For the second time in less than a year, a Wichita business gets a turn on ‘Shark Tank’
“Shark Tank” sure seems to love Wichita entrepreneurs.
For the second time in less than a year, founders of a business from Wichita will appear on the show, which features celebrity investors like Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran and Lori Greiner listening to pitches and deciding if they want to get in.
This time, the business is Pinole Blue, which produces blue corn tortillas and other corn-centric food products and was started in 2018 by Eddie Sandoval and Kyle Offutt. The pair, who both graduated from Wichita State University’s W. Barton School of Business in 2017, will appear on the “Shark Tank” episode that will air at 7 p.m. on ABC, Channel 10.
It will be a big moment for the young businessmen, especially Offutt, who has been a fan of “Shark Tank” since it first aired in 2009. In fact, he said, the show is what inspired him to study business in college.
“What was super surreal for me was being around everything,” he said. “You grow up with it and see it on TV, and then you’re there.”
The partners invited their former WSU business professor and advisor Kate Kung-McIntyre to join them when they went to California last year to tape the show, and she will appear alongside them when it airs.
The owners said they had been trying for years to get on “Shark Tank” and had pretty much given up when they got the call last year saying they’d made it. They’d first attended an open casting call put on in Arkansas in 2019 but didn’t advance past the first round.
They tried again just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, when they went to open auditions in Kansas City. They made it to the second round but never heard anything after that.
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When Sandoval finally got the call from “Shark Tank” producers, he and Offutt were both skeptical.
“I was more cynical,” Offutt said. “I said, ‘I’m not going to believe it until I see that we’re going to be aired.”
Not long after, the trio was on set, standing in front of “Sharks” Cuban, Corcoran, Greiner, Kevin O’Leary and Emma Grede.
As is typical with reality competitions, they were forbidden to tell anyone they’d filmed the show and were also forbidden from sharing any details about how it went. People will just have to tune in Friday to find out, they said.
But they were beyond prepared when they arrived. Offutt and Sandoval said that they watched every episode ever aired of “Shark Tank” before they left to film to glean tips. They would ask each other off-the-wall questions and film each others’ answers, trying to anticipate anything the Sharks might throw their way.
They plan to watch the show on Friday with a small group of family and friends, though the owners say they’ve been touched to hear that friends and supporters across town are throwing watch parties of their own.
Pinole Blue has a storefront at 242 N. Cleveland, and it’s tortillas, drink mixes and cookies are sold locally at Whole Foods. They also supply their blue corn tortillas to restaurants in both Wichita and Kansas City.
Sandoval started the business with a $10,000 prize he earned winning the Shocker New Venture Competition, put on by WSU’s Center for Entrepreneurship. Kung-McIntyre introduced Sandoval to Offutt and suggested he bring him in on the business.
Since then, Pinole Blue has continued to grow and was recently named a winner of the Good Food Awards, a nationwide prize awarded by the Good Food Foundation. The awards ceremony is next month in San Francisco.
Sandoval and Offutt say they’re glad the air date has almost arrived because keeping their secret has been difficult.
They also say that, no matter the outcome, all the prep work they did for the show has made them stronger.
“I think it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Sandoval said. “But it really taught us the ins and outs of our business and each other.”
This will be Wichita’s second “Shark Tank” appearance in less than a year.
Last April, Wichita buddies Jeff Dakin, Tyler Kessler and Matt Hosey appeared on the show to pitch The Scrubbie, a sponge attachment they invented. But the trio failed to wow the Sharks.
This story was originally published February 24, 2022 at 11:34 AM.
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