Man on Shark Tank asked for $1 million to build machine that turned water into gold but got brutal response
Topics: Film and TV, Money
Niamh Spence
Featured Image Credit: ABC
Topics: Film and TV, Money
If you've ever watched Shark Tank, then no doubt you've seen at least one unhinged idea or business proposal from a hopeful entrepreneur.
Some are more memorable than others, like US businessman Mark Sullivan, who promised the Sharks a share of $96 billion in profit with his bizarre invention when he appeared on the TV show.
Complete with business drawings, Sullivan proposed a generator that would use a hurricane style wind force to create gold as a waste product.
Watch his pitch here:
Advert
In the third series of the show, Sullivan approached the business panel and asked for a $1million investment for 10% equity to help him get his gold-making venture off the ground in just nine months.
He claimed that 200 of the generators he was pitching could generate an income of $96 billion from gold, and yet he still didn't get any buy-in from the Sharks.
In his pitch to the Sharks, who sat in disbelief with the shock on their faces evident, Sullivan explained how his huge generators will pull in massive amounts of ocean water to create contained hurricanes for electricity production.
Yet, the most interesting part isn't the electricity, as Sullivan then explains how the 'waste product' of the process is gold -and how he believes he can collect bars and bars of gold that can be sold for profit.
His plans for a 100ft generator that could essentially house a mini-hurricane and convert 1 cubic metre of water into gold sounded so outrageous that he didn't receive any of the $1m he was looking for.
While the Sharks were left pretty stunned by Sullivan and his gold pitch, the proposal has gone down in TV history as one of the most memorable on the show.
Sullivan first appeared in 2012, but over ten years later, the internet is still talking about his pitch.
On Reddit, those praising his unique pitch discussed his appearance in season three as they highlighted how funny the reactions of the Sharks were. One person wrote: "Everyone’s faces in this episode just KILL me."
"The Sullivan generator. That s*** was hilarious," said another.
Other memorable pitches from the TV show include an idea to surgically implant Bluetooth devices into people's ears, a bird feeder that would deliver shocks to squirrels if they tried to touch it, and a motorcycle movie that had no actors, stars or plans to ever be made.
Another absurd idea that never quite made it off the ground was from the first series, where a woman proposed the idea of 'a sticky note strip' - which quite literally was a sticky note holder that can attach to your laptop and fold inside when you close the laptop.
Whilst she tried her best to get the Sharks to offer the $1million investment she was looking for, she seemed to have forgotten that you can just write notes on your laptop rather than using a sticky note...