Shark Tank airs 8pm ET on ABC. It's a fascinating inside look at what it's like to pitch a business idea before a group of cut throat business gurus with money to burn. The ideas that are pitched are sometimes brilliant, sometimes ridiculous, and sometimes just downright awful.

Who are these titans of industry looking to throw their wads of cash at hungry entrepreneurs?

Kevin O'Leary is the most ruthless of the sharks. He made his money selling educational software. His big payday came when he sold his company to Mattel for $3.7 billion.

Barabara Corcoran made her bones in Real Estate. She's had 20 jobs since she was 23.

Daymon John founded Fubu. Peaking with $350 in revenue in 1998.

Robert Herjavek sold his first tech company for $100 million. He's often butting heads with O'Leary for control of deals on the show.

Kevin Harrington made his money in informercials. His first company reached $500 million in annual sales.

Got that? Alright, good. Let's strap in for some dealmaking.

Our first entrepreneur tonight has a business selling custom-made bobbleheads. Jeff Wolosky already has a lucrative business and he's looking for $75k in exchange for 18% equity in his company. He's made a bobblehead in the image of each Shark and hands them out to the panel. Nice move, Jeff.

Jeff doesn't want to give up the online end of his business which is turning the Sharks off. He's only looking to move the brick and mortar piece. He's going to have a tough sell with these savvy Sharks knowing the overhead is much lower online with a bigger profit margin.

Kevin puts an offer on the table. He's offering $75 for the 15% stake and he's forbidding Kevin from selling in brick and mortar stores. He wants to invest strictly in the online end of his business. Jeff quickly declines.

Damon, Kevin, and Barbara are out. Robert wants some hard numbers. Jeff says his business makes between $500-$600,000 a year. Whoa, who knew bobbleheads were so lucrative?

Robert drops down an offer $100k for 20%

The sharks have Jeff leave the room so they can come up with a plan.

They realize they're bidding the price up among each other. Only on Shark Tank can these guys collude amonst each other! As we go to commerical, what do you think Jeff's business is worth?

Drop your offers in the comments.

Jeff returns and Kevin and Robert offer $100k for 20% of the business.

Jeff declines, and Robert offers $125k for 20%. He declines and offers 7% for $125k.

The sharks have heard enough and ask Jeff to leave. Ouch! No deal. Jeff leaves with his head bobbling.

Here comes our next entrepreneur, lets hope they fare better.

Sandy and Roman are a couple living in NYC and they started a company called Mr. Poncho. They're young and they're making money with their business. They just need some help from the sharks to take it to the next level.

Mr. Poncho is a sleeve that goes over your iPod. They made $35k on it over the last year. They have a patent pending on the sleeve and the device that holds the headphones. Clever, since the headphone tangling is a common issue for folks with iPods.

They're looking for $50k for 25% equity.

It sells for $18 and costs them $3 to make.

Barbara is out because they don't yet have a patent. Damon knows the most about manufacturing, but he thinks they are still too new and the sleeve has no window to see what song is playing, which is a big thumbs down. None of the other sharks are interested either. Sorry kids, take your ponchos and get out.

Dr. Floyd is a urologist. He's created a great product that needs the distribution and manufacturing the sharks can bring to the table.

He created the Uro Club and he wants $25k for a 51% stake in the company. Many of his male patients pee a lot and they play golf. Oh boy, we know where this is going. The Uro Club is a self contained urine recepticle that looks like a golf club. What a pisser!

The Uro Club comes with a towel that clips on your waistband and acts as a privacy shield. He's thought of everything. His pitch is you're far away from the clubhouse, and you drink a lot on the course, so you're likely to need a place to relieve yourself. The Sharks think the receptacle is too small.

Kevin sees it as a gag gift, which the doctor won't dispute. He's sold 3,000 of them already. He's got a website for it and 15,000 of these bad boys in stock, along with a patent. Can this thing get you busted for indecent exposure? He doesn't think so. He tells the sharks you're going to relieve yourself either in his device in the woods, so one way or other, you're whipping it out.

Kevin is interested in 71% of the business for $25k, and Dr. Floyd quickly accepts. That had to be the cheapest and most quickly accepted deal I have seen on Shark Tank. He's a doctor, money isn't a big deal, so it seems like he just wants his pee pole on the market. Unbelievable. Kevin's the infomercial guy, which means we are going to see Uro Club commercials at 3am in our near future.

Brian and Adam have a college recruitment business that works as an online database for college athletes to market themselves to professional teams. They're offering 10% of the business for $150k

They have 30 different schools and 60k students signed up. They've got $150k in contracts at this point. He thinks he can take it to $2 million with the Sharks help. They know all the complex rules and regulations for dealing with college athletes and they have the business plugged into a mobile app. Most coaches are using their phones for recruitment so this is a huge plus.

Kevin thinks this is too complicated, Damon and Barbara do as well. This leaves it to Robert and Kevin.

These are very smart guys, they have multiple business and accounting degrees. Kevin and Robert are in a bidding war now. Robert is pissed at Kevin for driving up the price. Robert offered $200k for 20%, Kevin offered $300k for 35%. Robert asks the entrepreneurs to leave so he can discuss with Kevin.

Kevin asks Robert if he's threatening him. Ohhhhhh damnnnn. Robert tells Kevin, why not $400 for 50%. They split it for 200k each. Kevin likes this idea. They bring the entrepreneurs back.

Robert goes into his pitch. He tells them they're gonna offer $400k and it's for 50%

The entrepreneurs don't want all that cash because they want equity to use later. They want to go back to $200k but the sharks want to know how much that gets them. The entrepreneurs offer 16%. Not enough for the sharks. They really want 50% and are willing to give them that $400k. The entrepreneurs aren't budging. Whoa, Kevin just went to $600k for 50%!

Off to commercial. Do you think that Kevin's offer is good? Should they take it?

We are back and the entrepreneurs have a big decision to make. $600k for 50%. The entrepreneurs are only wiling to give up 50% if Kevin and Robert are both in and it's for $750k. The other option the entrepreneurs offer is 300k for 25%

Kevin is sticking to $600k for 50%. Will they take the offer??

Robert tries to sell them the experience that he and Kevin bring to the table. He tells these guys he can make them very, very rich.

They accept!

See kids...the economy isn't that bad. They're practically giving money away on TV. Start getting your business plans ready for the next season of Shark Tank. Thanks for playing.

Is this probably the greatest small-town newspaper story about Cougars ever written, at least in the Northeastern Pennsylvania region? It is certainly a serious candidate for that honor.

After the laundry, housework and business chores are done, 39-year-old Katie Burnside sometimes will go out on the town to grab a bite to eat and have an adult beverage or two – either with her single girlfriends or her 27-year-old beau.

What sort of whore does that? But god has showered this story with even more blessings:

Burnside embraces the cougar lifestyle so much she's developed a Web site: www.wercougars.com, set to launch soon, that will be an international online dating service.

"It'll be elegant," she said, noting the software program will make sure the grammar is proper and the pictures are tasteful.

WeRCougars.com: Your grammatically correct cougar dating site. This story exists in the real world!

"Cougar" should carry a classy connotation, she believes, noting everything on her Web site, from the logo to the content is "very elegant, clean-cut and classy."

It will outshine other dating sites out there, she said, noting she finds them "a little lower-end."

Don't mess with those other whore sites, she says sexily subtextually. Wercougars.com only.
[Actual photo caption in this story: "Katie Burnside by day is a serious professional, but that doesn't mean she can't have fun at night – in a still-wholesome way, she says." Wonderful!]

Elsewhere in cougar journalism, SFGate has a long first-person narrative about attending the Cougar Convention. "This was a Cougar Convention, not a Mensa Convention. A—holes abounded." The rest is superfluous.

Are there "Cougars" in your small town? Find out!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.In January, one media entrepreneur got an idea so crazy it just might work: Why not start a publication called "The Printed Blog," consisting of various blog posts from around the internet that you print out and distribute like a newspaper? Alas, now The Printed Blog is folding, just like we said it would, because it was a terribly backwards idea, business-wise. But points for trying. "It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all." We should keep that in mind!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Mayor Mike has announced formal initiatives to save the media industry, right here in the Big Apple! The most interesting: 20 "fellowships" (that means money!) for tech or media entrepreneurs. Such as yourself, if you have an idea! Apply while they're hot.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The Washington Post is still engaged in hand-wringing and self-flagellation over that fucked up memo about selling access to lobbyists. They have launched an "internal review," which is the type of typical thing that media companies do after all the facts have already come out. This has also forced The Atlantic to explain why its own 90% identical program is okay.

News of the newspapers, to-day: The NYT Co. postponed its deadline for accepting bids for the Boston Globe, perhaps in hopes of getting an actual good big; in positive NYT Co. news, "The New York Times announced today it has launched its international weekly news supplement in La Razón in Bolivia"; and, in your Crushing Numerical Reminder of the Dying Nature of the Newspaper Industry of the day, "Profits fell 100.1% since 2004 at newspapers with circulation greater than 80,000." That is more than 100%.

Enterprising Americans are selling pre-orders of the 1-21-09 issue of the New York Times on Ebay. And at least one patriotic entrepreneur will make sure you get yours [Young Manhattanite], if you buy now for $40!

IN THIS LOT YOU WILL 100% SURE GET A NEW YORK TIMES COPY OF OBAMA ENOGORATION !! THIS PAPER IS SURE TO BE A GREAT EDITION TO ANYONES COLLECTION. THE PAPER WILL BE SHIPPED 1-22-09 , IT WILL COME WITH A TRACKING NUMBER AND BE MAILED IN A FLAT MAILER . HURRY ONLY A LIMITED AMOUNT AVAIABLE. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE ASK ME ; THANKS AND ENJOY

No bids on that one yet, and several others are still waiting for their first 99 cent bid. Obviously people have learned from the graph of the Obama election day issue Ebay prices:

The mere fact that Arianna's liberal political junkie site got that money in the first place was astounding. First, because the overall economy sucks, and investment in general is scarce. Second, because investment in media companies of any type is even more scarce. And finally, because it was just common sense that HuffPo's traffic would rise to an artificially high peak during campaign season, and then head back downhill.

Which is exactly what's happening! You can see by this graph that their weekly page views starting ticking up significantly by September, and topped 90 million by election day. Today—a month later—they're back down in the 40 million range.

Now, perhaps HuffPo figures that, hey, just this past summer they were averaging in the 20-millions, so if they can keep their average moving forward around 40, that's 100% improvement. The question is, to what extend did her investors factor this post-election plunge—and the shitty advertising trends—into their projections? We assume they saw this coming, and still invested anyhow, for some reason! Or else they fell prey to deadly optimism.

Arianna Huffington, you are one impressive internet market-timer. We salute you.
[Graph: Quantcast]

It's not like the man has to start something new. His own news site, Breitbart.com, does huge traffic because it's where all of Drudge's wire report items link to. He also has a video site, and he worked on the launch of the now-successful Huffington Post (though he's since divested—he's a true conservative believer).

Breitbart works the afternoon shift at the Drudge Report. The two have remarkably seamless editorial styles, though some feel Breitbart has a lighter touch. More importantly, while Matt Drudge himself rarely speaks to the press or flits about in public settings, Breitbart is actually popular, and even a bit of a real-life schmoozer:

Before we left [a party at the Republican convention], the pundit Jonah Goldberg accused him of being the most popular guy in the room.

At the National Journal party, publisher David Bradley was delighted to finally put a face to the name. “That’s Andrew Breitbart?” he exclaimed. Walking into the Weekly Standard party, a friend from L.A. greeted him. “Have you had a chance to take a shower yet?” joked Steve McEveety, who is Mel Gibson’s producing partner.

Okay big shot! Breitbart is truly Dr. Jekyll to Drudge's Mr. Hyde. And a good man to know. We plan to get a good deal of comedy value out of his new venture.

[NYO]

BBTV's announced show lineup so far includes hip hop video and interview shows with only "appropriate" music included; a comedy show; a kids' show called Gee Gee the Giraffe; a bilingual soap opera; a cooking show; a financial literacy show; a "behind-the-scenes" celebrity show; family-friendly black movies; and profiles of historical black figures.

If you've spent much time watching BET, the lineup sounds awfully familiar. BBTV is essentially saying that it will be what everyone hoped BET would be before it degenerated into lots of infomercials, Juice reruns, and endless repetitions of, um, Master P videos. (Although BET has made a bit of a comeback with original programming recently, it hasn't been enough to resurrect its reputation for embracing stereotypical lowest-common-denominator black programming).

So yes, the irony of Master P running a positive network is not lost on anyone. But give the man some credit. He went from selling tapes of his terrible music out of car trunks to running a business conglomerate that probably makes him worth more the Puff Daddy, his more glamorous NYC counterpart.

BET has long had the "black cable network" idea to itself, which allowed it to get away with selling such crappy programming for so long. So P, we salute your business sense and your commitment to positivity, if not any of your 15 albums or your son's equally grating music. Master P could easily be the next black billionaire; he just needs to remember not to go so heavy on the music censorship that he blocks exposure for the next coming of himself.

Uhhhhhhhh.

On the one hand, a childhood pal — Russell's mom was reportedly best friends with Levy's mom — can do far worse than guiding one to tens of millions of dollars in wealth. And Pilot Group did more than passively watch its investment grow. From what we hear, Pittman's salesmanship was key to growing Daily Candy's advertising base. Such involvement would be in keeping with Pilot Group's focus on taking a "control position" in its investments. After the investment firm acquired Daily Candy, the newsletter's subscriber count grew tenfold to 2.5 million.

But not everyone buys that version of events. Said the tipster, an AOL veteran who followed Daily Candy closely:

For Pittman to brag that subscribers have increased since he made

the investment is just private equity puffery and delusion. That

would be like my grandmother taking credit for the business success of

the stocks she owns.

Perhaps Russell's help was not so selfless. As our source notes, Russell's advice on the deal would have been "highly conflicted," Russell having worked for Pittman for several months before the Daily Candy investment closed in late 2003.

His line to other potential portfolio

companies and strategic partners is that through his friendship with

Dany, HE was responsible for the early success of Daily Candy as a

startup, so he didn't feel compunction about duping the original

shareholders... Whatever the case, Pittman was not a genius to have his

junior guy abuse a family friendship in a predatory deal.

Let this be a lesson to startup founders who are not yet sufficiently cautions about venture capital investment, or who spend too much time worrying about whether their fameball girlfriends really truly love them for the right reasons: If you're not careful, you might have to settle for a paltry $25 mil when the big payday comes. After taxes, you'll barely be able to afford a decent loft!

A year ago, the boa-sporting Touby sold Mediabistro.com for $23 million. But lots of other people had smaller stakes in that company, so Touby walked off with a significantly smaller amount of cash than the total purchase price. She can't even afford to move out of her sixth-floor walkup! Meanwhile, Levy can now afford to buy as many Daily Candy-endorsed trinkets as she wants, forever until the end of time and beyond.

Still, Touby and Levy are the two most cash-rich media-centric internet entrepreneurs NYC has thus far produced. And they're both women! Is that notable? Not yet, but if Arianna Huffington decides to sell the HuffingtonPost for an ungodly sum and turn Republican again, it will make three, and an official trend. Until that time it means nothing.

[More about Levy's privileged family background at CityFile]

WSJ: Tell me about your lucky red backpack, which you wore to your first Spanx sales meeting at Neiman Marcus.

Ms. Blakely: It's just an old-fashioned Eastpack from the early 1990s. When I first cold-called Neiman Marcus to sell Spanx, my friends all begged me not to bring it and to buy a Prada bag instead, even if I had to return it the next day. It's my lucky bag, although I think seeing my butt [in Spanx] actually worked more than the backpack. I had no shame — I took the Neiman Marcus buyer into the bathroom, and as soon as I came out of the stall and she saw my pants [with the Spanx underneath], she said, I'll buy 3,000 pairs.

Remember: Always. Be. Closing. By using your butt.

WSJ: Ms. Paltrow is actually one of many actresses who has praised Spanx. Did you have a moment when you knew you had "arrived"?

Ms. Blakely: Actually, it would have to be when Gwyneth told the press she attributed her post-baby body [after the birth of daughter Apple] to Spanx, and said that all the celebrities wear them two pair at a time on the red carpet.

This is simply misguided. You want something even better than Spanx? Try THIS on for size, Gwyneth:

[WSJ. I am aware that nobody cares about my opinion on "Spanx."]

[It's a] community service site with videos of athletic women like Jackie Joyner-Kersee or Florence Griffith Joyner. But it is also a technology site. It was one of the very first sites with high-definition video being distributed on the Internet. As people used that site, we saw how well it ran on different machines. We looked at the algorithms. WOA TV was a complete test bed for us and a cool site for something that wasn't covered enough, like women in sports.

Most heterosexual men would just troll YouTube for clips of sporty women. Perlman? He started an entire company around the concept of female bodies in motion, and developed an elaborate creation myth for it. If he can persuade the likes of Takahashi that his collection of videos of women running in spandex is a massive technological step forward as well as a politically correct celebration of female athleticism, he can sell anything to anyone.

Entrepreneurs, like everybody else, hate uncontrollable risks, but on the other hand, they're overconfident in their own abilities — they think they can control their abilities in a random drawing of people. It's like the Lake Wobegon effect in assessing their position among peers. They think they're above the average.

Basically, entrepreneurs are irrationally arrogant. Really. They're not risk-takers, they just think they're better than you. And then they make enough money that they ARE better than you.

Hate your boss yet?

Ego Makes Entrepreneurs? [BusinessWeek]