#2 | Abe Minkara: Half of Shark Tank Handshake Deals Never Close

Roughly half the handshake deals struck on Shark Tank never close. Abe Minkara ran diligence on them for seven years at Mark Cuban Companies.More on Abe Minkara and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/abe-minkaraHere he opens the whole machine. More than 40,000 entrepreneurs apply each season and 150 to 200 get picked. The pitch that airs as five minutes actually runs an hour or more, and after the opening minute there are no retakes. The average check is about $200,000, pre-seed to Series A, and the deals with three, four or five Sharks attached are the ones most likely to die.Deals get killed by ordinary things: $5 million in claimed sales against $3 million in the books, a Walmart commitment that turns out to be an email, an undisclosed lawsuit. If a handshake deal did not close there was a good chance the episode never aired, a fix the show made after companies started using it purely for exposure. For the ones that do air, $200,000 in sales inside 48 hours and close to $1 million in a week is real.Then he explains what he does now at Legacy Knight, the Dallas multifamily office he co-founded in late 2019. It serves families in the $50 million to $500 million range, pools their capital to clear $10 to $20 million fund minimums, and runs private equity as its largest allocation.Abe Minkara is a founding partner at Legacy Knight, a Dallas multifamily office he co-founded in late 2019 and that Citywire ranked the fastest growing registered investment advisor in Texas. He previously spent seven years as a managing director at Mark Cuban Companies, much of it running diligence on Shark Tank investments.KEY MOMENTS00:00 Harder to get on than into Stanford02:48 40,000 apply, 150 to 200 get picked04:24 One scripted minute, then no retakes10:37 If the deal died, no episode aired11:40 Commit to ten, expect half to fall out13:35 The average check is about $200,00030:12 $50M to $500M: the multifamily office44:10 Private equity as the biggest bucket48:50 Clearing $10 to $20 million minimums55:27 Slap AI on the name, raise $10 millionNewsletter: thedealtablepodcast.com/connectLane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElWInstagram: instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.