A successful entrepreneur returns for a Shark Tank follow-up. Dive into this exclusive interview with Julie Goldman, the tenacious founder of The Original Runner Company. Julie holds nothing back, revealing the shocking reality of her contentious on-air battles with the Sharks over business margins and the struggle of being a woman entrepreneur in a male-dominated world.

We go behind the scenes of her dramatic Beyond the Tank segment, including the surprise call and on-air deal offer from Barbara Corcoran. Was Barbara’s apology genuine? Was the deal real? Julie shares the truth about being manipulated by producers and the “reality show” arc that led to a deal that never materialized.

Beyond the TV drama, this episode is loaded with golden nuggets of expert advice on how to build a sellable business—from the importance of having working capital and knowing when to pivot to wholesale, to the crucial mistakes of client concentration and working in your business instead of on it. If you’re an entrepreneur, this is a must-read for expert advice and the real truth of what it takes to succeed outside the tank.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Beyond The Tank: True Or False? The Reality Behind A Shark Tank Follow-Up With Julie Goldman

In this episode, we have a returning guest. We have Julie Goldman back for a second time because not only was she on Shark Tank, but she was on Beyond the Tank, which they used to do in the very first season. Welcome back to the show. Tell our readers real quick who you are and what your company is.

Introduction & Product Definition

I am Julie Goldman, and my company when on Shark Tank was The Original Runner Company. I invented the world’s first fabric non-slip aisle runners for weddings and special events.

As with the last episode, when she was on Shark Tank, we’re going to talk about Beyond the Tank, and it’s going to be loaded again with golden nuggets, lots of content. It’s like drinking through a fire hose, so make sure you take those notes. Make sure you go back and read it, and let’s make sure we share it with your network. All right, let’s go ahead and get started. It’s a pleasure to have you back on, Julie.

Thank you.

I’m really excited about this episode because we typically don’t have Beyond the Tank.

All right. Here we go.

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I’m Julie Goldman. I’m the Founder and CEO of The Original Runner Company, based in Montclair, New Jersey. I love how flat they are because brides can walk on them and they don’t drift. It’s amazing. The Original Runner Company handmakes the world’s only non-slip fabric aisle runners. We’re all about customization. Taking something that’s quite ordinary and making it beautiful.

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Julie, I was so impressed with your idea and your concept and how you came up with it that I was upset I didn’t use that when I got married in ’95.

Me too.

This is a brilliant idea. This just goes to show all of you entrepreneurs, just look at the problems that surround you. You don’t always have to make a better mousetrap. Sometimes you can start the mousetrap from scratch, and that’s exactly what Julie did.

Thank you.

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Margin Issues & Retail Strategy On Shark Tank

I was in season two of Shark Tank, and I went into the tank because I really was looking for a strategic partner that could help me grow the business. My very loyal wholesale and celebrity clientele has resulted in millions of dollars of my aisle runners being sold through my website alone. That’s going to change. We wanted to take the idea of taking our base fabric aisle runners and putting them into retail stores. This is going to cost me $25 to make. I’m going to sell it to the retail store for $37.50.

That’s not the correct margin.

The margin on it’s going to be 33% as the profit margin.

Not enough. You have to at least make a 60% margin on that.

Well, actually, it depends on the where you’re selling.

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Okay, so we’re doing a quick recap on the original Shark Tank. We’re talking about margins right now if Julie was to go into retail versus just selling online and selling to her vendors. Julie, I don’t want to get too far into it because you’re going to talk about this later. I think you did learn from the sharks a valuable lesson that those margins are too thin.

Absolutely. If someone has not looked into what it costs to get on a shelf at a chain brand in America, it’s extremely expensive. What they keep is insane. There was not a lot of money left on a table for me at all. It wasn’t profitably an idea, good idea.

This is how you have to make a decision, entrepreneurs. This is how sometimes you have to listen to others’ people’s not opinions, don’t listen to opinions. Others’ people’s advice based upon experience, facts, that they’ve actually done it before. Many of you entrepreneurs want to listen to everybody’s opinion, and everybody has one, just like everybody has a butt. People’s opinions are not that valuable. Expert advice is.

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Selling in a stores like large craft stores, that margin’s actually much lower. I went into the tank prepared as I possibly could be. Being prepared with those answers made me feel confident in my pitch.

I went into the Tank as prepared as possible. Having those answers ready made me feel confident in my pitch. Share on X

Is this proprietary? Something special about that one you want to make over there?

You can’t patent fabric, just like you couldn’t patent clothing and you made millions.

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Okay, I love that. I actually love that, but it’s important for an investor to ask if there’s any patents because the investor investor’s trying to mitigate their risk and making sure something can’t be copied, duplicated ripped off, etc. Even though they can rip off your idea and your concept even if you have a patent, it makes it harder for them to do so and harder for them to carry on. It is a good question for investors to ask. Julie knew her content, she knew her company inside out. She already tried, she knew she couldn’t get a patent.

Extensive Preparation For Shark Tank

I’m just going to add to that. Here’s the thing. Before I went on the show, in order to prepare for it, I was on the second season, so it wasn’t like I had a lot of things to see. I did go on youtube and I watched every single video of everyone who had been on at least a few times. I wrote down every single question that the Sharks asked them. I made sure I had an answer for everyone. That’s how I prepared. Just knowing how they asked. I knew that Damon tends to ask the patent question a lot. That was my prepared answer for him.

Yes, and I love what she just said. If you’re thinking about going on Shark Tank, listen to the advice of Julie. Go and watch the Shark Tanks, watch the episodes, watch the questions, listen to the questions they ask. They’re not always the same. Sometimes they’re very different. Be prepared. Also be prepared knowing your numbers and don’t overvalue your business because that’s the easiest way to not get a deal and get kicked off the tank. Kicked out of the tank.

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For other people, it made me come off a little arrogant. To me, it was knowing my business inside and out and making sure that I was presenting myself and my brand to my best of my ability.

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It was a little arrogant, but I like it and I would not tell you to take that out. I would not tell you if you were going to do Shark Tank again, to get rid of that because you were right back and said, “Well, you don’t have a patent and you made millions.” I would not take that part out. I think you can be direct, maybe a little softer, but you can be direct and you always should be direct.

Truth be told, as you probably know, they record far more people than they can actually show on the shows. The character I chose was this character. It’s a form of me, but I’m definitely not that rude to people’s faces. I would never say that to someone in a different situation. You have to know who you’re going to be when you go on the show as well, so that you can be a character people can either relate to or, quite frankly, hate one or the other. I think I had a little bit of both, which is fine.

Yes, because they’re not going to pick somebody, and you just made a very good point, Julie. There’s a bunch of people that they interview. They pick a few. It usually is, “Do you make for good TV? Do you have a good character? Are you entertaining? Do you know your stuff? Does it make for a train wreck?”

Even once they film, I have friends that got deals and never aired because it just wasn’t an interesting enough interaction. Getting a deal does not assure you of getting on the show either. It’s very interesting being there and just seeing how the process works.

That’s interesting. You’ve had friends that got a deal but never went on the tank, they never aired?

Many. I know of at least ten companies that that happened to, and really good ideas, too.

They’re not entertaining enough.

Also, the business was dry. One of them was about storage or something. There was nothing to show and it wasn’t juicy or whatever. I think that maybe it was a great idea but it didn’t it didn’t play for TV as much.

I think every concept and every business can play for TV. You just got to get way outside that box and think about what your sizzle is. Sell the sizzle and think about how you can demonstrate something that is very unique even when you got something plain.

People have different personalities and some people get really scared on TV. It’s just terrifying. It’s not for everybody. Shark Tank is not an easy thing. It’s very they make it stressful on purpose. You really have to know who you are when you go in there or you’re just going to trip over your words. It’s challenging.

I have a good friend of mine that has a food product. I’m not going to say what. Actually, a spice. I’m like, “You should go on Shark Tank with that.” “I’m a chef, that’s not me. That’s you. Why don’t you go on Shark Tank? And I’ll give you all the money from it.”

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How much would it cost me for my wedding?

This one here would be about $750. My margin on this is actually about 200%.

You’ve got a fantastic business that makes phenomenal margins. You’re capturing the high end. You want to go play in the toilet bowl wedding.

I would never consider any wedding to be a toilet bowl wedding, and I think my brides would be highly offended by that comment.

No, that’s not what he said.

What he’s saying is, you dominate a category.

If she can’t see that herself, and you know what? Why she can’t see it?

Enough. My gosh.

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I like it when Barbara says, “Enough,” because this is one of the only episodes, and I’ve watched so many of them, where they were so contentious and they were arguing with each other and talking over everybody.

I stood there for, honestly, like ten minutes while they did that and I was just like, “Okay.” It was crazy. It was really interesting.

The whole entire thing was over an hour filming-wise. It was over an hour easily.

They’re going to cut it down very short.

Yeah, to twelve minutes, I think.

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I think the reaction I got from the sharks was because I am passionate about what I do and maybe a little aggressive in defending it. Maybe I should have been more humble, but that is something I continually work on.

You’re missing the obvious, Julie. You want to have all these retailers taking responsibility for your products. They’re not going to sell it nearly as well as you can. I’m out.

Okay.

I can’t see the scaling into a large business. I’m out.

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One thing you said is, “Maybe I should have been a little bit more humble, maybe I should not have been as sarcastic.” Maybe it wouldn’t have aired if you weren’t.

Gender Disparity In The Tank

I don’t even believe what I said there, to be honest with you. If I was a man, none of this would even be an issue, how I behaved.

We’re going to talk about that later in the episode because that’s broad.

My point is, I didn’t feel this way. I’m I wasn’t embarrassed about how I behaved. I think if I’d gone into any real meeting with venture capitalists and went in and shook their hand and held my ground, I’d be respected. It’s just a show.

It’s just a show. We’re going to talk about that more, Julie, in a few minutes because it’s brought up.

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Two words, I’m out.

You know what? I don’t think you need anybody here. For that reason, I’m out.

I’m going to give you $250,000 for 51% of your business. That’s control.

Absolutely not.

Why?

I took an idea that didn’t exist, I made the world know it existed, I don’t need 51% of my business being taken by someone who doesn’t understand the wedding industry.

I took an idea that didn’t exist and made the world aware of it. I don’t need to give up 51% of my business to someone who doesn’t understand the wedding industry. Share on X

Turn around, get out of here.

I actually think that a male entrepreneur would never have had to deal with that. I’ve been on other appearances on television where I’ve had male hosts pat me on the head or call me kid, and that doesn’t happen to a male entrepreneur. It’s unfortunate, but true.

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It is true. It is very true. I’m in a man’s world, 98% dominated by men, the M&A industry, mergers and acquisitions and 98% are men. When I first got in, I was the only woman in a group of 3,000 men. It is a male-dominated group, and I agree with that. I like your attitude, I liked your assertiveness, I liked how you bounced right back and you never not had an answer. Again, if that was a man, it would probably be a very different outcome.

It would be. I’m particularly petite, which you can’t always tell on show, like I’m barely 5 foot. That alone is something that depreciates my perception how people perceive me. When I go to do a speech, for example, and I go out on stage and they push a little step for me to step up on and the whole audience laughs, it immediately demeans you before you even open your mouth. I can get that back because I try to be funny and I try to engage, but it has not been easy to be a petite woman in business, which I’ve been in business now for 30 years. It’s definitely not easy as it would be for a certain a different person.

No man or woman in this industry, in any industry, in the media space, interviewing you should pat you on the head. You’re not a dog. That’s just ridiculous. Would they ever pat a man on the head? I don’t think so. Would they ever treat a man as a shelf? No.

It’s more like he put his elbow on my head and leaned on my head like I was a shelf. That was and the other one patted me on the head. Yeah, that was

You’re not a dog. That’s just ridiculous.

They would never call a man “honey” or “sweetie,” but they do. These old chauvinists. “Honey” and “sweetie.”

It’s ridiculous.

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They would eat you up and spit you out without even thinking twice.

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That I actually believe. You would eat them up and spit them out.

Well, he said that after I walked out of the room. When the show aired, I saw that and I was like, “I love that.” It was pretty great.

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Very humbling when you leave the tank and you’ve pretty much walking out with your tail between your legs. It was disheartening to not have that strategic partner. I wish I’d maybe toed the line a little bit in the middle so that maybe I didn’t come off as aggressive, but I was just trying to be a woman who knows my business.

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It’s a rollercoaster. It’s an emotional rollercoaster going on Shark Tank. You get so hyped up and then you go for the interviews and you might get it, you might not get it. You go on the stage, you might get a deal, you don’t get a deal. You walk out of there with no deal, which is a complete emotional letdown. At the end of the day, when you see things progress forward, you’re like, “You know what? It’s good I didn’t get a deal.”

Yes. For me it was, absolutely. It was the right thing for my business. I’m glad.

All right, let’s see more. Home entrepreneur friends, this is where it gets interesting and exciting, so fasten your seatbelts right now.

I haven’t seen this in a long time. Here we go.

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After going on Shark Tank, we were approached by the largest craft chain in America to put our runners in their wedding department. After about six months of negotiations, the deal fell apart. Primarily, the margins were terrible. The percentages that they wanted to keep and the amount that they wanted to sell my product for just didn’t line up. Unfortunately, as much as I don’t want to admit it, those Sharks were right. The margins didn’t work for putting my product into retail.

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I see that as one of the biggest values on the Shark Tank. They do provide good, solid advice and solid advice that you can really make some quick corrections and grow your company. Now, they’re not always right. Nobody’s always right. There’s been times when I go, “That’s not true. Absolutely not, I don’t agree with that,” but for the most part, they do offer really good solid advice. I think that was good advice for you because the margins are too low and now they’re trying to sell your product and you’re the expert at your product. Agree?

Okay. Agreed.

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Since being in the tank, we’ve seen the business grow 20% every single year. I do think there is a limit to what one person can do. “The Original Runner Company, can I help you?” Although I have what I consider to be the best production team in the industry, on a day-to-day basis, I run The Original Runner Company by myself. We can put a border on it, we could glitter it, or we could crystal it. It’s really up to you.

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The Entrepreneur Trap: Having A Job Vs. A Business

Here’s the trap that you owners fall into. Now, she had a great product. She was first to market. She had a great brand, a great product, first to market, growing every year at 20%, which most people would think that’s incredible but she was the business. Don’t get upset when I say this, Julie. She had a glorified job that she worked for versus a business that actually worked for her.

If she was able to get out of there, focus on her strengths, which she has many, and hire her weaknesses, then she could have got out there and then she could have been great working on the business instead of in the business doing everything. When you’re doing everything like Julie did, you are going to have a very difficult time growing your company, selling your company, and you’re going to enter what I call burnout. Somebody can just operate at that speed doing everything for so long. Work on your business, create a business that works for you, not one that you work for. Go ahead, Julie.

I would say the reason that I find myself in that situation, I think a lot of entrepreneurs is, staffing. It’s just about hiring great people and getting them to stay and training and retention. I always had a great production team there, but salespeople come and go a lot. That was always challenging. I did have a great graphic artist.

I don’t even know what year this was, but after this, I moved to a bigger production facility and I hired out and by then we were 12 or 15 people. The last 10 years of my business, I had freedom that was not present in the first 8 years. It was really great. I loved it. I’m in the same situation now with my new business, just hard to hire.

It took Julie eight years to get there. I’m not picking on you, Julie. Most entrepreneurs, it takes them a good solid 5 to 10 years to get there. If we can figure out how to speed that up, that’s what makes a huge difference in the business. I always tell my clients, build your business with the exit in mind. Now, Julie’s right, it’s very difficult. Staffing is the number one problem in every single business. Every single industry, staffing is an issue. I never understood all these people saying they can’t find a job. That’s not true. There’s lots of jobs if you find them in sales, is the most difficult. You want to try to get there quicker than eight years. It’s not easy. I’m not saying it’s easy.

I’m sure Julie’s going to agree with this, even though she might not want to, but entrepreneurs, we are sometimes our worst enemy. I always say fish stinks from the head. Fish stinks from the head. We’re control freaks. We always say if we want it done right, do it ourselves. We really have to take stock of our inventory and ask ourselves. What are we best at? What’s number one? What’s our superpower? What’s our kryptonite? Hire your strengths, hire your weaknesses. That’s not an easy thing to do, but it has to be done, otherwise you have a job, not a business.

It’s ironic that you said exactly that, the hire your weakness thing. I am all for that. While this was all happening, I teach entrepreneurship at Fordham sometimes in New York City. When I do that, this is exactly what I teach. I say, “Get a piece of paper. One column is everything you do in your business that you love and you’re great at. The second column is everything you can do, but you don’t really love doing it, so it takes you a lot longer. Column three is you have no idea what you’re doing, so it takes you four days to do one thing.”

I’m like, “You give away everything in those right two columns. You hire people for it and you do column one.” I preach that every year I was teaching. It’s just really hard to get there. I’m hiring right now and people aren’t showing up for interviews. I do a phone interview and three people didn’t show up for interviews. That is just different than how we were raised, to be frank. It’s just a different world.

Julie, I thought that was just New Orleans, Louisiana. People not showing up.

It’s really different, though. It’s such an interesting respect level that is different in where we are in society right now. That’s sad. That makes it very hard to hire because people are just floating all the time. It’s challenging.

People can get mad at me for this, but that’s okay, get mad at me. That’s why I don’t have a whole lot of empathy for the unemployed because the unemployed don’t show up. The unemployed take a job, come a week and doesn’t come back. The unemployed, some of them don’t want to work. I’m not saying that’s all unemployed, but why is it so difficult for employers to find great, competent, quality people to work and all these people are out of work? It makes no sense.

I’d say it’s partly how the government rewards people for being out of work. When I have a job advertisement up, I get 50% of the resumes are not even 1% qualified, but they have to apply to a certain number of jobs to keep getting their unemployment benefits or whatever benefits they’re getting. It wastes an employer’s time, like a crazy amount. It’s just challenging. I can get 150 resumes and maybe 20 are good. It’s really tough. I think that’s part of it. People are not qualified often either and getting better education, figuring out what you want to do and then working towards that instead of just popping around. It’s challenging, though.

It is very challenging. I liked your list, what do you do, what are you good at, etc. I’m going to add something to that called “The Seats and the Whos.” You need to go through your organization and you need to identify all the seats in your company. Next to all the seats, you need to identify who handles each seat.

That could be going to the bank, accounting, quality control, answering the phone, sales. You need to look next to the who. The clue is if you’re the who next to every seat, you got a job, not a business. The goal is to put everybody else’s name next to the seat other than your own. You need to fill those seats with the whos that are not you. Let’s see what else is happening.

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I’m responsible for the cashflow, I’m responsible for inventory, I’m responsible for social media. You name it, it has my fingerprints on it. Being a one-man show does limit your ability to grow a business past a certain point. I think that’s why we’re still a small business.

Being a one-man show does limit your ability to grow a business beyond a certain point. Share on X

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Amen, sister. I know my entrepreneurs are reading this show going, “That’s me.”

I used to say all the time, there’s no way to have a million-dollar one-person business because you can’t grow a business to $1 million unless it sold, but that’s the whole idea. You can’t build a million-dollar business alone. You just can’t. It’s impossible. That’s why we need help, however it comes about.

One thing to consider, too I think a big thing to consider is you might not be able to find the right employees. Guess what? There’s outside sourcing. You can now get an interim CFO, you can get an interim CEO. You can get interim IT, you can get marketing. You can pretty much source everything out, which is a lot of what I’ve done.

You can stay in the USA or you can also go out virtual, which is a lot less expensive. We don’t have to rely on employees any anymore all the time. We can outsource this stuff because if employees are going to be making difficult for us to hire them, then I’m sorry, Mr. Employee, Mrs. Employee, we’re going outside and we’re going to get vendors and we’re going to go outside the USA.

My current business, Superfly, we just brought in an interim COO because I could not find someone. I was trying to hire a COO. I tried for two months, and I just needed someone in there, and this person had a month, and I was like, “Come on in,” and that’s going to change everything for me. It’s really what I needed, but to find it when I’ve identified my needs, my whos and my seats, and I know what I need. I’m literally hiring four jobs right now. Yeah, that that’s a full-time job in itself is hiring. You don’t have an HR department when you’re little still.

Outsource. Employees make it too difficult to hire them. Don’t focus on hiring employees anymore. Focus on hiring vendors. Usually vendors are much more qualified than employees anyway because they specialize in a certain niche. You want a marketing person, go get the best marketing company out there. You want a good IT person, go get the best IT. You want a good CFO, interim CFO, go get the best. Don’t worry about hiring employees anymore and dealing with the up and downs and everything else. Get yourself some vendors.

Yeah, I get that too.

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Thank you for calling The Original Runner Company. How may I help you?

Hi, Julie. It’s Barbara Corcoran. I’m sure you’re surprised, I know. It’s been a long time.

Hi, Barbara, how are you?

I’m doing fine. Ever since Shark Tank, every time I see weddings, I think of you. Usually when an entrepreneur leaves the set, they’re out of my mind right away if I haven’t invested in them. With Julie, she haunted me. She weathered the most vicious balls-out shark attack I’ve ever seen in the tank. I have a meeting near where your offices are tomorrow afternoon.

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The Reality Of Beyond The Tank

She did. Barbara recognized that. That’s great. We’ll talk about later as we continue to go on, real versus reality. As you’re watching this show, real or fake? That’s the question you want to ask when you watch this show. Fasten your seatbelts.

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I’d love to come by and just see how you’re doing, how the business is doing. Would you mind that?

A visit from you would be an honor.

I look forward to seeing you.

Fantastic. Thanks, Barbara. Have a great day.

You too.

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Were you surprised to get a call from Barbara Corcoran or did it even really happen that way?

No, I am not surprised. When we booked this, there was an alluding to that might be a shark might come. I was hoping for Robert or Mark, but because I have subsequently since the show had worked with them, so that would have been cool. The producer was in the room while all this was being filmed, and she was hanging out on the left. Previous to this conversation, my phone had rang and it was Barbara. The producer, I could tell at that point that it was a set-up of call. I knew she was calling.

The producer came first and said Barbara’s going to be calling you?

No. She wasn’t in my office all day, and suddenly the producer was sitting on the side of my desk doing her work. I was like, “Can you go sit with Michelle? What are you doing in here?” She’s like, “No. I hope you don’t mind.” I was like, “What’s going on?” she’s like, “Just answer the phone when it rings.” I’m like, “Okay.” I had a really good idea I didn’t know exactly what was happening, but yeah, I definitely knew.

Why was the producer there in the first place, though?

To make sure I followed the storyline that they had already laid out.

Okay, so you knew a producer was going to come in, you knew there was going to be some type of show, you just didn’t know the details.

I had done a couple of follow-ups already for the regular Shark Tank show, these little inputs that they do. It wasn’t surprising to do a follow-up, but I think this had a very different tone to it, and just the whole reason they were there wasn’t really to follow up with me. It was creating another show. It was definitely different. I knew once she said “Pick up the phone,” I think she might have said, “It’s going to be Barbara, pick up the phone.” and that’s how things ensued from there. I won’t say any more for now.

Let’s see what else is happening.

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I thought the only time I would ever speak to Barbara Corcoran was in the Shark Tank, so having her call me right now is about the coolest thing. I really look up to her and her business sense, so the idea that she might actually come visit my studio is so exciting. We’ve got a big job ahead of us. We just found out that Barbara Corcoran is coming tomorrow from Shark Tank. We have a lot to do. As there’s glitter everywhere, we got to bring out the best runners we can put on the table so she can see really everything that we can do. I’m truly excited to have someone of her caliber coming here and giving me some ideas of where we could grow and possibly how we could change things to propel ourselves forward a little bit more.

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Did the producer tell you to clean up?

No. I was just smiling because all those girls are married with kids now, it’s crazy. I haven’t seen them in a while, that’s nice.

You clean up on your own, which, my fellow entrepreneurs, preparation. You got to be prepared, you got to clean up.

We had already cleaned up, yeah. It was very clean. We liked to showcase our best stuff out on the tables and all that stuff.

Of course.

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I’m about as ready as I can be for Barbara Corcoran to come visit today. We cleaned until midnight last night and we made sure we knew our numbers. I just hope that she’s impressed as I wanted to be and that everything goes great.

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I just realized you wore the same color.

That day, we kept saying she looked like a banana because she’s so tall and thin and then she was wearing this color but made me laugh as we never use that door ever. It was not the front door. It’s just funny things.

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It’s great to see you. Thank you.

I’m curious to not only see how well her business is doing, but I also want to make a little confession. I’m reflecting back on the day I met you in the tank, and I left that situation not only very proud of you, but not so proud of myself, if I might share that with you. I thought that with the heat that you were under on that set and how you stood alone so bravely taking all the questions, I felt like I should have jumped in there earlier and said, “You know what, guys? Cut it out. If she was a guy standing there, you wouldn’t be treating her like this.”

Thank you. That means a lot to me because going on a show like that is so challenging. It’s an intimidating situation. There’s only a limit of how much you can say. There is a giant gender disparity in entrepreneurship and small business. I butt my head up against that glass ceiling all the time. I think I could have been softer. I think that more than anything I was nervous, it’s a very stressful situation, and I had prepared so much that when they asked a question, like when Damon said, “Do you have a patent on your product?” I’m like, “No, but you didn’t, but you made millions.” yes, it was a great answer, but it might have been a little flippant.

Going on a show like that is incredibly challenging. It’s an intimidating situation, and there’s only so much you can say. On top of that, there’s a significant gender disparity in entrepreneurship and small business. Share on X

Listen, you left with your head held high.

—

True or false? Did Barbara really think that way? Should Barbara have stood up for you more? Is that true or is that false?

My true answer is I didn’t know what Barbara was going to do on the show, as far as that “Boys, boys” thing. I have to be fair and be honest and say what she said offended me because she said, “Boys, boys, oh my god, you’re worse than girls.” I actually thought that was not helping me, it’s an offensive statement, as if women should catty-fight like that but men don’t. I actually thought what she said was rude. I wasn’t behind it as much as she probably wanted to. Also, I’ve never had anyone defend me in business ever. I guess I didn’t think I needed it. I respect that might have been her role in the show that day, but as far as her coming back and saying it, no. I didn’t say to her, “You said this about girls,” but I’m a very strong feminist. I do hear the things she says.

On this show does she really feel bad for you and just really think she should have stuck up more for you?

I don’t believe so. That’s my opinion. Doesn’t make it fact.

—

Standing that beating, I thought, “She’s a girl after my heart.” I’ve been in so many situations where I was the only girl in a pack full of men. I know what it feels like, and it’s not easy, but that being said, maybe I could help you in some way. Certainly look at your business and if you’d be willing.

—

That part is probably true. I’ve been you know surrounded by men in business and most of my clients are men, absolutely know. For the last 26 years of business, you’ve been in it and women are not always treated equal. I think we all know that.

I started in politics. I went to school in DC and my first phase of my career was working on the Hill. If you want to know a gender disparity, trust me, I have found it. It’s a very hard world.

If you want man up on that stage, I think that the outcome would have been different and they want to have all the bickering and everything that happened.

It was surprising, yeah.

Guess what? We deal with it every single day. We’re tough business for men. We just continue because we have grit. Keep pushing forward. Keep breaking down walls, keep pushing those barriers.

I have a twenty year old daughter and her brain works completely differently than mine did at that age because she knows she’s entitled to X, and she doesn’t take less. I raised her that way versus learning it on my own. I see it in her every day and I’m proud of the next generation of women, really amazed.

Mine is fifteen. She doesn’t take less either, but she tries me crazy because she will continue to ask until she gets what she wants.

It gets better, I promise.

—

May I could give some good advice and move this forward.

I would be honored to have advice from you. I was hoping you would take a look at my profits and loss even while you’re here. I know my business inside and out, but it doesn’t always mean that I see it for what’s really going on. I think a fresh perspective from someone like Barbara that has the vast knowledge of small business would be an incredible insight.

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Seeking Outside Perspective & Expert Advice

I love this. The reason I love this is because Julie knows she’s a tough businesswoman, but she also knows that in order to grow, she has to let go of some control and she’s got to listen to other people’s advice. This is the biggest mistake that I see business owners make. They form their own opinions. Guess what? When you’re in the middle of the fog, it’s foggy. Sometimes you can’t see the forest through the trees.

I always say it’s hard to read the label from the inside of the bottle. You need an outsider’s perspective to read the warning signs and keep you out of the danger zone. This is what I’m hoping entrepreneurs will do more often. Guess what? Don’t go ask your friends who have never grown a successful business before.

Don’t ask an attorney or a CPA that doesn’t really know business entrepreneurship. Get somebody like a Shark, or get somebody like me, or even Julie because she has lots of experience. Get somebody, ask them for their advice, but make sure they’re successful themselves and make sure they’re giving you real genuine advice versus their opinion.

That’s where mentorship comes in. I was mentored by a lot of amazing women and men. I mentor. I’ve been mentoring people for years. I think that’s especially if it’s someone in your industry but someone that you really respect. It’s hard to take respect advice from someone maybe even if they’re super successful that you don’t connect with or perhaps that person doesn’t understand your business.

I think if you are starting out and you think you have an idea, you should be calling anyone related to that who is not direct competition and talk to them. I did that before I started my business. I just called the phone. I’d be like, “Hi, I have this idea. It doesn’t compete with you. Would you be willing to talk to me?” I could not believe the people who would talk to me. It was amazing.

Listen up, entrepreneurs. The more successful an entrepreneur is, the more willing and able they are to give you their time. They want to give you their time because they want to help others be successful. It’s called paying it forward.

The more successful an entrepreneur is, the more willing and able they are to give you their time. They do it to help others succeed—it’s called paying it forward. Share on X

—

Your sales have really moved up from $911,000, which was three years ago, now they’re over $1 million dollars.

Yeah, we’ve been having seeing a consistent growth of over 20% each year since we’ve been in the tank. It’s been an exciting time.

—

Julie’s not saying anything negative about being in the tank. In fact, being in the tank was good for her. She was able to grow her business, she had advice that she some she implemented, some she did not. Some she didn’t understand right then, and then she understood it later as time went on, and she learned it from her own experience. She did have a good experience in the Shark Tank and was really able to propel her business forward even though at the time it might have seemed like a bad experience.

Proactive Tech Strategy: Using Cloud Servers To Avoid Website Crash

Ironically, it wasn’t a bad experience, but I maximized it as much as I could. My favorite cool thing I can say about my experience on Shark Tank the first time is you have to remember, this was a long time ago, as far as technology, we were the only company to appear on Shark Tank, or the first company to parents Shark Tank whose website did not crash while it was airing.

We had just discovered cloud servers. It was like just the beginning of it. I started just placing out onto different servers and so we didn’t crash. That was my big clean to fame that year and people were calling me constantly like, “How did you not crash?” That’s what we would talk about. I totally advise people on that.

Every time I talked to Julie, I hear more and more golden nuggets to just view out of her mouth. What I heard her say, which is so important, is be proactive, not reactive. A lot of entrepreneurs are reactive. They’re always on defense. You want to be offense. You don’t want to be on defense. You want to be proactive and Julie was proactive. I make sure she had that cloud base so it didn’t crash her website. Good job.

Thank you.

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Your expenses are around 202% from looking at these numbers.

Yes. We introduced a new line of product that was more costly. That was a big expense on the company.

Have you gone overseas to see if you could get the exact same material at a much cheaper price?

I think that’s exactly where the strategic partnerships would come in. Someone who has the connections to produce overseas. I think people think you just pick up the phone and call somebody in China and they just answer the phone and make your product.

What portion of that pie is coming directly from brides online?

Twenty percent.

The balance?

It’s vendors. Mostly, our vendors are event planners. They’re florists. They’re venues.

—

Okay, I’m going to stop here quick. This is very good advice coming from Barbara. Excellent advice coming from Barbara. You always want to take and draw that circle and you want to see where your sales are coming from. It’s called products and congruent revenue streams, and you want to know where the sales are coming from.

Hers are 20%, the bucket of her clients are vendors. It’s very important to do this in business, to recognize what clients are spending money on, because products you want congruent revenue streams, product diversification, but you need client and vendor diversification. This is important. Continue to listen because I love this stuff.

—

Are there maybe 3 or 4 that represent the bulk of your business?

We have a couple of venues that we do hundreds of weddings for a year.

You do?

Absolutely.

Half of your business outside your individual bride is through vendors that reorder and do a lot of ordering through you. What do you do to get them?

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Client & Vendor Concentration Risk

Okay. That’s another important thing that I just said a minute ago. She has 3 or 4 vendors that supply most of her revenue. It’s always the 80/20 rule and 80% of your revenue comes from 1, 2, or 3 of your clients. If you were to lose a client, and in Julie’s case, lose a vendor, then she could practically be out of business. The one thing where a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck is they have client concentration. If all your revenue is coming from 1 or 2 or 3 clients, you have a troubled business.

It’s not sustainable, not scalable, and it’s not sellable. Same thing with vendors. If you don’t have vendor diversification and like Julie had vendor concentration and if Julie loses that vendor that does hundreds of weddings a year, then Julie’s business is in trouble. You want to make sure that you diversify your clients and diversify your vendors because the majority of Julie’s clients are vendors.

This is huge and this is what I really want entrepreneurs to walk away with have. Client diversification. No more than one client producing over 40% of the revenue. Same thing with vendors. Needed to diversify that because it happens every day, we lose a client lose a vendor and you’re practically out of business that quick.

I want to say one thing here, which is why this is so interesting to me is that when I launched this company, I thought I’d be selling direct to bride. I thought that was the whole business. I just want to encourage people to understand when you break this out and you look at where your money is coming from, where are your revenue coming from. You might wake up and realize your revenue is come from something that you didn’t even expect, and then you may have to pivot.

That is really what I did here. We pivoted to wholesale. We still sold direct to brides, but wholesale was our biggest business. Once we realized that, we totally diversified it. Did I have two massive clients? Yes. Despite what was said here, they did not hold my whole business. In fact, most of my vendors, repeat business, was repeat business. It’s not like we had vendors buying one thing they were florists and event planners and hotels.

For this benefit, I’ll say our biggest client was Disney. We had the license to do Disney on any products for wedding. We were the exclusive for aisle runners and such. That’s why that project was so important and we were with Disney for twelve years. They were and still with the company. That was part of that. I think that’s a really interesting part is to know who your clients are. My current business, I thought it was going to be A and it looks like it’s B now. You need to be open to that and be adaptable.

Yeah. Watch out for that customer concentration, that vendor concentration. Disney is a great thing. Let’s say Disney was 90% of her revenue. If Disney dropped out, that would be really bad and she would practically be out of business. She could be out of business just like that. It can happen in an instant, my friends. Disney was great, though, because from a sellability standpoint, people will outbid other buyers because buyers buy synergies. It’s not always just about seller’s discretionary earnings or EBITDA, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

A lot of times, it’s about those synergies. Lots of buyers would want to get the foot in the door for Disney because they have other products and services they can sell them. When you have a Disney or a big contract like that, guess what? You name your price on your business because the more buyers that come to the table, the more bidding war, the higher the bidding war, the more money you put in your pocket and exit rich.

They were great to work with. I’ve never had a bad experience. They had a great team there. They were wonderful. We did like Vegas hotels as well, the Wynn, all these big hotels. Not the same experience, because Vegas is not Disney. You got to know who you’re dealing with, but it’s been it’s been an interesting ride. Really cool.

—

What portion of your pie is coming where did you get them?

Let’s just say at an industry event.

Okay, so now let me ask you. The big customers, the big kahuna, they’re the guys filling your coffers. Why would that not be your typical course of every day of your life to get more business?

—

This is a great question. You want to look at your business and say, “What’s the biggest thing that he’s won business?? If Julie’s was vendors and most of her business, the majority of her business comes from vendors, not from buyers direct, what is she doing every single day to continue to build those relationships and get more? Everybody’s like, “Let’s go get new ones. Yes, you’ve got to get new ones which all so want to focus on the ones you have, and get them to order more and then focus on getting more and more because vendors is what feeds her business and she needs vendor for certification. This is a great question to Barbara asked and now I want to hear Julie’s answer.

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That is absolutely my intention. Unfortunately, in a small business, you experience understaffing at times. You experience down periods and problems that keep you at home that you can’t go out and get that business. That’s really the truth.

Unfortunately, in a small business, you sometimes face understaffing, slow periods, and problems that keep you at home, preventing you from going out to get more business. That’s the reality. Share on X

—

Here we are back again to Julie’s got a job, not a business because Julie is doing everything. Julie is very intelligent, very capable, and don’t tell me you’re not a control freak because we all are.

I’d say a control enthusiast. That’s what I call it.

A control enthusiast. If you want it done right, you do it yourself. It’s so hard to get good quality employees. Julie already knows this. She had to think about it for a second, she already knows this. She’s working in it, not on it. It’s not happening.

The real answer to this question, though which is funny I didn’t say it which was because I didn’t go into stores, brides who weren’t using an event planner, they couldn’t get my product, which is why I still sold direct to bride. There was no way for them to get them unless they were having a super expensive wedding. As I said on the show, I wanted to be able to service anyone in the industry, no matter what the cost of their wedding was. That’s truly why I didn’t stop selling to bride.

Your bread and butter are those vendors. You can have direct sales, it’s like a different division. You can have direct sales and then you can have those vendor sales.

We did have that eventually at the end. That’s what we had. We had a service side for brides and a service side for vendors.

If you’re working on your business, you could easily do this for all of you fellow entrepreneurs. If you’re working in it, there’s just so much time in a day and there’s so many hats to wear. It’s impossible to grow it. A lot of times, when you’re always in it. Not impossible, but very difficult.

—

When I met Julie in the tank, I didn’t think she needed any help. She needs so much help.

—

I’ll give you a minute to respond to that. Go ahead.

I have no response. It’s just funny. I saw her from in my office filming this outside and we were all in the office. We were all pretending what she was saying and it was just reminds me. It was really funny. We’re like, “Julie’s the best. I love that girl.” We were simulating what she was saying outside. It was very funny.

—

I feel like I’ve gotten a somewhat working understanding of your business. You cited a lot of problems. One was the supply of the fabric. I think with the right overseas connections, which I certainly have, I could make that call and drive those costs down. That’s an easy one for me.

—

That’s a valuable thing because Julie’s right. You can’t just pick up the phone and call China, they’re going to answer the phone and you’re going to get a deal done. You have to know somebody. Now, we’ll say this from entrepreneurs, maybe this wasn’t available for Julie back in the day, but it’s available now. There are brokers out there the brokered deals, manufacturing deals between USA and other countries. If you’re looking at Manufacturing in China, Philippines, wherever, there are brokers who are specialized in that. Go reach out and find a qualified broker discuss some really good reputation.

This is one of those not true moments.

We’re back at true or false.

This is not true. I was fortunate enough before I even started that, my father used to be in garments in New York city. He worked in the garment district. We knew people and my husband had a friend who was a garmento so we were able to go through them. We got our fabric from China at his rates so I was very lucky I was able to get the raw product at a much discounted rate.

You are being true when you said it’s hard to get one because we can’t just pick up the phone and I’m going to answer it.

There were other things I wanted to make that now, I have a supplier I could go to.

Back then, you have a supply problem.

I think that’s part of the discussion she wanted to have, I believe

—

I also think you need a lot of help in a lot of areas and you don’t even know you need the help.

—

I’m going to pause real quick. Most of you entrepreneurs done know you need help. Guess what? You don’t know, what you don’t know. It’s not what you know that get you in trouble. It’s what you don’t know. Always will get you in trouble and sink your ship.

—

Can I suggest the very first place you need the help? You’re in the office. You should, with your personality, be what I was to my business. I was a salesman. I was out in the field doing whatever I had to do to make it happen. You’ve got that same capacity. You are like a bull. If you were coming at me and wanted something from me, I would shake in my shoes. You’re not coming out. You’re in the shop.

—

You know what? She’s a good bull. She’s a good bull because there’s bulls in a china cabinet that create chaos. Julie’s an organized bull. You want to be an organized bull.

I would say disagree again with what she’s saying here, though. She was really trying to convince me that I needed to be on the road visiting different florists and event planners and hotels. The reality is those people do not want you coming in while they’re working to try to sell them something. This isn’t like medicine people come in to doctor’s offices like pharma. It’s not that way. Reality is we landed most of our clients by literally being in the office and calling them, “Can I send you some samples? Awesome.”

I knew a roadshow, like a dog and pony show, would have cost me so much more money than I ever would have brought in that way because Barbara does come from a little bit older generation, that is how they did it. You had to go and show up and show out. It isn’t like that anymore. People don’t want to be disturbed the middle of the day by people popping in and all that. I know people call me all the time to make appointments with me and I’m like, “My days are limited. I can only give so much time.” in in that case, we say let’s do it on Zoom. Let’s do it digitally. That’s the better way to sell if you can do it that way. That’s my opinion. Costs way too much to hit the road.

I agree, and that’s one of the biggest good things that came out of COVID. The biggest good change that came out of COVID is everybody’s doing virtual meetings now because you can only be in one place for so long.

Even if you’re in the same city, a virtual meeting in New York City can take me two hours to go back and forth and have the meeting. It’s crazy.

Especially New York traffic.

Even if I took the subway, you could wait and I lived in my business was in New York first. That initial few years, we moved out of the city.

You can get murdered on the way to an appointment.

Yeah. We were there for seven years and then we moved out of the city because we had the big recession in ’08. That was a profound effect on my business. That’s how come things went. When I hit Shark Tank, it was 1 or 2 years after we came out of the recession. It was a crazy time. We were all holding on by our bare fists and the big lesson from that is have more money in the bank for a rainy day. I learned that the hard way.

You should always have 1 to 2 years of working capital. The reason so many businesses failed during COVID is because they didn’t have enough working capital to float their boat.

I would say if it wasn’t for the recession, I would not have been as prepared for COVID when it happened. I had so much more in the bank. I was much more set up for something bad to happen than in ’08 when it was a slower roll the recession. We didn’t know what was happening. I was ready for COVID. I was glad the way I handled it. I was very happy about that.

Catastrophic events can really teach us lessons in how to prepare ourselves for the next storm so we can keep our boat afloat. All right, let’s see what else is happening.

—

I agree with you. I do. All right, then I have a deal for you. I’m going to offer you my smarts for your business, not a dime. I’m going to produce your product overseas. I’m going to offer every resource I have, which is considerable. I’m going to use my personnel skills to make sure you have the right management staff so that you can fly out of here and become a salesman. I’m going to double your sales in two years and turn it into a million-dollar business.

When I do that, you’re going to hand me over 25% of your stock because I will have earned it. If I don’t do that with you working in full commitment to selling on the outside, you don’t owe me anything. This is a deal where everybody wins. Every small business wants an investor who puts money in. I’m not putting money in, I’m putting something far more valuable. I’m putting my intelligence and my guidance to her to build a huge business. What do you think?

—

Okay, before you say anything, Julie, I want entrepreneurs to understand that lots of investors can throw money. If you don’t have if you haven’t built a solid foundation like I talk about in my book, Exit Rich, the 6Ps, if you don’t build that solid foundation, it doesn’t matter how much money you have. You’re still going to have the same problems. You’re going to throw that money at what you think is broken, and what you think is broken might not be the true issues. That’s why you need a mentor, you need an outside expert because again, you can’t see the forest through the trees.

Somebody that wants to put up their expertise, their brain trust, their skills, their sweat equity in exchange for equity. There’s got to be tight boundaries in there. It’s got to be written correctly. She says, “I get you up,” and I would agree. “Yeah, Barbara, you get me up to $3 million.” I would have those contingencies in there in a contract. Somebody’s willing to do that for you for a percentage of equity, I would say jump on it.

Make sure it’s papered correctly. Make sure you got the legal experts looking at it. That is her putting her money where her mouth is. Now we’re not talking about true or false yet. I’m telling you entrepreneurs, if you get a deal like that, really check into it, do your due diligence, get it papered correctly and jump on it because sometimes the real experience, the hard labor, everything that she says she’s going to do is worth more than money. Very seldom will you get an offer like this. That’s why you should jump on it. Now, Julie, true or false?

In that moment, all I was thinking was, “Show me the money.” I’m not going to lie. I still needed money. I was laughing to myself at the moment that she wanted me to hit the road but wasn’t giving money to travel. That was not in my budget. What she was offering wasn’t exactly what I needed at the time. That’s what I would say.

Julie needed money and Julie’s a competent business owner that knew what she was going to spend that money on. However, as an investor and a flipper, I have thrown money towards companies. The problem is that money doesn’t fix problems. It doesn’t always fix the problem. Sometimes money creates problems.

As an investor, speaking for me, I want to make sure where that money’s going, and I’m going to look at the business in its entirety to see what needs to be fixed and what holes need to be plugged so we can stop the bleeding because money doesn’t fix problems, sometimes it creates problems. All right, let’s see what else happens here, Julie.

—

I think as long as we’re talking about being able to work hard in the business together and that you’re there for me if I have questions, I think that having you as a resource for this company would be an amazing gift. I think it would be a great deal for us.

It’s a deal?

I think it’s a deal, Barbara. Thank you so much, it’s awesome.

My pleasure. I’m looking forward to working together, really.

Julie deserves a second chance. She’s the kind of lady that always delivers, and that’s the person I always want to be in business with. Somebody who’s going to make me money.

I can’t wait to get started.

Me too.

Unbelievable surprise that we made a deal. I didn’t really see that coming, but I’m excited about the opportunity. Thanks, Barbara.

Thanks again.

I’m a hugger.

—

Okay, as we wrap up here, you’re not a hugger?

I am. I forgot I said that, that’s funny.

As we wrap up here, true or false? She made you an offer, did you guys do a deal?

When we left there that day, the theory was we had a deal. I was working with her assistant and such. I did not think we had a deal because of the setup of the show. Unlike Shark Tank, the original, which is from the perspective of the guest, we don’t have any clue what’s going on, we don’t know who’s going to be there, we don’t know what questions are asked. It really is real in as much as it can be. This show, Beyond the Tank, was more like a reality show. There was an arc that they were trying to make me follow. I felt really manipulated. Before Barbara even came, that original phone call, she said to me, “Listen, I’m going to come make you an offer and you need to take it.”

Beyond the Tank felt more like a reality show. They were trying to make me follow a narrative arc, and I felt really manipulated. Share on X

She said, “I’m going to make you an offer and you need to take it.” Okay.

Yeah. She said, “I’m not coming out there unless you’re going to take it, so you take it and they’ll air it, but if you don’t take it, they may not air it.” we all knew what was going to happen in that sense. Throughout that taping, the producers were not the same producers of the Shark Tank producers and they didn’t handle themselves the same way.

I just felt really manipulated and lied to a lot. That’s not fun. It was a rough experience for me and my family. My family was involved in it, they didn’t make it to the final cut, but they were filmed a lot as well. It was rough. I just remember it being a when it ended, we were like, “I felt like we just went through something.” It was nuts.

Her husband was involved and her daughter was involved.

I’ve never heard from anyone from Barbara’s team ever again even though we had a deal.

The episode aired, but you never ever heard from Barbara again on your so-called deal.

Yes. We did follow up with her, but it was this show was more TV than reality, that’s all.

There was never going to be a deal. It was all reality, made for a TV show, that never really was true and it was just reality, so it was fake.

I think the difference is that everyone else, maybe except for one that was on Beyond the Tank, all got deals on the show. Their Shark came and they worked with them. Without being arrogant, in my situation I was in then, I was a very popular guest from season two. Even now, I meet people they’re like, “I remember you.” I was on once. Something about how it went down. For that reason, people that’s the only reason they kept asking me back is I was one of the most inquired about people from the first few years.

Okay. Your Shark Tank Beyond the Tank did air, you did not get a deal, other people, friends of yours that were on Beyond the Tank already had a deal from Shark Tank and they were doing a show to see what happened beyond the tank.

Bringing their Shark in to like up the deal or introduce something new. It was like a pump-up for those businesses.

Sure. Julie, thank you again so much for coming on Exit Rich. Loved the first episode, loved the second one better. You’ve been a great guest with lots of golden nuggets and lots of experience to share. I really appreciate all of my readers for tuning in to another episode. Again, go back and read this, take notes, share it with your community, share it with your network. I always say your network equals your net worth. Subscribe if you haven’t already subscribed to Exit Rich. We’ll see you next time. Thank you, Julie.

 

Important Links

• Julie Goldman on linkedin
• The Original Runner Company
• Exit Rich

 

About Julie Goldman

Prior to launching my current brand Superfly, I founded and led The Original Runner Company, a multi award-winning brand in the event industry. I invented and brought to market non-slip, fully customizable fabric aisle runners—creating an entirely new international product category with untapped potential. Our clients included global brands such as Disney, iconic venues like The Breakers and Biltmore Estate, and renowned event designers like Mindy Weiss and Mark’s Garden, producing aisle runners for everyone from Kim Kardashian to Neil Diamond — and thousands of real brides and brands.

I grew and scaled the company for over 18 years—winning multiple pitch competitions and earning honors for marketing/ leadership from organizations including American Express OPEN, Dell, and Comcast, Make Mine a Million —before achieving a successful exit in 2020 during the pandemic. I also courageously appeared on Shark Tank and two subsequent follow-up programs, further cementing its brand visibility and market validation. As Founder & CEO, I led every facet of the business, earning recognition for my product innovation, unique marketing approach, and niche brand leadership on a global scale.