I love the ABC TV show Shark Tank. It’s the only show I’ll actually try to watch live on TV (versus Hulu) since I enjoy the real-time tweets by all of the “sharks” during the show. In fact, tonight is the season three finale.

If you haven’t seen it, the premise is basically this: Entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a group of five gazillionaire investors (aka sharks) and offer them a share of ownership in exchange for a cash investment. If they can’t convince someone to fund at least the amount that they are asking, they walk away without a deal. However, negotiating can and does occur, and more often than not the investor gets a larger stake in the company than originally requested or something extra like a percentage of every sale. On the flip side, once in a while a business comes along that is so good the investors actually get into a bidding war and the entrepreneur walks away with an even better deal than they imagined.