Chennai-based entrepreneur loses Shark Tank India opportunity for not being ‘fluent in Hindi’

A Chennai-based entrepreneur missed the opportunity of getting featured on the Shark Tank India, only because of his lack of fluency in Hindi. Karthik Manikonda, the founder of The Mind and Company, expressed his disappointment after the popular business reality television series his proposal to make pitch in English was denied by the showmakers.

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“The Mind and Company was selected for Shark Tank India, but was not allowed to pitch to the Sharks. Reason: I am not fluent in Hindi. Its a Hindi show. Its a national show. I proposed to allow me to pitch in English. And I hear a Big NO,” wrote Manikonda in his LinkedIn post shared on March 7.

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In his post, he also said that the pre-condition in the reality show for entrepreneurs is leading to a lot of regional startups to miss the opportunity.

“Had they told me other reasons like; Your scale is not big or, this industry is too niche or, you are not investment ready etc, I would have accepted. But I can't pitch in non-Hindi language was a bummer,” he continued. In the end, he mentioned AI real-time translation as one of the possible solutions to communicate in the local language. 

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In response to one of the comments, which called Manikonda's claims about the show to be fake, the Mind and Company founder shared the screenshot of Shark Tank India's instruction for the participants. One of the points in the instructions asked participants to prepare a pitch, preferably in Hind. So far, there has been no official statement by Shark Tank India organisers on the matter.

The third season of Shark Tank India has Peyush Bansal, Anupam Mittal, Namita Thapar, etc as key investors. Several entrepreneurs have come forward with their bitter experiences with sharks and show management. In one such experience shared by House of Beauty Founder, Vibhuti Arora, she said that she tried her best to hold back tears during her pitch after sharks continued to strike the same questions on her multiple times. During an interview, she also said that she got so frustrated during her pitch, that she wanted to run away from the show.