At some point in the early years of their careers, it’s likely most inventors and entrepreneurs imagine themselves appearing on “Shark Tank.” The hit ABC reality investing program has become one of the most popular shows on television, featuring a wide variety of products and participants ranging from English billionaire Richard Branson to horror production icon Jason Blum. The show has cultivated such a wide fan base that companies that manage to land coveted air time in the “Tank” can expect to experience the so-called “Shark Tank” Effect, with their sales exploding in the weeks after airing often regardless of whether or not they landed a deal.

But as with any competition series, there are a litany of little known — and in some cases downright bizarre — rules that every “Shark Tank” contestant must agree to in order to pitch their product to the show’s panel of celebrity investors. For example, entrepreneurs used to have to give up equity to the show’s production company just to participate — a controversial clause that Mark Cuban successfully had retroactively removed after threatening to quit over it (another reason why we ranked him as the series’ best “Shark”). This is just one of the many restrictions that have been placed upon participants before, during, and even after their “Shark Tank” experience — and many are still around.

As a hopeful entrepreneur, your journey will begin not with a dramatic walk down the hallway into the “Shark Tank,” but with a lengthy application and audition process meant to determine whether or not you and your product are a good fit for the program. You can usually apply online via the show’s casting website, where you’ll find a straightforward form asking for your name, contact information, and a very basic description of what your product or company is (if able, you’re also encouraged to send in a picture as well).

Another option available to aspiring contestants are the open calls held in various major cities across the United States. There, you’ll be given the chance to present a one-minute pitch to some of the show’s casting team. While these calls do require you to have a truncated version of your presentation ready to go early in the process — and will also rely a bit more on your personality than an online form would — it does give entrepreneurs a chance to avoid getting lost in the mountain of applications the show receives before every season. 

The only way to bypass the traditional audition and application process is via the direct involvement of a producer who organically came across your company and determined it would work well on “Shark Tank” — but even then, you’ll usually have to go through some kind of audition process before a formal invitation to appear is extended.

Rather than pestering the “Sharks” with disqualifying DMs, entrepreneurs should be taking the time to write and/or refine their pitch for their taping. When you’ve done so, you’ll need to submit a draft of your pitch — including whatever eye-catching gimmicks you plan to include — to the producer assigned to you. As someone who both wants you to succeed and wants to create great television moments, they will then provide you with feedback and notes — and, in some cases, might even offer their own ideas for ways you can capture the attention of the “Sharks” and audiences at home.

For example, when the entrepreneurs behind the pest control product Slick Barrier prepared for “Shark Tank,” they needed a way to make bug-resistant coating less boring than it sounds. Their producer came up with the idea of having Kevin O’Leary stand on two bricks coated with Slick Barrier in a box filled with cockroaches (the “Shark” is known for using “cockroach” as a derisive nickname for obnoxious contestants). Even though the entrepreneurs were after investor Lori Greiner as a partner (and ultimately secured a $500,000 deal with her on the show), O’Leary’s stunt gave their pitch for an otherwise mundane product the sort of dramatic flare necessary to make an impact on TV.

Now that your pitch can begin, you immediately need to offer the “Shark Tank” three important pieces of information — your name, the name of your company, and, most importantly, the investment you’re seeking. This initial ask can look like almost anything, from Handy Pan’s exceptionally modest $10,000 for 20% equity to Larq’s audacious $500,000 for 1% equity.

Determining your initial buy-in price is one example of how genuine competitive strategy comes into play during your “Shark Tank” pitch, as the panel is barred from making you an offer with a dollar amount below what you entered with. This means that, in Larq’s case for example, a “Shark” would have to invest a minimum of $500,000 in order to compete — which is why pitches with high starting asks face an uphill battle to land a deal on the show, regardless of the equity they’re offering.

While “Sharks” can’t lowball you on dollars, they can tweak the equity as much as they like in any direction they like. From a company like Handy Pan, they could ask for 40% of the company instead of 20% in order to get their money’s worth — or they could offer the $10,000 for just 10% in order to stay competitive with other interested “Sharks.”

Regardless of whether or not your company landed that dream deal, however, you’re bound to leave the “Shark Tank” with a lot of complicated emotions. Maybe Kevin O’Leary spent 30 minutes telling you your product was worthless, only to convince you to agree to an aggressive royalty deal; maybe you accepted an offer from Mark Cuban to buy the entirety of the company you’ve devoted your life to; or maybe that surefire dream idea you took out a second mortgage to realize just got shoved out the door without so much as a penny to show for it.

“Life-changing” doesn’t always mean “beneficial,” which is why “Shark Tank” insists that every contestant undergo a brief psychiatric evaluation before they leave the set. During the sessions, you’re asked by a professional to reflect on everything that happened during your taping and discuss your emotional state, presumably to help them determine whether your experience on the show has left you in a dangerously vulnerable place before they put you on a flight back home to reality. With real money and livelihoods on the line, it isn’t hard to imagine people potentially leaving the “Tank” with existentially disturbing states of mind.

In the months after you’ve made your “Shark Tank” deal, while you wait for your new finned financier to close that multi-million-dollar chip-clip deal you’ve been dreaming of, you’re also waiting for something else almost just as important — an email from producers letting you know that your segment has been selected to air.

About 80% of “Shark Tank” pitches ultimately make it to the show, with entrepreneurs getting a heads-up just a few weeks before airing that they’ve been chosen. Scott Jordan (who pitched his product SCOTTeVEST all the way back in Season 3) revealed that he received two notifications at the time — one that he had been chosen at the end of the filming period and another revealing his airdate, two weeks prior to the night in question. This is to give entrepreneurs plenty of time to stock up on inventory and, in some cases, develop specific marketing and public relations strategies for the weeks after their small-screen debut.

While you aren’t allowed to reveal whether or not you made a deal on your episode prior to it airing, you are allowed to let people know that you’ll be featured so they can tune in to see your pitch (you’re ultimately advertising the show to your customers, after all). After it airs, you’re officially free to present yourself as a “Shark Tank” company — but you’re still bound by your contract in at least one peculiar way.

The reality is that only about half of all participants leave the “Shark Tank” with any sort of “deal” — and only half of that half will actually end up closing said deal. It’s a high-stakes game where the odds of true success are worse than the flip of a coin — and there are absolutely no do-overs.

Once you pitch a product in the “Shark Tank,” you are not allowed to apply with that same product and pitch ever again, not even if you leave without a deal. That said, there are some fairly large loopholes in this rule that entrepreneurs have been able to exploit. For example, it’s entirely possible for the same entrepreneur that left the “Tank” without a deal to return with a slight variation on the product or after a significant update to the company.

Jim Martins turned down Kevin O’Leary’s offer of $600,000 for 51% of Copa Di Vino, then returned a season later after doing $5 million in sales in less than a year — only to walk away without a deal for a second time. Alternatively, the water sports company Kymera returned to the “Tank” after developing their brand over the course of two years, and went from no deal to a $500,000 deal with Robert Herjavec. So even if everyone passes on your chip-clips the first time around, enough perseverance could earn you one more swim in the “Shark Tank.”