The hit reality show Shark Tank has yielded some memorable auditions, but a recent one has the golf world talking.

Jason Richardson, the founder of Bad Birdie, a standout golf apparel company based in Los Angeles, appeared on Friday night’s episode. And just like his company’s slogan “we didn’t come here to lay up”, Jason went into the Shark Tank with an aggressive pitch to try to drum up some funding to help with expansion.

Not only did he get a deal, but he also produced one of the most viral moments of the current season in an episode aired Friday April 3.

Richardson was originally hoping for a strategic partner to invest $300,000 USD for 10 percent of his business – a business that did more than $1-million USD in sales in 2019. He had Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec battling it out with two offers but ended up going with Herjavec, who originally offered $300,000 USD in exchange for 25 percent of Bad Birdie.

At first it was a little bit too high of a request, so Richardson bet Herjavec on a putt. If he made it, he would give up the 25 percent. If he missed, Herjavec would have to go down to 20 percent.

The miss got some laughs out of the other Sharks, but it was Richardson who got the last laugh: he ended up with the exact partner he was hoping for.

Now you might not know this, but Golf Town the only retailer in Canada to carry Bad Birdie. We are going on two years of carrying their fashionable golf polos.

We caught up with our friend Jason Richardson for a special Q&A about his experience and what’s next for Bad Birdie!

How have things been going since the episode aired?

We’ve been kind of nervous, given the economy and everything… could we even capitalize on Shark Tank? We hit on the higher end like a lot of Robert’s companies usually do on the show. It shows that people still want to play golf.

When did you think your business could be on Shark Tank? I assume you didn’t go into business thinking you were going to take it on TV.

I got connected to the Shark Tank team through a customer. They have a casting process and basically said, ‘hey, you should reach out and begin the application process.’ I watched that show for 10-years, plus. I’ve watched it since the beginning. I never planned on going on it but I got a little nudge to be like, ‘you should check this out’ and at least wanted to begin the process. They don’t give special treatment to anyone and it’s such a long process, but I figured I might as well try it out.

There’s one memorable moment when you exclaim, “Let’s go!” Is that how you are normally?

Yeah you try to be. (Bad Birdie) is about bringing a lot of excitement. It’s about having fun on the course. I was trying to bring some of the brand into the pitch and be exciting. When I make a good shot on the course I try to be loud and have fun. I want to bring that fun personality to the course so I wanted to bring that through in the pitch.

Bad Birdie takes a lot of its queues from the fashion world by doing ‘drops’ of clothing, etc. What was the rationale for that?

It creates more attention and more demand. It’s something I learned. Even from Day 1 I would sell, and there would be early patterns that would sell out, so I’d have to re-stock. Then I’d re-stock and sell again. There was this demand there. Just by trial and error I thought ‘once it sells out I’m not going to make it any more.’ It creates more demand. People want to buy it. It allows us to stay continually creative and we have to keep having innovative designs. The shirt I wore on the show – there might only be 10 left. They’ve sold out through the weekend… we had a couple thousand of those shirts. People are buying, buying, buying. It’s fun, too. People like to be able to buy and get their hands on a limited product. We’re not extremely limited, like you can only buy in the first day, but there is still that supply and demand.

Have you started working with Robert already?

Yes, Robert is awesome. I went into the show trying to get a deal with Robert, which is amazing. He’s had a lot of success with apparel companies and he’s a golfer. There are a lot of Sharks that had their different aspects like Mark Cuban is the heavy-hitter and Draymond (John) has the apparel, but Robert is the one that’s had a lot of success with the direct-to-consumer brands and lifestyle brands. He lives in L.A., where I live. Loves golf. He’s a total Bad Birdie guy. He’s the most down-to-earth, enthusiastic guy.

Did you have an idea to do the putting challenge when you got into it or did you come up with it on the spot?

Prior to going on the show I was trying to figure out what kind of curveball I could have up my sleeve. I knew these guys were pro negotiators, it was my first time on TV and there was going to be nerves, so I needed to have some sort of curveball. I told the producers I potentially wanted to do a putting scenario, and they said, ‘sure go for it if you want.’ It’s 100 percent real. None of the Sharks knew this. I didn’t even know if I could do the putt because I didn’t know if I was going to get an offer or how it would go. It was just a fun bet. I love doing stuff like that. You have to bait them a little bit (laughs). You put me against any Shark… they’re going to beat me in any negotiation. So I figured I could throw it up in the air and see what happened. It worked out. It was so close, down to the wire. It turned out in my favour, but it was awesome the way it worked out.

What’s next for Bad Birdie?

What we’re really excited about is that we did a women’s line, exclusively for Golf Town in Canada. We’re doing women’s lines custom for retailers so doing a women’s line in Canada prompted 500 emails from women the last couple of days. I’m excited about that. From a design perspective we’ve had some Spring, Summer, and Fall lines out. We’re doing some really fun patterns and continue to be bold. I have put a directive on growing our hats. Next year we’re doing more accessories. Our bread and butter will always be polos but we’re looking to continue to grow the line and be part of as much of your golf game as we can – whether it be head-to-toe, accessories, things like that. It helps support and bring that fun vibe and not to just your shirt and hat. We’re in the early stages of that and just seeing the response we’ve got… the company is growing really quickly.

Bad Birdie men’s and women’s polos are available on golftown.com.