A handshake on a soundstage doesn’t usually come with a calculator. But every Shark Tank deal does, whether the Sharks say it out loud or not. On November 5, Kore Baseball closed a $150,000 investment for 15 percent equity from Daniel Lubetzky, the KIND Snacks founder, and Rashaun Williams, the venture capitalist behind Harbinger. Run the numbers and the implied valuation lands at $1 million.
That’s the headline. It’s also the least interesting part of the story.
What actually matters is how two experienced investors arrived at that number, what it says about how they weigh upside against risk, and why founders (and anyone else making a bet on an uncertain outcome) should care about the mechanics more than the sticker price. Kore Baseball makes soft, hand-stitched baseballs and custom bats built for backyard play rather than official leagues. Charming product. Tiny addressable market compared to, say, a $1.25 trillion valuation like the one OpenAI just locked in during its latest funding round. Different universe of risk entirely. But the formula underneath both deals is identical.
The Formula Nobody Explains on TV
Here’s the math. Investment divided by equity percentage equals valuation. Lubetzky and Williams put in $150,000 for 15 percent. Divide $150,000 by 0.15 and you get $1 million. That’s it. No secret sauce, no proprietary model, just division.
What the formula hides is everything that went into deciding the 15 percent figure in the first place. Was Kore Baseball’s existing revenue strong enough to justify a seven-figure valuation? Did the Sharks believe the brand could scale past niche backyard sales into retail distribution? Or did they simply like the founders and decide the number was close enough to fair?
This is where pricing risk becomes the real skill, not the arithmetic. Any eighth grader can divide $150,000 by 0.15. Deciding whether 15 percent of a hand-stitched baseball company is worth $150,000 or $1.5 million requires judgment that most of us never have to exercise with our own money on the line.
Most people do, actually, exercise exactly that judgment, just in smaller and more frequent doses. Anyone deciding where to spend discretionary money online is running a miniature version of the same calculation Lubetzky ran in that room. Which option offers a return worth the risk? Which platform’s terms actually hold up once you dig past the headline offer? Players weighing where to spend their own money should apply the same scrutiny investors use before committing capital, and that means checking state-specific licensing, terms, and track record before anything else. Maine residents comparing their options can find out more about what separates a properly vetted platform from one riding on marketing alone. The habit of checking the fine print before committing cash isn’t a casino-specific skill. It’s just good risk management, applied locally.
Why Experienced Investors Don’t Chase the Big Number
A rookie investor sees $1 million and either gets excited or scared, depending on whether they think it’s too high or too low. An experienced one asks what the number is actually buying.
Williams built his career at Harbinger around early-stage bets where the valuation is almost always a guess dressed up as a figure. KIND Snacks, Lubetzky’s own company, started with far less certainty than a $1 million baseball brand carries today. He knows firsthand that a modest valuation early on isn’t an insult. Sometimes it’s the only honest number available given how little data exists to work from.
That’s the part amateur deal-watchers miss. A $1 million valuation on a company selling specialty baseballs sounds small next to a unicorn headline. But small valuations carry less risk for the investor and more room for the founder to grow into the number without the pressure of justifying an inflated figure from day one. Dealroom’s breakdown of the deal notes this is a relatively conservative structure compared to some Shark Tank deals that value pre-revenue companies at multiples far beyond what the sales numbers support.
Compare that to a startup chasing hype-driven funding rounds. Three billion dollars in a matter of months, tripling from an earlier round, happens when momentum outruns fundamentals. It can work. It can also collapse the moment growth slows and the number stops being justifiable. Kore Baseball’s math is boring by comparison. Boring, in investing, is usually safer.
What the 15 Percent Stake Actually Signals
Fifteen percent is a meaningful chunk of a company. It’s not a token stake meant to make a TV segment feel dramatic. Lubetzky and Williams wanted real skin in the outcome, not a symbolic nod.
That detail says something. Investors who ask for meaningful equity are signaling they expect to be involved, not just to collect a check if things go well. For founders, that’s a trade worth thinking through carefully. Fifteen percent given away at a $1 million valuation is fifteen percent you don’t get back easily later, even if the company’s value climbs tenfold.
Some founders walk away from Shark Tank deals during the legal due diligence phase once they see the real terms spelled out. It happens more than the show lets on. The glossy handshake moment isn’t the final word. It’s an agreement in principle, and plenty of agreements in principle fall apart once lawyers start asking about customer acquisition costs and supplier contracts.
The Lesson Underneath the Headline
Strip away the TV lighting and the applause, and what’s left is two people deciding how much risk they’re willing to carry for a specific slice of potential reward. That’s the entire exercise, whether it’s a Shark Tank pitch, a seed round, or a decision about where to spend your own entertainment budget this month.
The number that matters isn’t $1 million. It’s the reasoning that got two investors to agree on it, and whether that reasoning holds up once the cameras stop rolling.
Founders chasing their own Shark Tank moment would do well to study the math before they walk into the room, not after.