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YouTuber Gaurav Taneja, aka Flying Beast, unsuccessfully pitched his protein supplements brand Beast Life on the fourth season of Shark Tank India. He was accused of using the platform for free publicity, which he later admitted to. Anupam Mittal was particularly ruthless in his feedback, and said that he doesn’t consider Gaurav to be a real entrepreneur at all. Gaurav, who has over nine million subscribers on YouTube, walked away without a deal. In his latest vlog, however, he revealed that Beast Life has now hit an ‘annual recurring revenue’ of Rs 100 crore. In the vlog, he documented an office party, where his co-founder thanked the team for their efforts.
Previously, in a chat with Ayushman Pandita on YouTube, Gaurav’s co-founder admitted that he was the one who pushed for the Shark Tank appearance. “‘Thodi free ki marketing milegi, paise mil jayenge toh aur achi baat hai‘ so I pushed Gaurav,” he said. In a chat with Think School Hindi, Gaurav reflected on his Shark Tank experience, and said, “They told me, ‘You aren’t shutting down Flying Beast (his social media channel)?’ and I was like, ‘What a foolish suggestion’. They are asking me shut down the platform that gave me an identity and is going to be my primary point of sales. We got a kickstart and we had an advantage, but the rest of the journey has been same as them. We didn’t get anything on a plate, I have also had sleepless nights and built this distribution. I would get up at 4am and take flights.”
On the Shark Tank episode, Anupam Mittal had called Gaurav a ‘terrible entrepreneur’. He said, “When I started, I was a lot like you. I thought of myself as a star, but when you think of yourself as a star, you think you’re infallible. you cant allocate time in startups, you have to be there all the time… It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I trust in Indian entrepreneurship, and they have so much energy, so much passion, they won’t let a part-timer like you win. That’s the reason I’m out.”
At an event where he shared the stage with Shark Tank judge Azhar Iqubal, Gaurav joked that he didn’t learn much on Shark Tank India while he praised his fellow panelist Azhar Iqubal who is a judge on the show. Gaurav joked that generally, he learns from every experience in life. “But wahan jaake kuch nahi seekha,” he said, as the crowd laughed. On the show, Gaurav and his co-founder asked the ‘sharks’ for Rs 1 crore in exchange of 1% equity, valuing their company at Rs 100 crore.
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