It’s the Kaun Banega Crorepati of the 2020s. Only there is no lifeline or helpline here. And no right or wrong answer. Just seven Sharks, dressed in sharp clothes, arrayed in a semi-circle, judging the ideas of the wannabe entrepreneurs for their worth. Either you win a cheque and they invest in your idea or you’re out, usually with a bruised ear from controversial BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover’s ranting.
Since it started being aired on Sony TV in December 2021, it has become a talking point, a conversation starter, a water cooler subject. The Sharks are everywhere, on social media memes, on Kapil Sharma’s comedy show, even on an Amul Butter hoarding. One of the Sharks, Anupam Mittal, founder of Shaadi.com, says it is less of a TV show and more of a revolution.
Each has a distinct personality — Mittal is the sensible judge, Grover is brash, Lenskart co-founder Peyush Bansal and boAt founder Aman Gupta are the guys next door, Namita Thapar of Emcure Pharma (described as an ice-cream by Kapil Sharma), Vineeta Singh of SUGAR Cosmetics and Ghazal Alagh of MamaEarth are the women of style and substance.
The products and services it showcases vary from the utterly useless, a drinking shield for a glass, to the bizarre, a food service with 80 varieties of Maggi, to the even more bizarre, a belly button shaper from a Nagpur couple, which the judges rightly called a solution looking for a problem. But not everything is so outrageous — a trio looking for investment to upgrade a service for the elderly and a team looking for money to be put in smart helmets. And even when it is outrageous, it can be useful, such as male intimate hygiene products for which the Maloo sisters from Ahmedabad got funded.
What makes them so popular? Well, apart from the humour, the drama, the Indian Idol-like back stories, they’ve caught the zeitgeist of a nation that has been bitten by the startup bug. Through a concerted attempt by the government and the energies of a new generation of entrepreneurs unafraid of risk-taking, Shark Tank India has tapped into the New Indian Dream. Float an idea anywhere in the country, use technology to enable its market, and find takers from Mumbai to Manhattan. If Kaun Banega Crorepati celebrated the power of knowledge at the cusp of the millennium, Shark Tank acknowledges the entrepreneurial dream; the idea of generating jobs, not asking for one; the potential of being one’s own boss; and the self-confidence of demanding one’s worth.
It has also busted several myths. Deepshikha Kumar, founder of Speakin, a network of thought leaders, says the startup culture is usually perceived to be youthful and male-dominated. The reality is that there are millions of women-led startups in the country which have been designated as hobbies, whether it is ladoo-making (immortalised in the 2012 film English Vinglish by Sridevi’s inarticulate homemaker) or tailoring. The data from season one of the show indicates the reality of the startup world: of the 67 businesses that got deals in Shark Tank India this season, 59 (87 per cent) had founders with no IIT/IIM degrees; 45 (67 per cent) had at least one co-founder who was under-25; 40 (60 per cent) had never been funded; 29 (43 per cent) had at least one woman founder; and 20 (30 per cent) were from Bharat and rural India.
It also busts the idea that we are an inherently socialist country that is deeply suspicious of wealth. Entrepreneurship is now celebrated. Entrepreneurs are seen as value creators and game changers and are being recognised by children, mothers, fathers and families. Says Mittal: “Children are playing Shark Tank. It has become part of the zeitgeist. And this will result in the mindset getting cultivated among the young as it has become a living room conversation.”
Shark Tank India has also brought the reality of entrepreneurship in the country to the forefront. India has always been a country where entrepreneurship is present in every nook and cranny and every family has a side-hustle, but entrepreneurship at speed and scale is new to India. Also, there are two worlds when it comes to startups — one is the closed VC ecosystem and the privileged IIT/IIM founders for whom access is not an issue; and the other is the rest of Bharat.
Shark Tank India reflects a truer picture of the struggles and aspirations of the real India. As Mittal says: “We saw people from metro cities and villages, we saw families, sisters, husband and wife, in-laws coming together to build businesses to overcome their struggles and problems or simply to realise a dream.” Money plus emotion is an unbeatable combination. It’s the dream promised by Shah Rukh Khan in Yes Boss (1997): Saari daulat, saari taakat/Saari duniya par hukumat/Bas itna sa khwaab hai (All the money, all the power, and control over the world, that is the extent of my dream). It’s the middle class aspiration which was realised in the first wave of IT entrepreneurs of the 2000s, as well as in the Unicorns of 2020s.
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Udai Singh Pawar, who made the 2019 film Upstarts for Netflix, which dealt with the startup culture, says his research suggests Shark Tank India is a reasonably true version of the real world, except that it is not one event that changes your life, but usually a succession of them.
It has brought intelligence back to television. TV networks have realised that the millennial generation is driving consumption now and if they don’t change their content then they will be left behind. Currently millennials are in their 30s and are becoming the largest consumers and the Generation Z are in their 20s. Shark Tank appeals to these 30-somethings and 20-somethings whose idea of entertainment is limited to their phones and laptops, usually connected to one or more streaming platforms. They have an appetite for reality shows, but with a difference, whether it is Bigg Boss or the still-standing Kaun Banega Crorepati.
Give them a show that imparts advice on how to market your idea from people who’ve made it, and from people who want to make it, why would it not work in a nation of more than a billion hungry hearts and ignited minds.
The author is a senior journalist and former editor of India Today magazine. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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