Getting a deal with a "Shark Tank" investor can be an opportunity of a lifetime, but the flood of attention that comes after an episode premieres serves as a test for whether entrepreneurs can perform under pressure.
Through eight seasons of the series, Barbara Corcoran has assembled a portfolio of small businesses, and she's made the founders of her highest-performing into a kind of family.
For the past four years, Corcoran has assembled a group of her most profitable entrepreneurs, along with the most promising founders from the most recent season of the show, for a three-day retreat at one of her homes. The group changes each year.
During this time, they all share best practices, give updates on successes and failures of the past year, and get to know each other better.
She brought the founders of five companies to New York City this June, ending the retreat at a New York Yankees game. The founders, with custom "Barbara's All-Stars" Yankees shirts, got to enjoy the game from a box suite overlooking home plate.
We met up with them and asked them to share their best advice to fellow entrepreneurs.
SEE ALSO: Barbara Corcoran's favorite 'Shark Tank' entrepreneurs share the best advice she's given them
Sometimes you need to take a breath and slow down.
The husband-and-wife team of Rick and Melissa Hinnant gave 10% of Grace and Lace to Corcoran in exchange for a $175,000 investment in Season 5, in late 2013. The women's apparel company has made $25 million in total sales since its appearance on "Shark Tank," and the Hinnants expect sales to be over $10 million this year, at a profit.
Melissa is the visionary behind Grace and Lace, and while it's her first business, Rick is a serial entrepreneur and has been able to lend his experience.
He said that the advice he most often gives is to remember building a company is a "process," and that success doesn't happen in an instant.
"I think so many people can get in and try to hurry the process and try to not make mistakes, and that is an enormous mistake," he said. Trying to be a perfectionist, or doing too many things at once, "stifles the business."
He said that trying to do too much too soon often leads to taking unnecessarily large risks that can sink the whole business. "Take the little baby steps, learn along the way, and you'll be good to go," he said.
You can't beat yourself up.
Sisters Shelly Hyde and Kara Haught made a deal with Corcoran last year, in Season 8. Corcoran gave them $100,000 to become an equal business partner, with a full 50% equity in their women's swimwear business Raising Wild. They've sold $400,000 of products since their segment aired last October.
As the rookies of Corcoran's all-stars, they're fairly new entrepreneurs themselves. But they said that they've realized they need to remain confident and not be hard on themselves.
"Even coming here is so intimidating," Hyde said, referring to the retreat with more seasoned founders, but adding that she and Haught don't let themselves get crippled by fear.
"As an early stage entrepreneur you've got to stay confident and really define what you're doing this for," Haught said.
"It's remembering that there's a purpose behind it. And not forgetting that you had a problem and you're trying to solve it. So you just have to keep on going."
It's important to maintain an open mind in order to grow.
Kim Nelson is the veteran of Corcoran's all-stars, having made a deal with her in Season 2, back in 2010. Corcoran invested $50,000 for 25% equity in Daisy Cakes, and the South Carolina-based online cake company grew rapidly. Last year it brought in $5.2 million in revenue, at a profit.
Nelson said her best advice is to keep an open mind. Corcoran warns her entrepreneurs of, as her fellow Shark Mark Cuban puts it, "drowning in opportunity," so that they do not lose focus of what their company's strengths are — but Nelson said it's important to balance that with careful risk taking or even personal growth.
She recently jumped on an opportunity to take public speaking lessons, for example, and said "the list is a mile long" of similar decisions that opened doors to more opportunities.
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