Most entrepreneurs are chasing a paycheck, but for Jacob Robinson, founder of Dig World, the stakes were much higher. His construction-themed adventure park, where even kids can operate real excavators, was born out of a deeply personal, tear-jerking story involving his son, Pierce. On Shark Tank, Jacob sought an investment to scale his unique concept, facing tough questions about his valuation, his business model, and the risk of franchising a single-location concept.

Get ready to dive into an episode review packed with golden nuggets for every business owner: from the power of market research and customer feedback (even the “bad and ugly”), to mastering the pitch (and the Shark Tank edit), to the crucial difference between operating out of memory versus imagination. Jacob’s journey proves that a powerful “Why”—a motivation far beyond money—is the only way to weather 248 “No’s” and the inevitable post-show challenges. You’ll learn why transparency, strategic scarcity, and celebrating small wins are the true bedrock of a scalable, sellable business.

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Watch the episode here

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Dig Deep To Find Your Why: The Powerful Shark Tank Journey With Jacob Robinson Of Dig World

We will bring in a guest that have appeared on Shark Tank. You know it. You’ve heard these episodes time and time again. It’s great to listen to their stories and their experiences. They are full of valuable content and full of golden nuggets. We have a very special guest. Who do we have? Jacob Robinson from Dig World is on our show. We’re so excited to have him because you talk about creativity. You’re talking about coming up with an idea that’s outside the box or outside the dirt. Dig World is that company. I’m very excited to have you on the show, Jacob.

Thank you for having me. It’s honor to be here. I love talking Shark Tank and love talking big world. Thank you.

As I tell my audience all the time, it’s going to be like drinking through a fire hose. Make sure you take your nose or go back and read this episode again and make sure you share it with your network. Let’s get started. This is a very interesting, unique and intriguing. It made break out in tears just listening to his story.You got a lot of pressure, Jacob.

“Next up is a business that fulfills many childhood dreams.” “Sharks, my name is Jacob Robinson. I’m from Katy, Texas. I’m the cofounder of Dig World. I’m here seeking $200,000 for 10% in my business. Let me take you all the way back to your childhood. You’re riding in the back.”

Valuation & Pitch Strategy

Let’s just talk about evaluation real quick, $200,000 for 10%. I don’t want you to get too far deep into the valuation because there’s going to be a lot of conversation as we continue to watch the episode. How did you come up with that number?

Before the show, I was prepared to go in there at $300,000 for 10% until I was in my dressing room. I was like, “I’m going to go at $200,000.” The irony of my goal was I don’t want to get into an argument about the valuation. I don’t want to get Mr. Wonderful lecturing me. I don’t want to get lost in the pitch talking about a made-up number because in every business, most of the time valuations are made up. Unless you worked with Michelle, most evaluations are made up. I shouldn’t want to get stuck arguing and get a lecture about how ridiculous I was over valuing my business. Anyways, that’s the thought behind it and that’s how I landed at $200,000 for 10%.

That’s transparency. He’s telling the truth here. He never thought it out. He didn’t come to the next part before he went on the show. He just thought about it went with his gut and you’re going to see how it plays out.

“Thanking your parent’s old jalopy. You’re gazing out that window and behold the magic land of a construction site. Your imagination starts to run wild dreaming of getting in one of those excavators and digging up some dirt. Sharks, it’s time to turn those childhood dreams into a reality.”

You’re very good presenter. Did you have any practice beforehand?

I’ve been fortunate since college where I’ve had the opportunity to speak and talking in front of groups, a bunch. I was fortunate enough to have a little bit of some reps. I will say and as everybody would say, nothing quite prepares you for walking out there standing still. I don’t do very well standing still. Standing still for that long was pretty difficult.

You could walk across. People think you’re nervous when you’re pacing, so it’s important to stand still. Anybody who’s looking at going to Shark Tank, I would highly recommend this episode because Jacob did a good job at presenting. You could tell this was not your complete first rodeo.

Thank you. “Dig World, the construction theme park that gives everyone the opportunity to operate real construction equipment. Check it out. At Dig World, even kids can safely drive and operate full-size construction equipment like real excavators. Kids can get behind the controls and they can dig up some dirt. They get to drive full-size skid steers and even utility terrain vehicles around Y detracts and so much more. All what’s at its safeguards. There’s no simulators here, Sharks.”

“We offer hands-on experience for the whole family. Dig World is the ultimate family-friendly theme park where everyone can build their hearts out allowing us to create memories that last a lifetime. Sharks, who’s ready to dig up some of that nostalgia and pave the way for Dig World to become a national brand?”

I remember the first time you and I spoke. I’m like, “This is so unique.” For children, it’s the same thing like Chuck E cheese, the bounce houses, take them to the movies or roller skating. There’s nothing we can get dirty and driving heavy equipment. This is a great concept. I was going to ask you how you got into this, but I don’t want to do that because I know that story is coming. Do you have any feedback here about your concept or how you can educate our audience?

I was at a show and talked about the advancement of AI and how a lot of jobs are going to become obsolete and things like that. One of the things that we feel blessed and strongly about is that might be true but kids are still going to need to get out of the house and experience things. We are focused on how do we cater to the kids, the family, the whole family unit, friends, grandpa or grandma and creating those out of the house off-the-screen experiences.

Again, our customer base constantly repopulates itself. We feel pretty good that we’re not going to be running out of a customer base anytime soon. We’re trying to think outside the box to cater to the family. We’ll hear the full story a little bit, but it came from this desire also of my family looking around going, “What are we doing this weekend?” We feel very strongly about the space.

Adults have fun with it, too. I don’t think it’s just the kids.

One of my favorite reviews to read is we have this internal system that people can submit reviews and let us know good, bad and ugly. My favorite was, “I thought we were just going for the kids. I couldn’t get my husband off the machines.” For the whole family or everybody, we always say, the kids at heart or the big kids at heart.

Jacob made a good point there. He probably doesn’t even know he made a good point for my audience. He has internal messaging to know the good, the bad, and the ugly. Many others are afraid of the bad and the ugly. They only want to hear the good. “You can’t prove your business. You can’t move forward. You can’t continue to build a scalable business. You don’t know what people are like and what people don’t like.” It’s very good to have an internal messaging system.

I appreciate that. One of my heroes, Jesse Cole, the Founder of the Savannah Bananas, the baseball team. In one of his books, he talks about, “The minute you stop reading reviews is the minute you’re going to lose.” It’s the same thing, “You’re never as good as you think you are. You’re never as bad as people say you are.” You’re probably somewhere in the middle. Reading those reviews, a lot of times, it’s me going, “We’re at a toilet paper in the bathrooms. Did anybody know that?”

Somebody sends in a review like, “The women’s bathroom is out toilet paper.” It helps us get better at our systems that we can put in place by getting that feedback. I’ve also had to come a long way mentally. My wife will tell me going, “My park is not for everybody else.” Not everybody’s going to have a great time and not everybody’s going to get it or love it and that’s okay. To business owners out there, your products not for everybody and that’s A-okay. It hurts our ego and our pride a little bit, but we’re not for everybody.

No company can be everything to everybody. You got to find who your market is.

That’s right. Maybe except for Amazon. I’ll give it to them.

These good reviews and this feedback help make a business sellable because when you go on and read about a company online like the client we’re working with. They got 45,000 great reviews on Instagram, Reddit, etc., that makes a company a lot more sellable.

That’s right.

Let’s see what Lori has to say.

“Mark, did you not do a deal on the show?” “The Extreme Sandbox. It’s a great company but completely different model.” “What’s the difference?” “Extreme Sandbox is geared towards adults only. They got big equipment. Typically, one-time experiences for a couple hundred dollars per person for the experience. You smashed a car or that deal. Dig World on the other hand is family-friendly.”

That’s going to be cos prohibited to smash the car because they have to get a new car or used car or whatever, every time. That’s got to be very expensive.

That’s right. The company Extreme Sandbox is still around in the Minnesota area. It’s completely different model. They’re base package the last time I looked is $300, which makes all sense. There’s these big one-time experiences with massive machines. You are going to smash a car or things like that.

The overhead is so expensive because if you got to keep replacing the object you are smashing. That comes with my overhead.

That’s one thing. Even though I consider myself decently creative and out of the box thinking, that’s one thing I’m not gone down yet, smashing a car. I’ve not fully looked into that yet.

I would say that for a business model, the overhead is too high.

“It’s a theme park. As long as you’re 32 inches tall or higher, you can do everything.” “Daymond can’t go.” “Walk me through the model.” “Everybody will be charged $24.99 flat rate to get in.” “That’s all?” “That’s it.” “Am I there for how long?” “Typically, it’s about two our experience. You can stay longer.” “Two hours for $24?” “That’s right.”

Nobody can take their kids anywhere for $24. You can’t go to the movies for $24. You can’t go to bounce house for $24. You can’t go bowling for $24. How did you come up with that? Don’t give away the future show. How did you come up with that price point?

When we started, it was a lot of researching things around. We didn’t want to confuse you on how cheap we were. There’s something also to be said about something that’s an experience.

Too cheap is not going to be good.

That’s right, but we did not want to be the most expensive. Again, we know our target audience. We know it’s young families. We wanted to not be a cost prohibitive experience. Full disclosure, we’ve gone to $29.99 now. That is where we’ll live at for the rest of our parks. We’re still committed to be in sub $30. $29.99 is where we’re at. We did a lot of research and then felt, as you just said, survey. We’re going around talking to family saying, “For everybody coming in at $2.499, what would your reaction be?” “For $24.99? I could do it.” A lot of customer feedback talking to the people in the market and asking them what they pay for it.

That’s another big thing. A lot of companies, a lot of business owners don’t go to the marketplace. They don’t survey. They’ll cut their perspective clients and they just guess. A lot of businesses are guessing instead of doing the market research and market surveys. That’s good.

“We have excavators where we dig dirt. We have excavators where we play a lot of different games. We have you pick up different objects. We have a large extra putter where you put a large golf ball into a net. You drive skid steers and UTVs. We are standard theme park. We have your food and beverage. What was your background, Jacob, before? What did you do before this? I’m a serial entrepreneur. The last nine years, I built and sold a large commercial cleaning company in Texas, then started this idea in 2019. I thought we’d raise some money and it would be a great idea until you’re sitting in somebody’s office and you’re like, ‘Let me tell you a great idea. I’m going to build a theme park.’ They’re like, ‘Sounds great.’”

Let’s talk a little bit about raising money. Did you how many times Walt Disney get rejected before he finally raised money for Disney World?

A lot a lot. I pitched to 248 people that said no before we started getting our first yeses. I am very good at getting a no. I can crush that all day long. Raising money is one of the hardest things you do out there. You put your heart and soul out there to somebody and let them rip it apart. You do it time and time again. We pitched over to 200 people and I’m proud of that badge of honor. In a moment, I hated it but now we’re proud of it.

With Walt Disney, I think it was thousands. I’m not going to quote a number here because I’m not sure. Your business owners or entrepreneurs reading, you’re not going to get a yes the first time or the second time or the third time. Maybe even 100th time. You got to have pure perseverance and grit. That’s what you have.

Maybe also insanity. Throw that in there.

Sanity and belief in what you’re doing because it’s easy to give up.

That’s right.

Raising capital is not easy, but raising capital for this was probably very difficult. You want through 250 nos.

“They’re like, ‘I’m going to take a three-year-old and I’m going to let him drive a skid steer by himself and get him out of my office.’ It took a little bit longer and then we finally completed the raise in ’21. We built it opened it in March of ’22.” “Jacob, how much does it cost to set one up?” “We’re about to start the franchising process. We have an opportunity to franchise and corporately owned our parks. We’ll go down that route. For roughly $2.5 half million can get the park, open inclusive of equipment.

“You’re leasing the equipment on that one.” “No, sir.” “You’re buying it.” “We bought the equipment.” “I’m assuming you are buying it rather than leasing it because you have to fit that so that is safe for children.” “That’s right.” “You’re changing the equipment around a bit.” That’s right.” “Safety is number one at Dig World.”

It better be. That’s a whole other issue for business. Safety is everything. When you’re doing these franchises too, you said it’s $2.5 million. It depends on the equipment. Are they buying the land?

To your point, that’s what the range is, where the land is, do we have to clear the land. In Katy and in Dallas, it was already a flat piece of grass. It’s ideal for development. We’re looking at another one where it’s already a parking lot. We’re going to tear that up a little bit. That range but the base cost, plus equipment is about $2.5 million.

Tell her readers why you decided to go from corporate to franchise. I know because my background is in franchise development, franchise sells and franchise consulting.

The simple answer is speed. We can get out the door quicker and sell them into other markets and go from there.

Using other people’s money is the key.

That’s right. Again, going back to 248 nos. I’ll let somebody else do that for a minute, but speed, money, and those things. There’s models out there. You’ve got the Urban Air and Altitude. You’ve got a lot in the family entertainment space that have the model already out there. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Follow the playbook that works. That’s what we’re committed to.

Are you having trouble finding franchisees because it’s such a big capital layout?

Not at the moment, but we’re also not trying to sell 500 units. They’re a little bit different than an Urban Air where they’ve got hundreds of units. Those folks are great. I know them. They even than we do to build one. Again, they’re going for the hundreds. We’re going for $10,000 to $20,000 in the grand scheme of things. You and I are going to laugh about this when we do a repeat episode in a couple years. I would say, the goal is $10,000 to $20,000. It’s just a different model and we’re hunting a different person. To answer you’re initial question, we’re fortunate not having too much problem.

The “Why”: Dig World’s Origin Story

“Second is fun but safety’s is number one. All of our machines are outfitted with our proprietary technology.” “Jacob, how did you think of this idea?” “Thank you for asking. My wife and I have three amazing kids. My son Peter was born in 2015. He’s a happy, healthy little boy. As a lot of other boys, he loves construction equipment, garbage trucks and dump trucks. Anything in that category. In 2017, when he was almost two years old, on a Saturday morning, my wife walked into his room and found him unconscious in his crib.”

“We rushed him to the hospital. They weren’t sure he was going to make it. We learned he contracted meningitis. He was in a coma for twelve days. We were in the hospital for 75 days. When we left, he was a different little boy. Pierce is now nonverbal. He’s epileptic. He’s deaf in both ears and he’s in a wheelchair, but Pierce still has a joy like no other. That boy still loves construction equipment.”

“My wife and I wanted to do something that brought families together. We learned the importance of family during that time. We said, ‘What sounds like a super easy idea? Let’s build a theme park,’ because that’s sounds like an easy idea.’ The other thing, I just want to say thank you real quick is when we were in the hospital.”

That’s tear jerking. I got tears in my eyes. I applaud you for sharing your story because there’s a lot of entrepreneurs have stories. They have a past and many of them don’t share because they think it’s a negative when it’s a positive. It makes you human and it gives a real meaning. Anybody can go out there and build a business.

If you have a big why, like you do this for Pierce, if you’re motivated way beyond money, then you’re going to be much more successful and everybody buys into your story. People nowadays have so many choices. They’re looking for the story like, “Why would I buy this? Why would I go to Dig World? Why would I give Jacob money?” The first person should have given you money.

I appreciate that. I agree with you. My wife and I talk about all the time, “This is our story and this is our song. We’re going to sing it as loud as we can.” It’s not something that we shy away from. It’s not something that we use to our advantage. It’s just our story. It is who we are. It’s why we do what we do. It’s how we view the world. It’s how I view money and relationships. Whatever it may be because unfortunately, we learned the hard way how life is super precious. As I said, it’s probably not a normal reaction to just say, “Let’s build a theme park,” but we leaned into it and decided to get crazy and build a theme park.

It’s not your typical thing as somebody will go out and think to build. Many entrepreneurs are floundering and they might be successful in a year or two and they’re not successful or they can’t reach. They struggle with reaching their goals and reaching what they want to accomplish. I find many times is because they don’t have that why. If you’re in it just for the money or if you’re in it for something shallow, then they don’t have a big enough why to keep them in the game because being in business is not easy. It’s not easy at all.

That’s right. I’m working on this project and I’ve called it the eight things that I’ve learned from Pierce that translated into entrepreneurship. One of the points I talked about is celebrating the small wins. As entrepreneurs, we do a terrible job of celebrating the small wins. We only want to talk about the big like, “Did we hit our annual goal? Did we double the business?” Whatever the numbers or the buzz words or whatever the things that we feel need to be hit.

We don’t look back and go, “We had 100% employer retention for three months in a row. Let’s celebrate that for a second or I didn’t have that break this month. That’s a win.” Whatever these winds may be, we don’t do a good job. What it does, to your point, is it creates burnout. You look up two years and your life, “I’m never going to get there.” It’s because we haven’t celebrated anything along the way. We haven’t gotten remotivated. We haven’t taken the time to breathe for a second.

I can preach this mightily because I’ve learned this the hard way. I’ve had to sit there and go, “This was a good day. Do you know this was a good day? It’s because we did X, Y and Z. It wasn’t monumental but we moved the ball forward.” My challenge to entrepreneurs out there is to take a minute, look back at the last week and celebrate the small wins because you’re going to burn out real fast.

You’re going to burn out and you’re not going to hit your true success. You have to have a powerful why to strong enough to keep them in the game. Keep your weather and all the financial storms.

Business Model & Financials

“Every night, my wife and I would watch Shark Tank to just completely check out mentally and forget what happened during that day. It means a lot to me. Thank you for letting me be here to tell our story.” “Here’s to Pierce. I hope he’s doing great.” “Thank you.” “How long have you been in business, Jacob?” “Two and a half years.” “One location?” “One location.” “Do the revenue on that location.” “That’s our first calendar year. We did 1$.2 million.” “Making money on that?” “We broke even on that one.” “What will you do next?” “We’re on track to do a little over $1.5 million.” “Do you think you’ll make one?” “We’ll do 26% EBITDA on that and about $350,000.”

Most people don’t know the EBITDA numbers. They can talk about the revenue and sometimes they can talk about that. A lot of times, they don’t talk about the percentage of EBITDA.

There’s a long story about how my business acumen has grown because I did nothing a few years ago. Again, entrepreneurs out there, I once was asked what EBITDA was going to be on my very first business that I started. It was the very first guy that wrote me a check. I didn’t know EBITDA was supposed to be a number, so I just responded with a good one. I learned over the last few years. All you out there, you’re going, “What’s he even talking about?” I’ve been there.

It stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization, for the ones who don’t know.

That’s right. Come to find out people all pronounce it differently.

If you’re looking at your EBITDA at 26%, is that adjusted EBITDA?

That is not adjust EBITDA. That’s just straight. Again, a lot of it is coming from those 248 pitch. You start to you start to learn what investors are going to ask. At the end of the day, nobody cares about top line. Nobody even realize the Charlie Munger quote, “EBITDA is BS anyway.” It’s all about the bottom line. You start to learn. In this situation, I went ahead and went there. I’ve had enough experience pitching investors that I know what questions coming next so I’ll just take it off the table real quick.

It doesn’t matter where you’re starting from. It’s a journey. You just need to learn and find the right mentors and keep asking for money.

“If I’m a franchisee, how much do I have to spend to get set up?” “First off, you pay $100,000 franchise fee. The reason there is because we’re not trying to sell 300 units. We’re not trying to be a trampoline park that you see all over town. We only want to go one or maybe two per market across the country.” “With $100,000, what do I get for that?” “You get that market. At that point, we’ll give you our playbook. We’ll give you the whole thing such as our architects and our technology behind it. We’ll tell you what equipment to buy and where to buy it. Depend upon of which version of the park you would like to build, you’re going to raise anywhere from $2.5 million. You could raise up to $5.5 million if you choose. I’m going to take a total of 7% fee, 5% royalty to me and then 2% marketing.”

When you asked for these standards, you franchise fee is bigger but it’s a much bigger business. It’s much bigger capex back and you have a lot more walking balls. That makes sense in the royalties and the marketing fee make sense as well. Why did you go on the show saying you don’t want to sell $300,000? You only want to sell a few. What was your reason for that? You told me that too, so I guess that is your philosophy.

I think that’s philosophy now. Again, I keep joking that maybe we’ll turn around in the next couple years and that will change.

That’s why I said you and I will talk to the three years.

Being in it, one unit and building the second unit, the next five are coming online. For me to sit here and go, “We’re going $300,000.” As the leader of the organization, as the person vision casting, that’s a big leap. Let’s tackle ten. Once we tackle ten, then me selling you on $300,000 is not crazy anymore. If I went on this show or even if I was pitching you and I’d go, “I got one. We’re going to go build $300,000.” You’re like, “That’s a stretch.” Learn it, then talk about $300,000.” It’s been stair stepping. The strategy of the company will go, “Strategy one was getting one park open. Strategy two is get 5 to 10 open. Strategy three, we’ll see what that number is.”

I like that you did it and this is why I stopped right there all like that. A lot of people go there and they blow things up and inflate everything. They say, “We’re going to open about 500 stores.” It’s not realistic. What I like about what you did is you created a scarcity.

I don’t want to have a street corner.

You could have scarcity because the problem with a lot of franchises, there’s one on every street corner or is multiple per cities. You create a scarcity like, “I want Dallas, Texas. Let me call them. I want to get into Houston.” That’s important. You’re going out there and say, “We’re going to open $300,000. We’ll take every franchisee.” I like how you created that scarcity.

Thank you. “The challenge is you have to find a good piece of property, but in Southern California, it’s too hot. It’s windy. It’s raining. You got to raise a good amount of money.”

I didn’t know it rains in Southern California. I’m form Southern California. It doesn’t rain that much.

I was thinking about Daymond. For those reading, it’s the tail end of the weekend where we had this winter big storm. I was thinking about Daymond. It was the first time in three years we had to close the park down due to the weather. I was laughing. I was like, “He was right there.” I’ll give him that one.

I’m from Southern California. It doesn’t rain that much. That’s why they have the winds and the fires. Daymond’s out.

“I love the idea. I love fun. I love any business that sells fun. What I’m struggling with is how many franchisees can race $2.5 million now?” “I have 28 interviewed and vetted people that want a franchise now.” “That can afford it?” “Yes, sir and want to execute on it. However, I want to make sure that we are all the same page. While franchising is the avenue that we see now, we also still have the ability to go corporate owned and expand.” “Why haven’t you already?”

I’m going to stop right there real quick. That’s the exact same question that I asked you before the episode is, how can people afford that? You say you have 25 people and you told me that as well outside of this show. What is their background? Are these CEOs of companies? Are they business owners? What are their typical backgrounds to open up a big role?

It’s all of the above. Also, people don’t realize there could be a Jacob in the market that goes and pulls money together. It doesn’t have to be a single person that writes $2.5 million check, It could be a Jacob that says, “I’m in,” and I’ve raised $2.5 million.

Is that what you doing? What are you doing now?

A mixed. It’s both. By no means, it sounds like I’m dogging the trampoline model. I’m not. Those guys are geniuses. You look at that, that’s a much bigger capex than what we’re trying to do. What takes our business a little bit of a sticker shock to be on the show or an interview, is the uniqueness of it. You don’t see it a bunch. If I told you, “It costs $5.5 million to build a trampoline park.” You go, “That makes sense. I’ve been in there. I see the build out.” You’ve seen it. You can wrap your mind around it and they’re everywhere. It’s a little bit of both. It’s educating the market. Again, back to your initial question. It’s a mixed bag of backgrounds.

“That what we’re doing now. We wanted to get the product to completely check every single box. Also, I’m not trying to open up 30 franchises tomorrow. Slow and steady. Growth is how we get there.” “How much of the company do you want now?” “Over here, the franchising against either, we’re asking money from now.” “What you’re asking for money for does not include the first part?”

The “Hairy” Deal Structure

I’ll stop right here, but I’m going to go right back. This is where it gets hairy.

“Another LLC over here that my investors owned 5% up. A business partner owns 5% and I own 90%.” “Jacob, can you get to throw the original deal in the deal.” “Is that not what he’s offering?” “There’s no equity in Dig World.” “That option is on the table. That’s different.” “We get no equity in Dig World, number one. What am I buying?’ “This is it right here.”

How come you weren’t clear about that in the beginning?

I’m under a lot of document agreements. I will say the show does a great job of editing. It made a good episode. We’ll leave it at that.

I got you. If I was sitting there and I invest in companies all the time, I’d be like, “What? What are you talking about? Why would I invest in a franchise? I want the corporation.” Thank you for saying that. The good solid point here for all you entrepreneurs is you do want to be transparent up front. You do want them to know what the deal is. It did make an interesting fun show. Jacob was right. We don’t see the background. We don’t know what’s going on behind the closed doors. Editing is everybody’s friend.

One of the two.

I’m sure Jacobs was transparent because Jacob is a transparent guy.

I’ll say this before we keep progressing because again the proverbial wheels will fall off in a second. I was looking, back people say, “How did you like the edit?” Here’s the only two things that I would say about the edit. I know what I was signing up for by all means. How we arrived at the deal took much longer than it will show. The other thing is, I just want to be on record out there. When everybody went out, I thank them. There’s edits of me looking away.

Don’t go too far into it.

I said thank you. Anyways, I just wanted that on the record somewhere that I politely say thank you.

Jacob is nice, respectful, polite, and transparent gentleman.

I appreciate that. “Stake in the franchise portion of his construction equipment theme park for kids, Dig World.” “We get no equity in Dig World, number one.” “What am I buying?” “This is it right here.” “You’re buying the upside of where we’re going to take this thing and become a national brand.”

Let me say this real quick for entrepreneurs. Nobody wants to buy your upside and nobody wants to buy a potential. People want to buy your history and your brand. They want to buy what you’re doing and want to concern. They want a going concern business and an operating business. That’s what people want to buy. Many owners come to me and say, “Michelle, I got potential.” It doesn’t matter. People aren’t going to pay you for the potential because they have to spend money to make money. Jacob didn’t get here without using some of his own money and raising money. People won’t pay for potential.

“Shark Tank pitch where everything’s going great and it just goes back. Where was that moment in this pitch?” “When he said he didn’t belong in Dig World one.” “When I figure it out that I’m not getting any part Dig World. I was so into it. I was like checking out the other Shark.” “We were excited.” “I was like, ‘What’s Cuban going to do? Is he going to overpay? What’s going on?’ I was like, ‘I’m paying $200,000 for an idea.’”

“On that note, we can be a part of this deal.” “Any Shark or any investor, why wouldn’t they want to de-risk with getting some of the cashflow?” “Catch 22 of its existing investors.” “Tell us about them. Who are they? How much have you raised? What’s your debt?” “Yes, great question. No debt. We raised $2.6 million from 30 individuals.” “Have any of them paid back yet?” “We’re doing distributions.”

You had 33 investors. How much equity did you attain?

on a waterfall structures. My equity is after the payback then we go into a waterfall where I get a good chunk of it back.

Explain waterfall to the entrepreneurs real quick.

A basics scenario is let’s say you give me $100 and I’m going to pay you $100 back. When I pay you $100,000 back, plus in this scenario we’ll do 8%. Once I pay you $100 plus 8%, then you and I split something. Every dollar going forward, you get 70% of that dollar and I get 30% of that dollar and going forward. Money back plus then we do a split.

It’s a great structure for raising capital and most people don’t think about it. Where you educated by your investors on this?

In the previous couple companies that I founded, we did waterfall structures. I had a little bit of experience with that. I worked with a CPA firm to help me come up with the initial model. I had some people around helping me.

Remember, this is not Jacob’s first rodeo. He owned a few businesses before.

“That’s not too bad.” “It’s pretty good.” “You’ve done amazing on this carpet. While I believe in it and I believe in you, I just don’t know that it’s the right business for me. For that reason, I’m out.” “Thank you.” “I thought that’s presentation is pretty good. You’re going into uncharted territory. There’s too much risk with the unknowns yet proof of. That’s the problem. I don’t know yet if this is going to work. I’m sorry, I’m out.” That wasn’t my reaction for the record. That’s what I was talking about. I didn’t meme mug Mr. Wonderful on the way out, I promise. We had a good relationship.

Folks, it’s like watching a train wreck sometimes. It’s reality. That’s what keeps people coming back. They are going to pause and edit and get those awkward moments in there, because that’s what makes TV, TV. That’s why people want. Everybody wants to watch a train wreck. What were you thinking right there? I think they were all out at that point.

At this point, Mark and Robert were still in.

Don’t jump forward, though.

I’m going to go back. One of the things people always say, “Did you go on wanting a certain Shark?” Here’s the deal. It doesn’t matter Shark Tank or not. If you’re out there raising money, the biggest mistake that you could do is not research the heck out of the person that you’re about to meet with. My goal for you, the entrepreneur that’s not the raising money, I want you to be so bored at that lunch when the person is telling you about themselves because you already know all that information already and then some.

A lot of times people go in and go, “I had no idea.” When you know, you control the conversation. You’re also respecting them by showing, “I did my homework on you. I know what you’re interested in and I know what you’re not interested in.” All that to say every one of the Sharks, every almost every guest shark and every shark out there, I read all their biographies before on the show. I watched all these episodes.

I knew a lot of their Rhythms on what they were or were not going to be in and out on. I would say at this point of the show I’m not shocked by anything so far. Everything is going, “That checks the mental box of my research.

That’s a very good point because most people meet with people and I don’t even research. My analysts and my team research a person before you talked to them. Know as much as you can. That’s a very good point because most people walking and then meeting blind.

People will use the excuse, “I just like about seeing my pants.” You can do that in the conversation, but know about the person that you’re sitting across from. At least respect him enough to research if you’re going to ask for money.

I always say you can’t sell anything or collect money from anybody unless you know them.

That’s right. I’m not sure you’d want to. At the same point, taking money from somebody, you’re committing to a pretty intense agreement with somebody. It’s a marriage talks about that. You know who you’re marrying. You don’t just want to take money from anybody. Know them.

Sometimes it easier to have a marriage than a partnership.

That’s what I’ve been told. “I applaud the desire and you’re obviously a great dad. You can tell how much affect your son. You’re trying to do good for him and build a business.” “Thank you.” “What I don’t like it was that moment where I get nothing from my $200,000. If you would entertain $200,000, I’ll give you the 10%, but I want 10% of Dig World, too. I want something substantial behind my money. To me, I see a corporate entity. You’re proving out the model. You’re going to continue with that because you’re going to try new things and so on. To me, it’s one business, $200,000 and 10%.” “Thank you.” “There’s one other shark left which is Mark.”

“Jacob, I love the idea but you came too early. You’ve only run one location. Now you’re riding a whole other business in franchising and you haven’t even try to operate two locations that you own corporately. If you would come in and said, ‘I got $300 under my belt. I’ve got managers. They’re all running the way I want them to. I’m ready to go franchise, then boom. It would be a no-brainer but you haven’t even learned how to find that second location and now you’re trying to help people and other cities figure it out.”

I hear what Mark is saying. I agree and disagree. I’ve seen a lot of guests going on Shark Tank who are way too premature to be on the show. I don’t think you were too early. You gained a lot out of it because, 1) You got exposure. 2) You got credibility. 3) You might have got some franchisees out of it. I know you gain clients out of it. The biggest thing people can gain on Shark Tank is valuable lessons. I know you’ve gained all of that.

I do agree with him on too early for the franchise model. I was a little surprised myself that you are trying to raise capital for the franchise model and not including that corporate business. Again, I haven’t seen edits, so full of clothes on that. I want to invest it either without the corporation. I agree with Mark.

Again, Mark was one we knew. He was on here. He made track record on the show. Mark doesn’t typically lean into franchise no matter where they are in the cycle. We knew this response was coming from him and prepared to say, “Thanks.” They showed me saying thanks or I don’t know. Again, researching who were talking to.

You already know the Mark doesn’t do that. I had a client go on Shark Tank. I wanted a Shark as a customer. I didn’t even know that Shark was a client. It was just huge.

“Too early in, so for those I’m out. I think everybody’s out.” “What do you think of Robert’s offer?” “I own 10% of general partnership of Dig World one and I own 10% of the corporate franchise that we’re going to build out for $200,000.” “You’re good helping me dream. Do we go franchising or corporately owned?” “I feel like you’re going to figure it out. I’m just going to give you some guidance.” “We got a deal.” “It’s a deal.” “Thank you.” “Congrats, guys. Congrats, Jacob.” “Great presentation.” “Robert brings a lot of excitement to the table. I’m super excited about working with him and building out a national brand. Dig World’s coming to you.”

Post-Tank Strategy & Lessons

I love that, You got to deal with Robert. I’m going to go back and ask you, though. Did you have a particular Shark wanted to do business with?

Out of those five, Robert was a Shark that we were wanting the most. Again, any of them would have been a fantastic partner. Any of them would have been an amazing. It would have been a yes. I wouldn’t turn anybody down. Before I walked out there knowing who those five were going to be, Robert fit our research build the most. Anyways, he would be the one that I would have said yes or I’m targeting.

I loved your show. I thought you were amazing. It’s one of the best I’ve seen. I love the show because of all the terms. Even though you didn’t disclose and you were only raising capital for the franchise, not the corporate. It did make for a very good show. The show had my twists and turns. Your story brings tears to everybody’s eyes. It’s a great show. Fabulous job. What’s after the Tank?

We’ve been super blessed record and as we record this, we’re about 60 to 75 days away from opening our second location. We have four more that we’re in lease talks with. We’re right on track of building to try to hit that 5 to 10 goal in the next five years. It’s been an amazing journey post-show. We’re looking forward to this this next phase of multiple locations.

That’s great to hear. Is there any that valuable golden lessons that you felt you learned from going on Shark Tank? Maybe not even on Shark Tank. What would you like to show with our audience?

A couple of things. One, going back what we talked about. My wife and I started dating freshman year of college. She said she saw me studying more for Shark Tank than she did all four years of college combined. She was there for both of those things. Don’t ever underestimate the power of homework. Know who you’re talking to. Know who you’re going to lunch with or breakfast with. Know who they know.

People always say, “How do you raise capital?” The trick to raising capital is networking. It might not be the person you have lunch with. The guy I had lunch with is not probably the guy who’s going to write me a check. It’s his friend that’s going to write me a check. That would be something. The other thing is, don’t let memory or fear or anything hold you back from taking an opportunity right in front of you.

When we had the opportunity to go on Shark Tank, there were some trepidations on my end. I tell people all the time like I told you, I pitched to 248 people and said no. Why would I go on to a show and have five tell me no again and then we’d be on national television for you to play on a show over and over again? Why would I do that?

There was a lot of pause. There was a lot of thought of going, “Do I want to do this again? Do I want to open myself to be a TikTok meme for the rest of my life? Do I want to do this?” On the other side, I’m super thankful we did. For those of you out there that fear or memory or any of those things are holding you back. I flip that around and say, “Chase the imagination of it. Where could he go?”

I love that line, chase the imagination on that.

Also, lean into that. I always tell people, operate out of imagination, not memory and see where that takes you. It would hold you back. It will keep you rooted in fear. It will keep reminding you why you’re not good enough. Again, I can say this because I’m talking myself. Anyways, that would be my encouragement and challenge to those out there.

Is Robert still a partner?

We have not worked together.

You got a deal, but it didn’t come to fruition.

That’s correct. Great post-show relationship, great relationship still but we did not inked the deal.

That’s very important and he can only say so many things because he’s under agreements. That’s very important for the audience to know because you go on a show and you think you’re going to get a deal then the deal doesn’t come to fruition. By the way, this happens a lot. I don’t know the percentage. Maybe you know the percentage, Jacob. You didn’t let him down, did you?

Again, it was a great ending to the story, so no.

You didn’t let him down. He’s strong or going strong opening up his franchise locations and just because you don’t get a deal, doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world.

That’s exactly right. There’s always the next thing out there. Keep going.

Any other remaining thoughts that you would like to pass to our audience?

If you’re reading this and you’re on the fence and you’re constantly going back and forth in your mind like, “Should I do it? Should I not do it? Should I? I’ll wait till I have enough money. I’ll wait till I’m old enough or whatever the case may be.” My encouragement to you is take a faith jump for it. Go chase the crazy dream because you never know you may build a theme park. Go chase some crazy dreams.

It wasn’t a crazy dream. It was inspired by your son, but if you’re going to do anything, most people are not going to think they’re going to do a dirt theme park. That’s what crazy, but you’re successful and you have a big enough why. I thank you for being on the show.

Thank you. It was an honor.

I want to thank all of our readers for tuning. I know this was a lot of feedback. This is a good episode because of all the twists and turns. It was exciting. Go back and read it. Share it with your fellow entrepreneurs or circle of influence and make sure you subscribe to the show.

Important Links

• Jacob Robinson on LinkedIn
• Dig World
• Urban Air
• Altitude

About Jacob Robinson

Jacob Robinson is the founder of three start-ups including Dig World, a theme park where kids and adults get to operate real construction equipment. 1 Stone Solutions, a commercial cleaning company and DryPort Capital, an industrial outdoor storage real estate firm.

He has successfully started, raised funds, built management teams, and executed plans to bring three diverse businesses to life.

In 2023, Jacob was recognized as one of the “Most Admired CEOs in Houston” by the Houston Business Journal. He is honored to serve on the Board of Directors for the Brookwood Community for disabled adults and is involved in his church.

In 2025, Jacob aired on ABCs hit show, Shark Tank telling his personal story and the story of Dig World to a national audience.

Jacob is a graduate from Texas A&M University. He lives in Katy, TX with his wife, Melissa and children, Pierce, Annie, and Spencer.