BENGALURU: After going viral on popular reality show Shark Tank (India), Ganesh Balakrishnan, co-founder of a footwear brand, saw an outpouring of love and support, and is currently sold out. The city-based entrepreneur speaks to CE about how life changed since his appearance on national television
Ganesh Balakrishnan, co-founder of Flatheads, a sustainable footwear brand, broke down on national television on the reality show Shark Tank (India), as he tried to explain his last resort of trying to save his
company from loss.
It’s a moment that every entrepreneur felt his pain having been in a similar situation at one point or the other. Although he didn’t get the investment that he had hoped for, something unthinkable happened over the following week. The products got sold out, nationally and internationally as well and the brand visibility skyrocketed more than what Balakrishnan could have imagined.
In Balakrishnan’s words, he ‘didn’t know what to do’ with his story going viral. “I couldn’t deal with it. I opened LinkedIn and there were 70,000 invites. The compassion was great. Within 38 hours, we sold out all the inventories that we had in India,” says Balakrishnan.
An IIT-Bombay grad, Balakrishnan co-founded the company in 2019, along with Utkarsh Biradar and was going through a huge loss. Participating in a reality show was his last resort to save the sinking ship. He even confessed on the show that if it didn’t work out, he would go back to a 9-5 job. “The show was shot in August and was aired in January. Five months is a lifetime in the startup world. So that was our last effort at resurrecting Flatheads. We paused operations, cleaned the warehouse and I was exploring some consulting assignments, trying to figure out what to do next,” says Balakrishnan, who had already launched two start-ups prior to Flatheads.
Now, after being completely sold out, Balakrishnan has a different problem now. “Then we had to get to work because we had already packed up,” says Balakrishnan, who lives in Bellandur.
When Balakrishnan broke down, it touched many people’s hearts, including ‘shark’ Anupam Mittal, founder of shaadi.com, who said, ‘You might be down, not out yet’. “I was frankly embarrassed with the fact that I broke down on national television. I didn’t talk about it at all. When the episode aired and it went viral, I was numb,” says Balakrishnan, adding that the story went viral in the US and UAE, which helped him sell his wares internationally as well.
“The story I narrated about what happened to us is a story of many entrepreneurs. It’s just that we don’t talk about it. We are not a culture that celebrates failure,” he says.
While going viral has its own perks, there’s another side to it too. “A lot of people started giving gyaan and there are now videos analysing my life to the extent even I haven’t,” says Balakrishnan with a laugh. His next plan of action? “I’m now looking for a portfolio that Flatheads can be part of.”