Why Apple's 'Shark Tank' For Apps Reality Show Is A 1000 Times Better For Startup Entrepreneurs

Apple is known for taking something boring and mediocre and making it remarkable, from MP3 players to retail stores, personal computers to smartphones, and they have done it again, this time it's reality TV.

Whether you are an entrepreneur building a startup or someone who is involved in the startup world, you most likely shrug your shoulders every time you're watching an episode of Shark Tank, mainly because you can't relate to whatever is happening on screen, and you know that real life in the startup world is nothing like what goes on the show. Thanks to Apple that has just changed forever.

What is Planet of The Apps?

Planet of The Apps is a 50-minute show featuring software developers who "pitch" their ideas for new apps to celebrity advisors: Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrow, Will.i.am and Gary Vaynerchuk. The show is hosted by Zane Lowe.

The winners have a shot at getting a share of $10 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners (an early investor in Snapchat), as well as premium placement on the front page of Apple's App Store.

App makers have 60 seconds to pitch their idea in front of the advisors on a slow-moving escalator. The advisors then have to vote on whether they want to hear the idea in more detail, after which they vote on whether or not they would like to mentor the company for a chance to gain funding at the end of the show.

You can watch the first episode here.

New episodes of Planet of the Apps will be released on Tuesdays, and the first series is set to be 10 episodes long.

What Makes Shark Tank Bad & Planet of The Apps Great?

While Shark Tank may be good TV for some, for startup entrepreneurs it fails where Planet of The Apps is a home run.

Reality - Shark Tank is not real, Planet of The Apps is

Is Shark Tank dramatic; yes, entertaining: maybe, general and all over the place; for sure, but not real, in fact, Forbes found that only 27% of the deals made on Shark Tank stayed the same while 43% fell apart.

Real life startup pitches to investors and VC's are very different in format and delivery than what takes place on Shark Tank, they are highly focused, and most importantly the feedback is real, meaningful and highly useful for the entrepreneur.

Planet of The Apps, nails this one perfectly. Entrepreneurs start with a 60 seconds pitch and if their app is not supported by one Advisor at least we don't end up listening to a ridiculous pitch for 15 minutes. Investors are incredibly busy people looking for a great deal and if you do not capture their attention in your 60 seconds pitch they will not give you more of their time.

Depth - Shark Tank is shallow, Planet of The Apps is deep

When entrepreneurs on Planet of the Apps are given the chance to go beyond the 60 seconds pitch, the advisors ask hard questions, going deep on how things work and challenging the entrepreneurs on what doesn't make sense.

On Shark Tank the sharks make fun of the entrepreneurs, their ideas and their mistakes, it may be fun TV material but a shallow experience that doesn't cover what the entrepreneurs could've done or where they fell short.

Entrepreneurs on Planet of The Apps pitch to "advisors" who are selecting the team they are willing to mentor for the investor pitch. The Advisors are highly influential celebrity entrepreneurs that have built tech businesses, they are respectful of each other, have deep knowledge and understanding of what it takes to win a pitch and build a tech business.

Once the mentors take the entrepreneurs on, they work closely with them to help them identify the opportunities, deal with the challenges, pivot and prepare for the pitch.

Finally, we get an insight to an actual investor pitch and how these investors ask the hard questions and put the startup and the entrepreneurs work and claims to the test.

Value - Shark Tank is Entertainment, Planet of The Apps is Edutainment

The journey that startups go through from inception to product/market fit (the holy grail of startups) then growth, it hard, full of challenges and highly emotional. Unfortunately, much of the stories in the media misrepresent entrepreneurial success and create false expectations for startups and entrepreneurs. Shark Tank does more damage by adding to the falsehood, focusing on entertainment, and selling itself short when it comes to the opportunity to educate millions of viewers on the realities and true opportunities of entrepreneurship.

At Launch Academy we find it refreshing that Planet of The Apps is giving startups and entrepreneurs a truly authentic voice with it's carefully produced and highly entertaining content that educates viewers on a few of key aspects of what it really takes to launch, fund and grow a tech startup.

Through our work with over 1000 entrepreneurs and over 500 startups that have gone on to raise over $100 million, there are many times where we find ourselves telling entrepreneurs not to believe what they see on TV, referring to Shark Tank, it's great that we can finally stop doing that. Thank you Apple.

Would love to hear from you, your ideas, feedback, experience, and questions on this topic and this article. Please comment and share :)

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