Carolyn Fath
MobCraft Beer is jumping into the Shark Tank, the ABC reality television show that gives aspiring entrepreneurs a chance to make their best business pitch to potential investors.
MobCraft CEO Henry Schwartz traveled to California a couple of months ago for the taping of an episode that is scheduled to air Friday night, March 11, at 8 p.m. central time.
The weekly show features a five-person cast, or “sharks,” that listen to a company's best pitch for funding. The questions are often pointed and the assessment of pitches blunt. If the sharks like what they hear, they often fight among themselves over who will invest in the ideas they see as potentially the most successful.
“You just walk in, pitch your company, and have a discussion about trying to make an equity deal,” says Schwartz. He’s prohibited by the network from revealing what the outcome was.
MobCraft is planning viewing parties in local bars; forthcoming details will be announced on the MobCraft website.
Schwartz and his MobCraft partner Andrew Gierczak (and original partner Giotto Troia) have been involved in crowdfunding and also looking for investors since starting this beer company in 2013. The initial draw of crowdsourcing the ideas for beers, which would then be voted on and sold by special order, has been refined some since inception, but fans still suggest and vote on flavors and varieties.
In 2014 MobCraft was among two dozen finalists in the Wisconsin Governor's Business Plan contest and was ranked first among advanced manufacturing in the competition.
Last year MobCraft announced it was planning to move its brewing operations from Madison to Milwaukee, with its brewery to be located in the Walker's Point neighborhood. Currently MobCraft brews at Madison’s House of Brews.
