I make tough decisions. How am i supposed to trust you . And back them up with my own cash. Its not always pretty. I have to know for sure that the partner that i have has the same goals as i do. This is business. I do it to save jobs, and i do it to make money. This the profit. [hiphop music] Sharla Mcbride started planet popcorn with a single cart and 250 bucks. 13 years later, they now have 30 employees, three flavors, products ranging from kettle corn to churros to crepes. Their popcorn sells at fairs and farmers markets all over southern california. But the bulk of her money is generated through Downtown Disney. Planet popcorn generates 2. 5 million in revenue, but it still cant turn a profit. This year, theyre about 200,000 in debt. Sharlas mother has mortgaged her house and loaned the business almost 200,000 to keep planet popcorn afloat. Planet popcorn is an allcash business, and that leaves way too much room for things like missing money and theft. Theres no charges on that. Then that means they werent charging again. Idiots. Because of poor management. Oh, i got more counterfeit twenties. The bank took them from me. And a lack of focus. I got my cheese order right here. Oh, wait, whered all my [bleep]. This business is not as profitable as it should be. If they dont pay down their debt and improve their bottom line, this company will be out of business within a year. I cant [bleep] do everything, okay . But i see the potential to make a lot of money. I want to turn planet popcorn into a mega brand, like mrs. Fields, or garretts in chicago, so it can generate 10 million a year. Im on my way to meet the owner of planet popcorn, and im gonna determine if this is a good deal for me or not. Good morning, im marcus. Nice to meet you. Youre sharla . Yes. Great meeting you. This is a nice setup. Thank you. Id like to taste some of the popcorn. Is that possible . Sure. What would you like me to taste . Well, my caramel corns really good, so well give you a caramel corn. Oh, my god, this is amazing. Thank you. And you know what . The popcorn is big. This is mushroom popcorn, which is made to coat. Its a better coating popcorn. Tell me about that money. You just leave it in there like that . Its petty cash for when they run out of quarters or ones. Do you have a safe . In here . No. Scary, isnt it . Yeah. While i like the popcorn at planet popcorn, one thing i dont like is the lack of controls around inventory and cash. I see cash all over the place, but i dont see the kind of discipline i expect in a good business. How much money does this fair generate for you . My projections for this year are about 70. So youll do 70,000 in business in this one fair, but it obviously costs money to come here. It does. Bring the trailers here and the labor. It does, yes. And if it rains the whole time, you could lose money. If it rains, if we break down, ifa lot of things could go wrong. So unlike disney, that gets Predictable Traffic all the time predictable. Doesnt set up and tear down. Easy. This is harder. This is hard. This is hard work. Sharlas popcorn is the real deal, and its easy for me to see how i can help rebuild her brand and make both of us a lot of money. But before i do, i need to see the rest of this operation and determine if shes willing to make the kind of changes necessary to take this business to the next level. Are you kidding me . This is ridiculous. I mean, anybody could come in here and just take 5,000, 10,000, 20,000. Sharla would never know it. Is this planet popcorn . This is planet popcorn. How you doing . Good. Im marcus. Casey. I came by to see you guys. My name is casey. I do all the accounting here. Id like to see the business more organized. Theres a renewal packet that came from your Insurance Company that is nowhere to be found. Yeah, its over here. It expires today. Id like to see the business grow. So its really good to have the help of somebody like marcus. Is this the whole place right here . This is just the office part. Back there is where we dolike, cook all the popcorn. My name is brittney mcbride, and im sharlas daughter. We need to roll all this and wrap it. Do you want me to count disney first . Yeah, cause we have to do the reports. Okay. I do cash control, i count money, you know, whatever my mother asks me to do. How do you guys function in this . [laughs] its very tight. We just do. I know. Is there, like, another trap door that takes me somewhere . This is my moms desk. Its actually cleaner than normal. You know what . Sharla. Thats the to be filed pile. Walk me through your oh, im sorry. I just stepped all over your money. Thats okay. [laughs] oops. Okay, i am an organized person. I swear to god. Wheres accounting . Shes counting. No, wheres accounting . Oh, wheres accounting . You know, where they count the money. There, maybe . Do you guys just leave money out . Yeah. This would be a cool place to rob. Why dont you have a drop safe . Were very trusting. You cant trust a lot of people in the world. But i really feel if i have the right people on my team, ill be okay. Hi, how are you . This is steve, my fiance. Hi. Marcus. How are you . Nice to meet you, marcus. Nice to meet you. Good to meet you. How are you doing . My names steve caldaronello, and im sharlas fiancee. You know, i want to make sure its the right deal for her. Hes very protective of me. I definitely will protect her and voice my opinion. What department would this be called . I dont know, its stuff. Okay, what is this here . Oh, these are my crepes. So youre in the popcorn business, the crepe business, and the funnel cake business. So my staple is really popcorn. Thats how i started. And then as i started getting bigger, ive learned more locations, more money, so. More locations, more revenue. Not more locations, more money. More revenueoh, okay. Sharlas business generates well over 2 million a year in revenue, but she still makes zero profit. What she needs to do is really analyze her business to understand where the gross profit is coming from. Which one has better margins . Popcorn. So let me understand this. Popcorn does more business. It has more profits. But youre in the crepe business . Youre correct. Look, the bulk of the earnings are coming from the popcorn business, but she continues to be distracted with funnel cakes and crepes. If she just focuses on the popcorn business and nothing else, she will make money immediately. This is thy kitchen. This is where we make popcorn. When you have a cash business, you better have tight inventory controls. In this kitchen, i see inventory everywhere, bags of popcorn with no codes on them, no tracking mechanism so i know what we have and what we dont have. See, they look at it as popcorn, but i look at it as bags of money. My mother works here, sharry. Hi, sharry. Im marcus. Im so happy to meet you. Nice to meet you. How much money has she borrowed from you . Oh, i took a she took a second out on her house, and the total was about 100,000. Well, i dont know. I owed 125,000 on my home, and now i owe 250something. So thats more than 100. And then she owes me 10,000 from my personal account. The most alarming thing thats happened to me early on in this discovery is learning that the debt thats on sharlas books is actually from her mother. Her mother went out and took a mortgage on her house to keep this business open. They make banks for that. Dont borrow money from your mother, cause if your business fails, your mother loses her house. How do you sleep with that . So lets say that we check the box, sharlapeople, process, product. Your products fantastic. But you got to have at least two of the three to survive. Okay. So tell me about your people and your process. My people are amazing. They work very hard for me. Okay. My process could use improvement. But i can tell you this. I think i have a great business, because even though its like this, i went from zero to 2 million somehow. Sharla, i understand that. But this business is only as big as you will allow it to be. I came here because i believe that we can take this business from 2 million to 10 million very quickly. You have to get a website, and you have to get it up and running and you have to be able to fulfill orders. And i believe that theres an opportunity to grow the disney business, and the best way to do that is to get a retail storefront inside of disney, because what you have in that particular case of disney is builtin traffic. Absolutely. In order to take your business to a national brand, you have to control the money and then control the inventory. But more importantly, you have to have a single focus on one product. You should become known as the popcorn lady. If sharla wants to be profitable, shes got to get out of other things, like crepes and funnel cakes. And she cant be doing this fair business. I mean, its a total time and money distraction. I would agree with you that popcorn is the staple of my company. The crepes, on the other hand, to me, is a pretty significant part of my business. How much revenue will you do . Probably about 600,000. Of the 2. 5 . And whats the margin on it . 9 , at most, on that. Netting 9 . Hes always wanted me to sell the crepes out of the business. He thinks its not profitable. I just think that letting go of that responsibility would make the most sense. Thats right. We have two sides of business here. We have the disney business, which is wildly profitable. Mmhmm. Good margins, good revenue. Yes. And we have the concession business, which is low margin, high expense, high labor, high debt. Youre correct. Sharla suffers from what i call the 80 20 rule. Sharla today generates 80 of her revenue from the popcorn business. The crepe and the funnel cake business makes up 20 . The problem is, is shes spending 80 of her time and her money on what generates 20 of her revenue. If she can get out of the fairs and the crepe business, her business would double because she would have 100 of her time and 100 of her money focused on the popcorn business. You have to have a different game plan. You should sell all these gypsy vans outside, stop traveling around to fairs, open a storefront, launch a website, and become an iconic brand like mrs. Fields. And im here to give you the money to do that, with the understanding that were getting out of the carnival business. Those are my roots. And thats my social life. The social life are my fairs. I am not comfortable selling off the concession side of my business. Sharla, you shouldnt be putting your mom at risk every single day, wondering at 70 years old, am i gonna make this . Am i gonna lose this . I may never get my 100,000 back. Its a frightening situation. But, you know, youd almost do anything for your children. So i dont like doing deals unless i have control for at least a short period of time, at least for a week. Im open to positive changes, but i just dont want to lose control of my company. This is my baby. I really dont want him coming in here and doing, like, all these changes to my company. How about we do this . Im in charge for the next week. And then at the end of the week, if you had operational control and i had financial control, how would you feel about that . But you have all the financial controls. Well, its all me. The risk for me in doing this deal is that my moneys gonna end up the same place as everything else, on the floor. My offer is 200,000 for 50 of the business. So although the business does 2. 5 million a year in sales, it doesnt make any money. And anytime i make an offer, its based on how much money the business makes, not how much money it generates in revenue. I want to have operational control for a week, and i want to have financial control past that week. No. Its ridiculous. Im gonna go. Steves flipping about the fact that she shouldnt do this deal. I would prefer that he would be more constructive. I dont think he realizes that this business will not survive without a cash infusion. Theres no money in the account today. Where are they gonna get it from . Youve done really good for a long time. You basically have a living for your mom, your daughter. And youre gonna have some guy come in thats gonna take control of your finances, and hes gonna own 50 of your business . You think you want to argue with a billionaire about what actually full financial control means . I mean, he might cause lots of havoc. I cant give full financial control. Of course not. Its ridiculous. Youre right. I cant do that. If you think that i can launch you in a direction to finally start to make real profits, then you should do a deal with me. And later. So what i was doing before you so rudely interrupted any interruption is not rude when this is my company. 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So if you want to talk to me about moving fast and giving opportunities if you were my partner and this thing failed, you would still be a rich man tomorrow and i would be broke. But if you fail by yourself. Right. Youre still failing. True. So whats the difference . Itsthe control thing is hard for me. Ive always prided myself on being a womanowned business, 100 . Yes, sharla, you could exist by yourself as an independent, strong woman for the rest of your life. I came here today to give you money. If you think that you have the i. T. , the marketing, and the publicity resources that i have, then dont do a deal with me. Well, of course i dont think that. If you think that i can launch you in a direction to finally start to make real profits, then you should do a deal with me. Do we have a deal . Ive worked really hard to get here, and i dont want to lose my company, and i dont want somebody to take it over. I would do it in a heartbeat. Would you really . Without a shadow of a doubt. Do we have a deal . We have a deal. Thank you. [cheers and applause] whoohoo come on, give me a hug. Dont let me down. I wont let you down. Do you remember, sharla, that for the week, i was in charge . Im ready to pass out right now. Okay, so go have a drink. Im gonna need a few. Okay, everybody go rest tonight, because, you know, the next weeks gonna be unbelievably intense. Have a good night. Thank you. Partner. Okay, ill see you guys in the morning. Thank you, marcus. Sharla and i made a deal. I know that some of you arent happy about it. But one of the things that i wanted to do today is make sure that everybody understood that i was now in full control, and that were gonna fix some things that we think are broken. My ultimate goal with this investment is to make planet popcorn a national brand. In order to do that, were gonna launch a website so we have a national presence. Were gonna open up a storefront in Downtown Disney. But before any of that happens, i want to open up a storefront outside of Downtown Disney so disney knows we know how to run one. The goal is to go from a 2 Million Company to a 10 Million Company. Right now, two carts at disney generates 1. 2 million. And adding a storefront at Downtown Disney will do about 3 1 2 times what two carts do. Thats close to 4 million or 5 million. This storefront will have thousands of square feet at one of the best theme parks in the entire world. It allows us to generate more revenue because the amount of foot traffics significantly greater, and well be able to expand our flavors and the way we merchandise them differentsized tins, differentsized bags, differentsized boxes. That gets me to 10 million very quickly. Cash, to me, is the most important thing in business, and protecting it is the most important thing. I want to make sure that when we take cash in, we put it away properly. In order for me to be comfortable, i want to put the controls in place so that i know that my cash and my inventory is safe. Anything else . Nope. Lets get to work. Sharla and i are in newport beach, looking for locations for our first store. Ive chosen a location and so has she. This ought to be interesting. Lets find a parking space. Okay. Its busy. Wow, its really crowded here. When i had the realtor find me places. Yeah . I knew i was looking for medium income. Right. I knew i was looking for traffic. Yes. And i knew that i wanted to make sure there was a coffee place, a gas station. Oh. And an ice cream place. Interesting. The Ice Cream Store will get traffic at night, coffees morning and night. Yes. And the gas is repetitive traffic. I dont know. I kind of like the spot, though, because its right on the entrance. Do you agree . My gut says no. First of all, nobody buys popcorn in the mornings. But its packed. No, but i dont want to be in a boring spot. I dont want a store in a mall. Just because marcus has a billion dollars doesnt mean he knows the best location for a popcorn store. All right, lets just go check this place you want to look at and compare it. Okay. Sharla didnt like the storefront that i chose. Maybe she thought there was too much traffic or too many customers walking around. Over here . Yes. Its a great corner. Its the busiest corner in our neighborhood. People walk every day. Sharla, can i just show you something . Sure. I want you to look this way. What do you see down this sidewalk . Lots of cars. What do you see on the sidewalk . No one. Okay. And what do you see on this sidewalk going this way . A man with a flag. No