THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH PREPARATION

Being an entrepreneur is an interesting career path because it isn’t just one path—it’s essentially 100 jobs merged into one. People ask us all the time how we manage all of these hats, and the answer for us is always the same: preparation. To this day, we will do research, consult field experts, and legitimately study to get ready for meetings and events. The ultimate example of preparation was before our pitch in front of the most influential investors in America when we walked the hallway of ABC’s Shark Tank.

We studied harder for our Shark Tank pitch than for any exam in the history of our lives. We created a financial study guide for memorizing every number related to our business. We watched every single Shark Tank episode and wrote down all of the questions ever posed to the entrepreneurs. Week after week we would ask each other those questions on the subway and in the bakery, rehearsing in front of our panel of Sharks, aka each other. We planned which deals we would and would not take depending on who the offer came from, and even went as far as to prep eye signals and facial expressions to each other so we wouldn’t have to leave the floor during a tense negotiation. The afternoon before our pitch was scheduled to film, we walked around Santa Monica pier rehearsing our opening pitch lines at least fifty times in a row.

Without that preparation, we would not have survived the Tank. Once you walk down that hallway, adrenaline takes over, and for us that meant the answers had to come naturally without hesitation. Now, as the business grows bigger and the stakes get higher, we follow the same proven process—we prepare for everything that we do with that same thorough attitude. Being prepared got us to where we are, and it is the only thing we can count on in this wild journey to get us to where we want to go!