Get the unvarnished truth and golden nuggets from a Shark Tank guest interview that reveals what really happens when entrepreneurs face the Sharks. David “Dave” Alwan, founder of Echo Valley Meats and a third-generation cattleman and meat processor, shares his wild journey from a retail store in Peoria to the national stage, showcasing his premium, award-winning meats. He dives into his unique “guerrilla marketing” strategy of sending out product samples—with a reported 75%+ order conversion rate—and the hard-hitting business lessons he learned about valuation, his $1.25 million break-even point, and the critical importance of knowing your customer acquisition costs before you ask for an investment. This one will fill your brains full of content, so buckle up!
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Watch the episode here
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Shark Bait With Dave Alwan Of Echo Valley Meats
I love interviewing Shark Tank guests because you get to find out what they did well, what areas of opportunity you can improve upon if you’re going to go on Shark Tank, and you get real golden nuggets, real takeaways that you can really implement in your business to grow your company into sustainable, scalable, and sellable business. I’m very excited about my guest and he’s got a product that is really savory. I want to introduce Dave Alwan. Dave, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
From Butcher Shop To E-commerce: The Echo Valley Meats Origin Story
It’s a pleasure to have you on. Please tell the audience a little bit about your company.
Echo Valley Meats was founded in 1998. I started it from scratch. I am a third-generation cattleman farmer and meat processor. I started cutting meat when I was 11 years old, and got into the family business in 1990. In ‘96 I said, “I want to get the internet business.” My dad and my uncle, who are very old school, born in Lebanon, came here in 1947 and have very profitable retail store, laughed me out of the house because they said, “Who would ever order me through the internet?” They thought it was a joke. This internet thing in ‘96 was very new. A lot of people didn’t have websites or really email. It was the old dial up email and all that stuff. I decided to leave the company, the family business, and start my own company from scratch in 1998.
You’re still in business and you’re crushing it. I’m so excited. We’re going to play the video of Shark Tank, but like I always say, buckle up, fasten your seatbelt. It’s going to be a crazy, bumpy ride because we’re going to fill your brains full of content. It’s like drinking from a water hose. Are you ready, Dave?
I’m ready.
Alright, let’s go. Let’s get this party started.
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Next up is Dave Alwan, who hopes to wet the Shark’s appetites with his quality meats.
I’m Dave Alwan of Echo Valley meets from Peoria, Illinois, the heart of the Midwest. I am seeking $300,000 for 20% equity.
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Shark Tank Valuation Secrets: How Dave Alwan Got To A $3 Million Ask
Okay, $300,000 for 20% equity. Tell me, without going too much into the show, Dave, how you arrived at that valuation.
I have three entities of my business, which is retail, catering, and mail order. It was a combination of the three. It’s all 1 corporation, but 3 revenue streams coming into 1 silo. Based on what we were doing that prior that year when I went on the show, I felt that was the gross valuation of the company at that time, which is about $3 million.
Are you able to tell me what your EBITDA was back then of all three revenue sensors?
I don’t even remember. That was many years ago now, to be honest with you. We were profitable. We’ve always been profitable and I had a little bit of debt back then but it was a fair evaluation. I remember that.
You felt it was a fair evaluation. Alright, cool. Let’s see how fair it was. Let’s see if the Sharks took a bite.
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Echo Valley Meats makes the best meat you’ll ever eat. We specialize in that old fashioned butcher shop quality and deliver the most delicious meats from the farm to tables nationwide. This business is in my blood. I’m third generation in the meat business, a cattleman and a farmer. My motto is simple, know the meat business from conception to consumption. I know this business better than anyone. I’d love for your family, friends, and clients to say wow when they receive a gift from Echo Valley Meats. I assure partnering with one of you for creative vision, connections and knowledge of the eCommerce will help take Echo Valley Meats to the next level of success. You are the Sharks. Now it’s time for a feeding frenzy.
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Very good job. You’ve been in this business since you were eleven years old, third generation. Let’s just talk about that a little bit from my audience because it used to be back in the day, the businesses were handed from generation to generation to generation. You’re the third generation. Are you still the third generation?
No. My son who graduated college is actually here, the fourth.
It’s so different than it is now. You see your son taking over. Nowadays, I will tell you, probably less than 5% of businesses actually transition to the next generation. The reason for that is because a lot of times, kids grow up in their family businesses and they go to work. You just saw my daughter she’s at my office, Dave. You just saw her and they grow up in our business. They’re like, “We don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to work that much or work that many hours or do all that stuff. I want to go out and create my own masterpiece.” Why do you think your generation struck around so much and why do you think your son is so interested in moving forward with the family tradition?
The Entrepreneur’s Code: You Get What You Work For, Not What You Wish For
I have a motto. You get what you work for, not what you wish for.
That’s very important.
I’m a strong believer in that and a lot of people wish for certain things, but they’re not willing to put in the time and the effort to get to where you need to be. Most people are afraid of failure. I have failed so many times, that has led to my success because you learn from your failures and you don’t make the same mistake twice. If you can help the next generation without your same struggles and your same failures, and let them make their new failures on their own and learn from it, get up tomorrow, put your boots back on and go back at it, that’s huge. I’ve never been afraid to fail. There’s a great motto somebody sent to me. I had a daughter that passed away and it says, “You don’t have the right to the deck of cards you feel you should have been dealt, but an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding.”
Most people are afraid of failure, but that often leads to success because you learn from them and don't make the same mistake twice. Share on XI love that. You have these one-liners. They’re really good.
They’re very true. Reality is what they amount to. You just have to get up and I have a motto. Outwork everybody else at the game, outperform everybody.” I can email or text certain people and get a response back in 15 to 60 minutes every single time, typically. Some of these people are worth billions of dollars.
I have a motto. If somebody wants to reach out to Echo Valley Meats, I want our staff or myself to reach out in within one hour’s time. A turnaround time and customer service is a dead issue. You can’t get anybody to answer the phones, to return a phone call to even get a human body on the phone. Half the time we pick up the phone, we respond back, we email it back immediately. I think that’s really what sets us apart.
Customer service is a dead issue. Today, you can't get anybody to answer the phones, return a phone call, or even get a human body on the phone. Share on XYou really hit the nail on the head because there’s not a day that goes by where I’m not interacting with a business where I’m like, “What happened here to customer service? What happened to providing value? What happened to under promising, over delivering?” I was in an event. I’m like, “If you did this and this and this, it’d make yu so much more successful.”
I have to drop my car off for service at Mercedes. The lady was wonderful to check me in, but she says, “Now we got to get with the service manager to put you on the shuttle.” I’m like, “Why don’t they empower you to do that? Why do I have to wait for somebody who’s got three people in line and he’s talking and he is on the phone, etc.? They should empower you to do that.” Customer service is dead. I agree with you 1,000%. Let’s go back and listen to more and let’s learn about the meats.
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Ladies first.
Thank you. Wow.
Robert.
Thank you very much. Thank you. I love cold cuts, sir.
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I’m going to pause this real quick because Dave was kind enough to send me an entire box of meats and goodies and cheeses and brownies and summer sausage and the ham and the steaks and everything, the brisket. This is the best meat I’ve ever tasted in my entire life. In fact, my daughter doesn’t really like meat, but she loved Dave’s meat. She loved the brownies and she was very impressed. It’s the only time I really got her to eat steak. If my daughter who never eats meat eats Dave’s meats, that’s got to speak volumes. Now, let’s see what the judges say.
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Tasting so good.
Wow. David, can you tell us what we were eating?
Sure. The one on your plate, Robert, to the far your left hand there, that would be a beef tenderloin. That would be very good. The other one would be our hickory smoked beef brisket, which we slow roast for about 15 to 16 hours ourselves.
That is outstanding.
The other one is our ham, which is, again, a natural juice ham, so there’s no water added to it.
What was this?
That is our summer sausage. That is an award-winning summer sausage as well.
Fantastic. Tell us about the business side of it.
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Master Butcher Secrets: What Makes Echo Valley Meats The Best Quality?
The food is so great. What makes your meat so much better than everybody else’s?
I bought my first farm when I was 23 years old called Echo Valley Farms. I started breeding cattle and raising cattle. I decided I wanted to be one of the best sausage makers in the world. I went to Germany and Denmark to get trained back in early 2000, 2001. Meat processing is a science and it’s quality and quality out. A lot of people want to use scraps and garbage and stuff like that. Old products to put into sausage to clean up and get rid of. I believe in quality and quality out. We have natural spices. There’s no non-fat dry milk. There’s no powders, there’s no fillers and stuff like that. It’s very clean product as well. It doesn’t leave after tasting in your mouth like some people’s products do when you taste something for hours.
Our summer sausage was award-winning. When I came back from Europe, I entered it in some competition into a grand champion, my very first competition ever. Next thing you know, a lot of products for Swiss Colony out of Monroe, Wisconsin. They used to be in all the malls and stuff like that. Most people add 30, 35% water to a ham because it’s weight and you sell by the pound. Ours is a natural juice ham, which means it has less than 10% water added to it. Our steaks are all USDA choice and breeding cattle, I know exactly what I’m looking for and it’s just that little extra going above and beyond and making sure your quality controls are in place and that your products are very consistent day in and day out.
I will tell you, that summer sausage is the best I’ve ever had as well.
Thank you.
I need to order.
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Last year we did $1.25 million between retail catering and our mail order.
When you say retail, what does that mean?
I have a retail store.
You have a retail store?
Yes, in Peoria.
How do customers find you?
Right now, it’s literally word of mouth. I have been developing this for the past ten years, literally, guerilla marketing. I get in my car and take samples to local businesses around Peoria, $25 gift boxes, $50 gift boxes, and drop them off to corporations and say, “This is what we do.”
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The Power of Guerrilla Marketing: Getting 75% Order Conversions
Dave, are you still doing that guerilla marketing because nobody really talks about guerilla marketing anymore? There was a book called Guerilla Marketing. Are you still doing that?
I do. When I travel and I meet people on airplanes or trade shows or whatever, I always come back and send them a sample. I never even had social media. I have a large LinkedIn profile, but never had social media like Facebook up until recently. We’re trying something. Indiana University has got a project with these kids, so they’re using me as a research project. It’s interesting because I’ve really never advertised.
My way of advertising is like you. I send them a box, I send them a nice box and make a believer out of them, rather than spending $10,000 on Meta ads not knowing if they work. I know if I send you a product and you come back and order, like you’re talking about now, how you want to order more sausage, I know it works. There’s a way to direct measure whether your marketing is working or not. We have a list of people that we send samples to send samples and we can track if they come back and never order. Do I expect you to order? No, I don’t. I don’t expect your order. Am I confident that you probably will? Yes, I am.
I would assume you track that and I assume you have a pretty high percentage of prospective clients that you send boxes to that do come back and order from you.
Over 75%.
Entrepreneurs reading, I think everybody needs to go back to the grassroots sometimes. Go back to that guerilla marketing, go back and really make relationships because you can’t tell on social media, you can’t taste as meat. I think it’s time that if you got a really good product, send the product out, go out there, run into businesses. I used to do guerilla marketing back when I sold copiers, Dave. I used to go door by door with a copier and try to demo it right then and there. I did that back in my Xerox days, even before Xerox actually. I believe that we all need to get back to guerilla marketing, don’t you Dave?
I do. One word I like to use is you create an experience around the food. Just like you were just talking about you and your daughter probably having a steak together and she doesn’t eat meat. Next thing you’re talking about, “This guy was on Shark Tank and he sent us a sample and this stuff is so good.” That’s like our hams.
You create an experience around the food. Share on XWe have one client that orders 1,500 to 1,800 hams a year and has for 20 years. They all talk about Echo Valley ham, how good the ham is. When you’re sitting around the dinner table at the holidays and you have 5 or 10 or 20 people and your experience is all about that ham and how good the quality is, now you’re creating memories around that food experience. Why would you ever switch companies next year when last year’s ham was so good and everybody rant raved about it? You’re creating a brand experience is what you’re doing. That’s how I built it.
Is he buying those 1,800 hams to give out to us gifts?
Yeah. They’re for his employees.
You just gave me a great idea because I buy gifts for our clients and another company I own and we give out 500, 600, 700 things regardless of what it might be for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. Your hams will make a really good gift for that.
Absolutely. We have somebody that took 2,500 sausage and cheese boxes. We do a nice Christmas holiday season in the mail order business and every year it continues to grow at warp speed, honestly.
Every year continues to grow at warp speed. Share on XYeah, because you can give a gift, like we give gifts for Christmas, but when you give a ham, you’ll create an experience and especially if you have somebody that can cook it and then you create an experience with your clients and guess what? You’re breaking bread with your clients eating Dave’s hams.
The thing is, we send cooking instructions with every item we have. It’s simple to read and to heat up with our process, we give you a step by step way to prepare our stuff.
You really do. I would say, one of the things I wanted to compliment you on as well, is the packaging my unfortunately, my husband passed, but my husband used to order meats and seafood and all that different things and they were never packaged right. Yours is packaged very well. It came with a little card with each one.
It shows a picture, shows you how to cook it shows you how to store it, what to do with it. It’s very nice. Well done, well packaged and decorative by the way. There was pretty confetti in there. I think it was red and black. The quality of the food is number one. What do people see first? They see the packaging, they see how well it’s done.
The first word I’d like to come out of everybody’s mouth when they open the lid is, “Wow.” One word. “Wow, look at this,” because now it sets the expectation of this is really cool, this is nice. You’re already like, “This is a really good packaging.” Once they try the food, it takes it over the top because the food, like you said, is the main reason for the package, which is what we care about. The first impression, which is 3 to 5 seconds, is what it’s all about.
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. My daughter said wow. I said wow. I wish I would’ve recorded it on my phone.
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Compared to the other competitors and the quality?
Forty-two percent cheaper than pretty much anybody in the industry. I have stuck to the basics, believe in the best product. I knew it was going to take me a lot longer to get to where I wanted to go, but I’ve stuck to my roots.
If you’re offering the same quality or better quality product for a cheaper, what are your margins on your products?
On the mail order business, at the end of the day, on any of these items, we net about 26% to 28% across the board. This particular ham here, which is about an 8-to-10-pound spiral sized ham would retail in the catalog for $49. That ham cost me between $16 and $18 before package.
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Prices And Profit Margins: The Real Cost Of Meat Post-Shark Tank
Let’s talk a little bit about your cost number one. You know your number, so that’s great. Number two, back then, season four, you were charging, was it $47, $49 for your hams? Your profit margin, I think you said was 28%.
Twenty six percent gross profit.
Without giving anything away on this episode and the next episode, yes, there’s going to be a next episode with Dave, what does your hams cost now? What’s your profit margin now?
They’re $89 instead of $49. Since COVID hit, the price of everything has pretty much doubled. The meat business is ridiculous. Packaging has gone through the roof. Dry ice used to be $0.39 a pound. It’s a $1 a pound now. You have as much in the packaging cost as in the product itself.
Obviously you had to increase your prices, and your profit margin is what now?
It’s probably a little bit less. The gross profit is probably 20% to 22%. I’m trying to keep it very economical. I want to be under that $100 mark. I don’t want to be $99 or over $100 like some of our competitors are. I’m willing to take a little less margin. We sell to a lot of customers like I was telling you, that might take 1,800 of them at a time, so that helps make up the difference.
You definitely had to raise your prices. That was going to be my big question. How can you really stay in business at that?
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Retail outlets?
No, I’d like to go into more mail order than we do.
You want to go straight direct?
That’s right.
What do you make on that $1.25 million in sales?
We only netted about $20,000.
Is that after you paid yourself something?
Yes.
David, on $1.25 million in sales, you basically broke even. That’s what happened.
That’s correct. I paid for everything as I went. All my equipment is paid for in full. My smokehouse alone would cost $250,000 to pay for. My sausage stuff is $150,000 if you were going to buy this stuff brand new. Everything’s paid for.
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I don’t really want to dive into valuations too much right now. At the $1.2 million, you basically broke even. I think that’s what triggered the conversations ahead of us on the valuation. I think that’s important to pay attention. Do you have anything to say here, Dave?
No, again, that was many years ago and that was pretty much a break even. That was after I paid myself too. I paid myself. A lot of companies don’t pay themself, but I pay myself.
That’s the thing too, a lot of business owners say, “I pay myself,” and that’s great. If the business is dependent upon the owner, then we never can add back the salaries because the owner’s going to have to stay in the business. If the business is not dependent upon the owner and has a great team in place and owner’s not really needed in a day to day, then we can add back the owner’s salaries. A lot of business owners think, “My salary’s an add back.” No, not necessarily. In most cases, it’s not.
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Let’s say you did $1.2 million next year and got rid of those one-time costs, how much money would you have made?
Probably closer to $50,000.
Why is the profit so low?
When you’re making that little bit of money, one little thing goes wrong.
From this point forward, once we go over the $3 million mark, everything becomes profit. Our overhead doesn’t change one bit.
You have a cost structure that you’ve got to do a certain amount just to break even.
That’s right. $1.2 million is basically our breakeven and that’s where we’re at right now.
I give you the $300,000, what are you spending on?
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Okay, so you have that breakeven point. What was that breakeven point?
$1.2 million.
Basically, they looked at it as you’re not making any money. Yes, you have your salary, but your salary’s not considered now back because the business can’t run with, couldn’t run without you back then. I’m not sure about now. This is very important for business owners to know. When you look at the EBITDA earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, personal expenses, there’s non-recurring expenses, so you can add back.
Dave, you probably had some of those. I don’t know if anybody looked at your financials and adjusted the financials or normalize the financials before you came on the show, but a lot of times there’s more profit there, especially if you’re a new company and you’re buying lots of things that’s a non-reoccurring expense. At that point, your salary was not able to be added back. Am I making sense to you, Dave?
Absolutely. You’re 100% correct.
Okay, good. I like it when people say that. At that point, you weren’t making any money.
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I would think purely marketing and bringing in product inventory before the season.
What type of marketing?
On a national eCommerce. I think that’s where the growth is really is.
The problem with that, Dave, is do you know what it costs you to acquire a new customer?
Not really, to be honest with you. We’ve been developing this, recreating the website, just really fine tuning the last multiple years to get to where we’re at now.
You want to take my $300,000 to experiment to find those answers. I don’t know what it’s going to cost to get a customer that comes back every holiday to buy a ham. You don’t either. You’re going to go find out. You’re going to spend my $300,000 doing it. Maybe you’ll be successful, maybe you won’t be.
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The Fatal Flaw: Why Not Knowing Your Customer Acquisition Cost Killed The Deal
Okay, so how’d you feel during this moment?
That’s when you get a pit in your stomach because I thought I was prepared but I was unprepared. I did not know my customer acquisition costs and I didn’t know my numbers properly. That was when your heart sinks.
What year were you on?
It was in 2013.
I think you did a great job. You were season four. They were four years in. Was it four years in? Is that how you look at it? I think you did a great job, but yes, you got stuck here. You got stuck on valuations. I think this is a very important place to pause because for any of you trying to go on Shark Tank, now you got a lot of shows to study. Back then, they didn’t have as many shows to study and back then, a lot of people were getting stuck on different points like this.
When you go on a Shark Tank, you don’t know what you don’t know, but you need to go back and look at all the shows. There’s a lot more shows than when Dave was on and he had a pit in his stomach because he didn’t know his customer acquisition costs. That’s where you die most of the time when you go try to get investors.
If you don’t know your numbers, if you don’t have a realistic valuation, and most importantly, if you don’t know your customer acquisition costs, that’s where they’re going to pounce. I know you know your acquisition costs now because I watched a second video that we’re going to watch right after this one.
Ironically, they respected me for being honest as well that day. They were very intrigued how honest I was that day.
That’s a very good point, Dave, because a lot of people will get up there and they’ll get stuck and then they just start making things up. When you get stuck and you start making things up, the Sharks are going to smell blood. They’re going to smell not really blood because they’re not really going to want to go after a client that doesn’t really know these things, but they’re going to pounce. It was good that you did tell the truth. You were transparent.
You did look a little bit like deer in the headlights but you learn a lot from that episode. It’s very important for everybody going on there, get an advisor that can help you. Most importantly, a lot of things that they’re going to quiz you on and ask you has already been done because there’s so many episodes.
As you said, if you go on now, you have so many episodes to look at. What are the questions the Sharks are asking? What are you going to get hung up on? You can do so much more homework than I had the opportunity to do back then.
You can do a whole lot of due diligence. You have some shows, but that was also in the beginning. The shows have evolved tremendously since then.
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I know a customer ordered 900 last year, so I feel in the past several years, I have not lost any business. Each customer came back and continued to.
Dave. I don’t think that there’s any doubt this is a fantastic product. The meat was great, but here’s my challenge. I didn’t know about you until you walked out here. I buy stuff like this all the time as corporate gifts for our corporate customers. Kevin’s right. It’s very expensive to find those people. These people mail me, they email me, they blast me, all kinds of stuff. I’m struggling with the $300,000. I know that’s a lot of money, but I don’t know, I think it’s going to cost a lot.
My challenge is the same thing.
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Robert didn’t know who you were. What’d you think about that?
It didn’t surprise me. As I said, I didn’t have social media. I have a very small company, a family business that’s only had a retail store since 1947 with no national exposure. No, it did not surprise me at all, honestly.
I think a lot of things have changed since you were on that first season. Obviously, we just talked about that. I want to go back to my comment earlier about grassroots. I do think you need to have both. I think you have to have a good social media campaign, even if it’s just organic and not paid search. I do think you have to do grassroots.
My entrepreneurs reading, if you want to go on Shark Tank now, you can do the research. You can start doing your marketing ahead of time, start doing your social media ahead of time and make sure you start popping up in front of these Sharks on social media. I don’t know the policy, I don’t know if they allow you to start sending the Sharks things ahead of time or not. No?
No.
Before even applying for Shark Tank, you could start sending your stuff. You don’t have to follow the rules because there will be no rules since you haven’t been chosen. I think it’s a good grassroots effort to send some of these Sharks your products and let them know about what you do before you’re even accepted to go on the show or perhaps even before you apply to go on the show. What do you think, Dave?
If you’re trying to solicit them before you go on the show, hoping to get on the show, it’s probably a gray area. I would think that if the producers found out about that, you might be disqualified. I don’t know if necessarily the rules or the regulations on that, but I send out product samples to lots of people. Every time I travel, I do that. Send it out to one of them or all of them.
Strategic Pitching: Why Mark Cuban Was The Target Shark
That’s a little much but you can pop up in a newsfeed. There’s lots of ways to pop up in their circles without necessarily sending them a product because you certainly don’t want to violate any regulations. I was just saying before you signed any agreement, you want to definitely pop up in their circles. Let’s talk about this real quick because we’re going to start getting into the evaluation. Who’s in, who’s out? Did you have a specific Shark that you really wanted to do business with before you came to the show?
Yeah, Mark.
Good to know.
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Up against the big boys now with high dollars.
One point that you said to me that would help you that was attractive was yours is a $49 ham and I think the other ham’s out there like $69, $79.
That’s a smaller weight also. They’re significantly higher with not as much product.
I think that’s a real distinct advantage because the other stuff, you’re right, Lori.
It’s not an advantage at all because you’re not making money.
They’re selling their product at a higher price because obviously they have to. I’ve only targeted 60 miles around Peoria.
I think what we’ll find out, Dave, is the reason there’s $79 on your $49 ham is that their cost of customer acquisition is the difference. You’d find that out. You’re not going to be any different. It’s going to cost money, maybe $20 more per order
If we would get to a $5 million point.
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Were they absolutely correct on that?
Yes, because I didn’t know what I didn’t know at the time. I didn’t know what my customer acquisition cost was.
Your competitors are so much higher because they have to cover those acquisition costs. I’m sure there was a lot of other costs you learned about after the show.
I wasn’t spending money on marketing.
Correct. You weren’t doing marketing. That’s why their hams were higher because they got to cover all that cost. I’m sure there’s other costs that you found out about after being on the show as well.
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On our mail order business alone and net 28%. For $300,000, you would have 100% return on investment back.
You’re not telling us. That’s a long road from here, Dave.
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That takes five years. That could take five years to get to $5 million and most investors don’t want to waste five years. Do you agree, Dave?
Yes.
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Here’s where you screwed up. You know the meat business. You make a great product, you proved it, but what you’ve told us is your retail business is your retail business. You see the upside because the margins are greater in the direct mail business, particularly through eCommerce. The one thing you didn’t do was come prepared to explain to us why. You’re coming in unprepared. That doesn’t cut it. I’m out.
Your retail business is your retail business. You see the upside because the margins are greater in the direct mail business, particularly through e-commerce. Share on X—
Do you agree? I think you said earlier you were unprepared or you were not as prepared as you should.
When I look back at it now, I was unprepared. I thought the food products itself were so good that it would sell, but I didn’t have the business knowledge down and the right answers to the questions that I should have known.
That’s a big point right there that you just said. The reason I’m not so huge is because entrepreneurs, business owners are so passionate about what they do. You are so passionate about meat, you’re so passionate about your business, there is no doubt about it. You eat it, breathe it, sleep it, love it. Many times, entrepreneurs, business owners get so focused on that product or become so emotional with that product that it’s very difficult for them to focus on the business piece of it because everybody’s like, “I bet this great product, everybody in the world is going to buy it.”
Exactly where my mind was.
You’ve got to get to everybody in the world and that cost money.
—
You’re making the assumption people are going to buy your product and stay with you, but you’re not answering the question how much it’s going to cost to find that customer. I think you came up with $300,000. I asked you how are you going to specifically spend that and you say marketing, national marketing.
Maybe it’s sending out samples like I did
Dave, you never want to talk about maybe. I grew up on a farm. A farmer doesn’t go out in the field and throw a bunch of seeds out and says, “I hope it’s corn next year.”
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That’s a good, solid point, don’t you think, Dave?
Absolutely. It’s making me chuckle and shake my head, looking back at this.
Are you having nightmares?
No. This is what we learned from it. When you’re not afraid to fail and you’re willing to accept what you did wrong and improve on it tomorrow and go get it, that’s how you succeed.
When you're not afraid to fail, you're willing to accept what you did wrong and improve on it tomorrow. Go get it. That's how you succeed. Share on XYeah, because the second time, you question it. Everybody needs to know when you’re talking to investors, there is no maybe. You need to know your numbers, you need to know your business model. You need to have a clear vision. A lot of people get kicked off Shark Tank because they don’t have a clear vision of what they’re going to do. I think your vision was pretty clear, though. You said from the beginning mail order business. That never changed.
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That’s what you’re doing. I’m sorry. I’m out, but I will take more sausage. There’s plenty of that.
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I hope they became customers.
Several of them are still customers to this day.
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Can’t call your business plan bad because there isn’t one. It’s an interesting point.
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The Harsh Truth: Why The Sharks Dropped Out (No Business Plan)
That was harsh.
I got a lot of respect for Mr. Wonderful, Kevin. I think he’s one of the sharpest ones up there. I really like him and have a ton of respect for him.
If you had to pick one Shark, you would’ve picked Mark Cuban. Is there a reason you would’ve went with Mark?
I just felt like Mark was maybe the younger generation. He’s probably not any younger than most of them, but just appealed more to the younger generation of people. He’s got younger kids and Mark’s very out there on social media. Probably as far as a name goes, he probably was more recognized than most of them at that time and stuff like that.
He was owner of the Mavericks, right?
Correct.
He had a captive audience.
He had a fraternity brother from Illinois who I knew.
He had a captive audience. He could work at his own brand and his own game. He had a captive audience and men eat meat, so do women. He had a big captive audience. Kevin’s one of the sharpest guys up there.
Definitely.
I believe you. I agree.
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Absolutely spectacular. The strategy to get it into the market isn’t there, at least in terms of eCommerce. I don’t see the opportunity because you didn’t present it to me. I’m out.
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Did you have another pit in your stomach?
No, I think at this point, I knew that I didn’t know my numbers and I figured they was going to start dropping off one at a time. At this point, I was very realistic.
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Probably can’t tell, but I generally try not to eat red meat. I eat fish. I’m trying not to go in that area of business. My kids are vegans and things of that nature. From just that standpoint alone, I’m out.
Lori.
I really like you. I think the product is amazing. I have a lot of experience with catalog sales and it is hard to get your name known and you do have a lot of competition. I think that you’ll make it slowly, but I like to get things out there really quickly to get my return on my investment. I don’t see that happening here. For that reason, I’m out.
Good luck, David.
Thank you, guys.
Thank you. Have a great day.
Good luck.
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No Deal, No Quit: The Entrepreneur’s Mindset After Getting Shot Down
How did you feel walking off that stage with no deals?
Sick to my stomach, to be honest with you. I remember it vividly. It was like a sucker punch. As I was walking out, I said I knew I had great product, but I also knew I didn’t know my numbers and I was truthful with my answers. Didn’t try to camouflage it, didn’t try to pull numbers out of the sky that I didn’t know. I was honest.
The best thing you can do is be honest because you don’t want to lie. They’re going to find out and then they’re never going to invite you back on. They did invite you back on. We’re going to play that episode another time, so my audience, stay tuned. Did you feel defeated? Did you feel like you wanted to quit?
Never ever in my life. I had a handicapped child that never talked or walk for twenty years who passed away in 2017. Yesterday’s history and tomorrow’s a mystery. One day at a time.
I always thought I was a queen of one-liners, but I don’t know, I think you’re beating me. You’re the king.
Nothing we can do about yesterday in our mistakes but there’s everything we can do about tomorrow and getting better.
Yesterday’s history is, tomorrow’s a mystery. Love it. That was your daughter that passed?
Yes.
Very sorry to hear that. Most people will go on Shark Tank or they’ll go in front of investors, they get shot down. Sometimes it’s brutal. They really take it personally instead of looking at it objectively that the Sharks are not beating you up, but they’re training you up.
They’re business people, they’re going to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in you. They’re not doing it for their health. They’re not a teacher at Harvard in the education business. They want to return on their investment.
What shocks me so much is there’s still people that go on Shark Tank that don’t know their numbers. There’s still people that go on Shark Tank that really don’t know what they’re doing. Did you ever second guess your valuation?
Yes, I probably did after the fact because honestly, I did not have somebody come in, like you had said, a financial person help over things with me. I just did it myself. In hindsight, I should have been a little bit more prepared with facts.
I think you’re probably focused on the product so much like you said, and not so much the business point, because at that $3 million at that $20,000 in EBITDA or barely breaking even, you’re asking for 15 multiple and 15 multiple is really high for all my entrepreneurs out there. The normal multiple, really depending upon the industries, is anywhere from 3 to 5. If you’ve got subscription models like he does, Dave has a subscription model, he’s got mailbox. You do have a subscription model, right, Dave?
No, we don’t, honestly.
Let’s coach on subscription models. When you want to look at your business, you want to look at the six pillars of the foundation. One of them is proprietary assets. Buyers will pay you top dollar, the biggest value, if you’ve got a subscription model, if you’ve got proprietary assets. That subscription model is mailbox money. That’s what buyers are paying top multiples for now. If any of you can go out there and create a subscription model, Dave, let’s see if we can do it, that’s where the money is and that’s where your high 7, 8, 9, 10 multiple comes in.
That’s good to know.
If that valuation is a little high, again, I’m not beating you up, I’m trying to train everybody up that’s reading, and you realize that now. Sometimes, it’s always better to be prepared. Don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t know something. You don’t know what you don’t know, but be prepared. Tell me real quick a little bit about life after the tank, what you learned, how you changed it without getting too much into what your business is now. I want to have you back on the show and I want to play the second video because you were instructing twice and I don’t want you to give that away because this is a nice surprise for our audience.
Life After The Tank: 1.2 Million Website Hits and the “Shark Tank Effect”
I’ll just focus on the first time. What happened after the show was astonishing. I had $1.2 million hits on my website within 12 hours. I had 4,500 emails. I had three of the biggest movie stars on Planet Earth, reach out to me directly, offer me partnerships. I was offered $3 million for the whole company, to buy me outright.
It was crazy. The night we aired, I had a party with 200 people, which everybody would’ve bet their life that Dave got a deal. Even though I didn’t get a deal, I figured it was once in a lifetime opportunity. I had a party because I never knowing I was going to get a second chance to go back on. It’s a once in a life deal. Before I go on the show, we had Google Analytics there in Bradley University, some college kids with 42-inch television. There were six people on my site. As soon as Robert said wow, there was 42,000 people on my website simultaneously within the first 45 seconds.
As soon as Robert said wow, when he tasted the summer sausage?
Kevin said outstanding. Between Robert and Kevin’s comments, we went from 6 people to 42,000 people inside of 30 to 40 seconds on my site simultaneously.
That’s influence. It’s always better when somebody else could sell you versus you selling yourself. That was good. Going on a Shark Tank, look what it did to him. That’s a great point about influencers and how influencers can really blow you up.
We had 6,800 open shopping baskets, people shopping and buying. Unfortunately, we had a software glitch that day and I shipped $165,000 twice, I got paid for once. We built a new young site in ten days from when we found out that we were airing that Shark Tank. In the cyber world, there’s a Shark Tank and Oprah effect that you find out if you’re going to be on Oprah or Shark Tank, 99 out of 100 people’s site’s going to crash. They can’t handle it.
I had ten days and I said, “Come hell or high water, my site’s not going to crash.” We built a whole new site. We had 22 of 23 Amazon Cloud servers scaling up while 1 million people. We’re low testing it the night before. My guy’s like, “You’re not going to crash.” What we didn’t test was the shopping cart and we had a shopping cart glitch and so people got double their orders but paid for it once.
I bet they loved it. You had happy fans.
You wouldn’t believe some of the comments people saying, “Your product is too worthy. Let me at least buy it for half or let me buy it for something.” I’m just like, “It’s our fault. Keep it and enjoy.” To this day, a lot of those same people are everyday customers because of it.
You retained most of those clients from that. You sold $1.2 million, I think you said.
Back then.
From that one episode.
No. I said 1.2 million viewers in 12 hours.
Are you able to say what your retail was? I don’t know if you remember.
I don’t remember, to be honest with you. From season 4 to season 6, we grew pretty substantially. We’ll talk about in the next go round.
Sounds great. Listen to all the publicity he got and I really call that free publicity, don’t you, Dave?
Absolutely.
Free publicity. Go on a Shark Tank, know your numbers, know your business. Don’t just focus on your product and become so passionate about the product that you forget the business side of it. What golden nuggets can you leave for our audience? I know you got great one-liners, but give us the three best tips that you have.
Know your numbers. Be confident in what you do. Be passionate about what you do, because they’re going to see through it if this is just a smoke and mirrors type thing and do everything nobody else wants to do and do it better than everybody else in your industry. Who cares what everybody else does? I don’t care what any of my competitors do. I stay in my own lane. I know what works for me and I know what my overhead is. Somebody else’s overhead is totally different than mine. What do I care what they’re selling it for or what are they doing? I’m doing everything based on to make money from Echo Valley Meats and staying in my own lane.
Know your numbers. Number two?
Be passionate about what you’re doing.
Be passionate about what you’re doing, but don’t be so passionate de you don’t know the business side. Number three?
Outwork everybody else at the game and do it better than everybody else.
You’re better than everybody else. It doesn’t sound that difficult, does it?
No, it’s not but most people aren’t willing to put in the effort. I’ve missed 3 days of work in 36 years unscheduled.
I had people who missed two days and they haven’t been here very long.
I have been here a year that I missed ten days. I just shake my head. It goes back to you get what you work for, not what you wish for.
It’s all about hard work. It’s about working smart. It’s about ethics and it’s about values. Back in the day, people worked really hard. They were very ethical. People never took time off back then like they do now. They never called in sick back then like they do now. Any last-minute thoughts?
No, it’s been a pleasure and an honor talking to you and audience. I always tell people this. If people have a question, feel free to email me. I always respond back to every email personally. That’s who I am.
Let me tell you, it’s wonderful. When I opened that box, I could see how much personal attention and detail went into that box. You almost felt the love when you open that box. There was a lot of planning because Dave knows, as a business owner, you got to cross your t’s dot eyes. You got to inspect what you expect. You got to trust, but verify, right, Dave?
Absolutely. I order from all my competitors every year and see what their packaging looks like. What can I do better than them? What is the first impression of my competitors?
Another good point. Shop your competitors. See what they do. How do they do it? How can you better the process? Know your competition. Another great point. It was the pleasure having you on. I can’t wait to have you on the next time when we find out what happened after this season and what happened on season, what was that season that we’re going to play next time?
Season 4, episode 21. The next one will be season 6, episode 22. It’s been a good ride in between and the ride is still going.
All right. In the meantime, all of you, the great holidays, ham, summer sausage, the steaks, the brisket, go order from Dave. You will not be disappointed. It’s the best I’ve had, far best of what my husband used to order, which I hate to say that. Go out there and get Dave’s meats. I’m so glad, though, that it’s called Echo Valley Meats.
Final Entrepreneur Advice: Why You Must Brand The Company, Not Yourself
Not Dave’s Meats. Why not Dave’s Meats? It’s because then he’d be branding everything around him and his name. You never want to do that in a company. You want to brand yourself, but most importantly, you want to branch your company. It was a pleasure having you on, Dave. Thank you so much. For all of our readers, thank you for reading. I really appreciate it. This is great content like I promised from the beginning. Share this with your social media network. Share this with other fellow entrepreneurs. Share this with anybody that really needs good meat and make sure you tune in next time. Make sure you check out and subscribe to the show.
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About Dave Alwan
Raised in a family-owned meat business, third generation farmer and cattleman Dave Alwan, founded Echo Valley Meats Inc. in 1998 with his wife, Dawn. Together they’ve grown Echo Valley from and “Old Fashion Style” retail market, into a mail-order business, offering employee recognition, corporate gifts and incentives.
Dave purchased his first farm at age of 23 to breed and raise Angus cattle. With that experience, he knows the meat business from “conception to consumption.” Because of his desire to offer high quality products, Dave also decided to learn from the “best” and traveled to Germany and Denmark for training in the art of making smoked hams and sausages, completing a 3-year apprenticeship in just six months.
Not satisfied with his local success, Dave decided to audition for the ABC TV show “Shark Tank.” He flew to Los Angeles, California, gave his “Pitch,” and impressed producers enough to make it to the show. Though he didn’t secure a deal, the “Sharks” loved his meat products, authenticity, and enthusiasm. Not getting a deal has still been successful in many ways. Online sales have increased over 600%, and Dave is now being recruited to speak at colleges, universities, corporations, and business organizations across the country.
Not only has Dave been recognized by audiences for his inspirational story, he also earned the attention once again of ABC-TV. In 2014 Dave received the invitation for a return visit to “Shark Tank,” where he had the rare opportunity for a second pitch to the Sharks during Season 6. This time he secured a deal with billionaire investor, Mark Cuban, making Dave the only entrepreneur in the show’s history to pitch the same business successfully the second time around. Since his second appearance, Dave has expanded into the corporate gifts market and also become a regular on QVC, consistently receiving rave reviews and record-breaking sales.
Dave and Dawn Alwan, along with their company, Echo Valley Meats, are a growing success because of common sense judgment, hard work, leading by example, giving back to the community and above all, finding passion in life.
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