes that that Home Depot carries, we have for windows that they carry in stock, we’re doing some standard sized screens that fit those windows, and that’s coming up here this summer.
But, but yeah, coming to the like, one size fits all, it just yeah, it took a little while to help them understand that. But now that they do that, they don’t push me, one of the things about the sharks is, they really don’t, they don’t have a lot of interest in going in there and running your business for you, they’re there as a resource, but they’re not going to try to force you, you know, if you’re a round peg, you’re not going to try to force you into a square hole. And, and that’s, um, that was a that was really refreshing, you know, to have them as a help, instead of, you know, somebody driving us in a certain direction. There’s no tension there, which, which I was I was concerned about, just to be honest with you.
Frank Felker 41:49
And I would have been as well. And I’m glad that you just address that. So the type of investing that the sharks do is broadly known as strategic investing, where it’s not just their checkbook, but they also bring their Rolodex and their relationships and their experience and their connections and so forth. prior to going on Shark Tank, had you an outside of your existing business partners, had you been seeking capital from traditional, let’s say, angel investors or venture capitalists.
Joe Altieri 42:18
We weren’t all of our outside of Lori, all of our investments have been within a group of people that have all invested in in the past, we did a round of funding we for Shark Tank, and so even going into the show, we didn’t necessarily need the funding. And we were looking for that strategic partnership, the funding, you know, the money is just a bonus, you know, mainly because you have to do that on Shark Tank. I don’t know how I say it, you know, you can’t go in there be like, Hey, I’ll give you know, 20% for nothing who’s interested. But, you know, that was that was that that was the big advantage for us. Now, some of the Shark Tank companies, you know, they go on and they do you need the investment? And they do you know that that money is important as important as the strategic side of it.
But, but yeah, I mean, we’re, we weren’t really looking for that. Now, one of the things that does come from being on Shark Tank is, is you do have a lot of VCs that come and want to throw money at you, you know, they see you on the show, they and so we were inundated with companies that wanted to invest, you know, for the first year, we still get them about once a month now somebody will reach out.
But, but again, for us we’re not looking for we’re not necessarily looking for money, you know, we’re a big enough company, we can go get a loan, you know, our banks are great, you know, we have a good, you know, our, you know, our business is solid. So, you know, unless somebody is strategic, it doesn’t make much sense for us to bring somebody else into our, our team.
Frank Felker 43:55
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, I think I’ve just about squeezed every drop out of your experience there on the set. Anything I missed?
Joe Altieri 44:06
No. I mean, it was it was the best scariest experience I’ve ever had my entire life. Yeah, it’s one of those experiences that I say it’s probably like, I haven’t jumped out of an airplane yet. But I assume it’s a lot like that the first time is terrifying. And then the second third, fourth time, it just, you know, I’d have no problem doing it again. Yeah, and doing it for that first time was terrifying. So well, nothing’s going to scare me. I guarantee that.
Frank Felker 44:36
That level of stress brings a lot of energy to the screen. It dealt with that in mind. Let’s talk about your podcast, where you’re going to be interviewing other people who weren’t necessarily successful on Shark Tank but did appear on the show. What’s the name of your podcast and what’s it all about?
Joe Altieri 44:55
It’s called Lessons from the Tank. And it’s just a give back. You know, we One of the universal things for all of the Shark Tank entrepreneurs is we have people reaching out to us, you know, how can how do I take an idea to the market? How do I how do I take my idea for an invention? Or how do I take my prototype and get to the next level? Those types of questions happen to every single one of us, and it happens all the time.
And so, this is just a give back for us where we can answer some of the questions, you know, and, and help people to understand some of the lessons that we’ve learned, you know, people think that, you know, you get on Shark Tank, and you’ve made it, really what happens is, you just burn faster and brighter. So the lessons become, that they do they become, they become bigger, and, and, and, and faster than you would normally have had to learn those, you know, without Shark Tank.
So, so we’ve learned a lot and I had my first my first guest was Tiffany Krumins, who was season number one, episode number one winner, number one, she was the very first guest on the podcast, and the lessons she’s learned through the past 12 years. And the things that she’s gone through have been, I mean, she really paved the way for the rest of us, I mean, that she was on the pilot, you know, nobody knew who knew who Mr. Wonderful was, or Barbara Corcoran, you know, they were they were kind of unknowns. And so, you know, she, she actually has an organization that helps women entrepreneurs, you know, be successful, you know, Tiffany does.
And, again, every single one of the Shark Tank entrepreneurs wants to give back that we really do have a heart for small business. And so this is just one of the ways that we can give back. And it’s called lessons from the tank, you can check it out on lessons from the tank, podcast, calm or just search for lessons from a tank on Apple, or Google or Spotify. That’s great.
Frank Felker 46:54
And I will put a link to the podcast in the show notes for this episode. We’re just about out of time. But I with the idea of helping business owners in mind, I want to come back to the Home Improvement industry or remodeling comes by a lot of names. And I don’t know, do you know that your friend, Tony Hoty, was a past guest here on Radio Free Enterprise,
Joe Altieri 47:16
I heard that I did hear that. And Tony’s a great guy.
Frank Felker 47:20
He’s an amazing guy. He truly is. And I know that you recently presented at his annual conference lead con. And here’s what I want to drive at and ask you to share your thoughts on within the home improvement industry, a lot of industries, there are business owners who get it when it comes to marketing and sales. And there are those who don’t. And the difference between their success is night and day. And, and so I know.
And that’s why I’d asked Tony to come on because he’s all about excellence and superiority in customer experience, customer, development, customer, everything, marketing and sales, making sure people are happy with what you do, and giving you repeat referral business and dread generating leads etc.
What if you could share one thought or maybe a couple with any business owner about why they need to focus on marketing, or a great suggestion on how they can improve their marketing and sales? What do you think that would be?
Joe Altieri 48:21
Well, I think the first thing is for people to understand the difference between marketing and sales, I think sometimes, especially if you’re not in the marketing industry, you think that they’re the same thing. And they’re 100% or not, you know, marketing is branding, it’s, it’s it, you know, marketing is a thing that’s impossible to really understand your ROI, you know, you know, for us to go and say, Hey, what’s our ROI on these marketing videos that we’re putting out, I can never tell you if I sold one more screen because of these videos that I put out. But what I know is that it made my company more visible to the to the outside world.
You know, so that’s the that’s the first thing is, you know, you know, I hear a lot of people they talk about, oh, we do great marketing. Our guys are out there selling all the time, we’re like, Well, hold on a second guy knocking on the door is not marketing. And so that’s the one thing is it, you know, try to understand that the difference there. But from the from the other side, I think say I’m a sales guy, I love presenting I love being in front of the customers. I truly like my customers. That’s one thing that a lot of, especially when you get small businesses that might start struggling a little bit they start not liking their customers. I’ve heard so many times where people are like, my customers are so stupid like well, maybe, maybe you should figure out what their what their problem is. Because without them you don’t survive.
You know, we are within our company now I have close to 160 employees now, you know across all of our factories and stuff, and I still say that We are a sales and marketing company first. And we happen to sell something that is pretty cool that that would that we make, you know our customers come first we make sure that every single one of our associates that are making our product up through the customer service people that talk to the customers understand that the only reason that we exist is to make our customers happy.
And so again, that’s a paradigm shift for a lot of companies that that they think that manufacturing, we’re here to manufacture something, nope, you’re here to keep your customers happy. Because as soon as they’re not they stop buying. And when they stop buying, you start stop manufacturing. And so again, I think it’s more of the mindset of companies that are out there is the biggest that will be my biggest advice is to try to shift that to sales first.
You know, even when my when my initial investors, one of the things that they came back with was, you know, if you were not a salesman, if we didn’t, we do not think that you would have made a very good CEO of a startup company. You know, that was, that was interesting to me, because, you know, I was just being me. But that was something that they were looking for. And when they put their trust in because we have millions of dollars invested at this point, that was something that was really important to them is that that I was a sales guy that could go out there and tell my company story to our customers, and that I was going to be a customer advocate first.
Again, we protect our you know, our customers are, they’re fantastic. You know, I mean, and we’re it’s not like we do think do stupid things because of our customers. But we’re customer advocates. First, we make sure that our customers are happy because they’re why we exist.
Frank Felker 51:52
There’s no arguing with that. And it’s funny, you said three or four things right there, Joe, that we could go down rabbit holes on each one of them that has to do with sales, and the difference between sales and marketing. And did you sell another screen because of your videos? Well, you sure as heck sold somebody at Sony Pictures on something like those videos. And so they’re all necessary for the growth of the business and I don’t know maybe you’ll be kind enough to come back and talk to me again on here. So we can go back into some of those rabbit holes. I would absolutely love to Joe Altieri. Thank you so much for joining me today on Radio Free Enterprise.
Joe Altieri
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Frank Felker
Thanks again to Joe. And thank you for joining us. Until next time, I’m Frank Felker saying I’ll see you on the radio.
Dude Walker 52:41
And now a man who maintains a shrine to Mark Cuban in the basement of his suburban home, Frank Felker and Radio Free Enterprise
