- I got half a million dollars on Shark Tank.
And this is that story.
This was definitely the most intense day of my life.
But to explain how I got here,
I need to back up a bit.
I was not the type of kid who was into computers.
They were for boys.
I thought that video games were
for my brother and not for me.
I had applied to a bunch of colleges.
One of the ones I got into was an engineering school,
and when I visited, I met the most amazing women.
There were probably only twenty percent
of the class that were actually female,
but every single one of them was
the smartest, coolest girl I'd ever met.
And I wanted them all to be my best friends.
After college, I decided to get a job as a programmer.
I kept looking around
and seeing all these rooms full of men.
There were 50 people in the office
and two of us were women.
I wondered where all the women were.
How did half of the population of the world
get socialized against learning about technology
and learning about computer science?
Like why didn't anyone tell me
when I was a little kid how awesome
programming was going to be.
I really hoped that I could
find a way to fix this problem.
I saw that programming was the
most important skill of the 21st century,
but I also saw how the syntax
and the technical difficulties
were turning people away.
I realized that maybe it could be
something that was more visual,
more touch-based, so that any kid
could learn the joys and creativity of programming.
So in 2013, we launched Hopscotch.
We started to build this community of kids
coding and learning from each other
and the games they made were so creative and interesting.
And we immediately started growing.
All the press wanted to write about us,
more and more users signed up,
and it was an amazing feeling.
I was being put on 30 Under 30 lists,
my co-founder was listed as one
of Fast Company's most creative people,
someone wrote a Wikipedia page about me.
We were just flying on top of the world.
But then the media died down.
As great as all the attention was,
the app was free and we didn't have any revenue.
So we started selling subscriptions
and spent four years building Hopscotch
into a profitable business, but just barely.
We were kind of breaking even,
worried that we're just going to slowly die
out of business or, you know, kind of stay steady
for the rest of time and never actually achieve our goals.
We only had a team of five, we were really small.
To get to the next level,
we would have to raise more money
but we didn't have the numbers to do that.
And that's when I got a LinkedIn message
from a Shark Tank producer asking me
if I would be interested in being on the show.
I realized that was my ticket out
to start growing the company,
get more investment and start building
the product that we knew Hopscotch could be.
I had a call with the casting producer.
His job was just to look for cool companies
that he thought might be good on Shark Tank,
and he thought that ours might be a good fit.
But I wasn't automatically on Shark Tank after that.
I still had to submit an audition video.
So I made the video with my computer on my bookshelf
in my tiny little bedroom in Brooklyn
just doing take after take after take
of me trying to pitch Hopscotch.
I submitted the video.
To my surprise, I was chosen to get to the next round,
which was not to actually be on Shark Tank
but to start putting together a pitch
in case they chose me to be on Shark Tank.
That actually lasted basically the whole summer.
The producers helped me out with
making sure my pitch would be good for TV
but I never knew whether I would
actually be on the show.
And then finally got the call
that I was chosen to film an episode of Shark Tank.
So I called up all my friends to do a video call with me
and hear my pitch and then ask me questions
as if they were the sharks.
It was so painful.
I just stuttered over myself.
I was awful for the, probably the first, like,
five days of doing this.
So I had no idea how real Shark Tank
would actually be and how they would edit it,
or whether being on the show would feel the same
as watching myself on it later.
The day that we filmed,
I was in a waiting room with three other companies
who were also pitching on Shark Tank the same day.
We all got together and started doing our pitches
for each other, which was pretty funny.
It was really fun to see everyone else's pitches.
And then finally it was my turn to film.
I was so nervous before the show started.
I didn't know what would happen,
you haven't not fallen on your face yet
and I felt like I was going to, like,
fly out of my skin.
So, I pitched to the sharks in the tank
and then I gave them iPads to try Hopscotch.
They were making drawings,
they were showing me what they made.
It was really cool.
So, Damon, you know, I thought we could connect
on our last names and we did,
but then he was out.
He didn't like the space.
So next was Lori.
I thought we were going to connect
because she's very supportive of women.
She liked my energy, but she was out.
She said she didn't think she could
help out our business.
Then Kevin, I had very high hopes for
because I knew that he had been in the ad tech space
and he had started Reader Rabbit and Oregon Trail,
but it turned out he had vowed to himself
he would never go back.
So he was out.
Then there was Barbara.
She said, you look scared, are you scared?
And I was so pissed that she said that.
I was trying very hard not to look young
and not look like a scared girl,
but I turned it around
and I said, of course I'm scared.
Anyone would be scared to make a big pivot
on their business and to mess with something
that's working to go for something bigger,
but I still know it's the right thing to do.
And I think I earned her respect there,
but she was out.
(laughs)
And then, finally, there was only Mark left.
Mark had been the shark that I wanted the most.
He cares about coding,
he's been in videos for code.org,
he has a nonprofit about coding,
and during the pitch, he told me, I look up to you.
My kids have used Hopscotch,
thank you for everything you've done
which was such an amazing moment.
But also, you know, he kind of said it in a way
like you're amazing, you know, in the way that someone
like before they break up with you or
before they tell you bad news,
tells you all the nice things,
but he did give me an offer.
He said, I'm making an offer
and you're not going to like it,
which I did not like it.
He gave me a quarter of the
valuation that I had asked for.
I asked for $400,000 for 4% equity,
he offered 16% equity.
And that was the one part I didn't prepare for.
I didn't actually practice negotiations
because I think in my mind,
I didn't really expect to get a deal
or maybe I thought that if I did get a deal,
they would just give me exactly what I asked for.
I actually majored in math in college
and it turns out I forgot it all
because I could not calculate,
for the life of me, during that negotiation.
I countered with $600,000 for 4%,
which was a higher valuation
than I had originally asked for.
I just completely flubbed the numbers.
He looked at me and he was like, no, I can't do that.
So I was about to walk away.
And then I realized I had gotten the math wrong
and I stopped myself and I said,
oh my gosh, I got the math wrong,
which of course made it on TV.
I asked if I could do $600,000
for 10% of the company.
And then Mark countered with $500,000 for 11%.
And then I countered finally with $550,000 for 11%
Mark looked at me and he said, you have a deal.
And it was great.
Since Shark Tank aired, Mark is now an investor
and I send him updates once a week.
He's one of the most involved investors I've ever had.
He always replies to emails,
he's always sending me new ideas for Hopscotch.
He's so great and I'm so grateful
to have him on my team.
We got 500% increase in users afterwards.
It's been a really wild ride
and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
(orchestral music plays)